Final Lines of Defense: Explaining Policy Advocacy by Immigrant-Serving Organizations

Nonprofit scholars have developed a rich literature on nonprofit advocacy. While the literature is rich, however, gaps remain in our collective knowledge, especially regarding specific sectors of nonprofit human service organizations. Here, we apply existing theory on advocacy by human service organizations to an important subset of the nonprofit community, that being immigrant-serving organizations (ISOs). Most prior research on nonprofit advocacy has not focused on politically polarized issues, such as contemporary immigration policy. Using a nationwide survey of ISOs, we find that unlike other types of human service organizations, the majority of ISOs do engage in at least some forms of policy advocacy. However, those that report using the H-election status on their Form 990s are significantly more likely to engage in advocacy and do so to a wide variety of policymakers, including legislators, chief executives, and even local law enforcement agencies. H-election groups are also more likely to perceive their advocacy activities as effective. These findings add to the evolving knowledge on when and how human service groups seek policy change for marginalized groups.

Nonprofit Advocacy Coalitions in Times of COVID-19: Brokerage, Crowdfunding, and Advocacy Roles

This article analyzes the roles an advocacy coalition undertakes to support nonprofit organizations to cope with the challenges caused by lockdown and physical distance measures to stop COVID-19. We find that social workers and nonprofit members of the coalition created different kinds of solutions and innovative practices to support vulnerable target groups when confronted with the COVID-19 crisis and the resulting lockdown regulations. In particular, we show that the coalition was pushed to diversify its activities, leading to the development of three roles: a direct and indirect advocacy role, a brokerage role to provide information on new practices, and a crowdfunding role to provide finances for material aid. We conclude by emphasizing the implications of our analysis for both theory and practice.

The Impact of Neoliberalism on Civil Society and Nonprofit Advocacy

The following manuscript employs critical inquiry to analyze the effects of neoliberalism on nonprofits in the U.S. and their capacity to engage in political advocacy and the production of meaning, a pivotal role for civil society institutions. Three false narratives of how nonprofits support democracy are presented followed by a discussion of how neoliberalism and the economization of the sector has delimited their capacity to fulfill their roles of engaging in emancipatory projects or social change. The manuscript concludes with a discussion of how nonprofits can reclaim civic space and empower citizens in a representative democracy.

Exploring Public Perceptions of Nonprofit Policy Advocacy

Research on nonprofit advocacy has grown in recent years, and many nonprofit organizations have expanded and refined their efforts to influence public policies in ways they believe will benefit society. Despite the growing body of literature on nonprofit advocacy, there is substantial room for development on questions related to public perceptions of nonprofit advocacy activities. Utilizing an experimental design, we examine the ways in which the involvement of a nonprofit organization in the policy process can shift public opinion regarding a specific policy proposal. We also explore how these perceptions vary when we introduce political conflict that questions the effectiveness of the proposed policy. We find that in the absence of political controversy, the involvement of nonprofits in the policy process can significantly increase positive perceptions, relative to the control condition in which there is no mention on nonprofit involvement. However, we also find that the ways in which nonprofit involvement could boost support for a policy proposal may not hold when there is conflict over the policy in question.

Expanding Nonprofit Advocacy

Expanding Nonprofit Advocacy. This paper calls for regulatory changes that would clarify the rules around advocacy by 501(c)(3) nonprofits. It is common for leaders of such nonprofits to misinterpret these rules and to believe that they are much more restrictive than they really are. This results in less nonprofit advocacy and, consequentially, less representation of interests that are chronically underrepresented.