Commentary: Leveraging Democracy by Strengthening the Nonprofit Advocacy Muscle

• Author: Sonya Campion
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12674
• Published date: 01 November 2016
• Date: 01 November 2016

Leveraging Democracy by Strengthening the Nonprof‌i t Advocacy Muscle 949

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 76, Iss. 6, pp. 949–950. © 2016 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12674.

Sonya Campion is cofounder and

trustee of the Campion Foundation and

Advocacy Fund, which is dedicated to

ending youth homelessness and preserving

wilderness. For 18 years, she served as vice

president of the Collins Group, a Seattle

fund-raising consulting firm.

E-mail: scampion@campionadvocacy

fund.org

Commentary

R achel Fyall ’ s thoughtful discussion of the

power of nonprofits in influencing effective

public policy comes at a critical time in

our country ’ s national conversation on the role of

government. While our nation is increasingly divided

by race, income, age, and religion, the charitable

sector ’ s importance in bringing people together

and representing their voices in public policy is

more important than ever, yet it is often not at the

table. The nonprofit sector, with 10 percent of our

national workforce, 100 million people who work and

volunteer (including 20 million board members), and

more than one-third of its revenue ($554.8 billion

in 2013) from government dollars, touches nearly

every community in the country. Recent research

by Independent Sector, an advocacy leader for the

nonprofit sector, found that 74 percent of the public

regards the nonprofit sector with the highest level

of trust, and 78 percent would prefer more federal

government support for the charitable sector ’ s effective

and efficient efforts to address economic and social

challenges.

With more than 30 years of work in the nonprofit

sector, now including running my own foundation

and 501(c)(4) organizations focused on advocacy

to end homelessness and preserve wilderness, I

believe that the nonprofit sector in the United States

is essential to our quality of life and strengthens

our democracy. Because they operate in the “trust

economy,” nonprofits are expected to leverage every

dollar, be transparent in relationships, and involve the

community in a meaningful way to ensure that their

missions respond to true community needs and thus

merit tax-deductible status.

Having worked with more than 500 such

organizations, I have seen that when a nonprofit

has a dynamic focus on advocacy (defined as an

active engagement in democratic processes) woven

throughout the fabric of its organization, it is far more

likely to meet those three expectations and make itself

stronger in the process. This does not necessarily mean

taking to the streets or blockading political offices,

images of “public sector conversation” that drive many

nonprofit organizations away from advocacy. While

Fyall addresses the nonprofit “voice” at the policy

table, she does not really go into whose voice within

the nonprofit is mobilized.

It was this kind of disconnect between essential

public policy impact and board understanding and

support that led our foundation from its beginning

to look into the nature of advocacy in the nonprofit

sector. Like the author, we focus on housing and

homelessness advocacy, yet our observations on

nonprofit advocacy hold true for every sector. What

we found was that the sector utilized extremely

experienced staff and thoughtful lobbyists, who,

as the author notes, were valued by public sector

administrators as trusted content experts. However,

the political will to influence elected officials was

often lacking. Efforts to establish housing policy were

often reminiscent of the myth of Sisyphus—pushing

the boulder up a mountain every year, only to see it

roll all the way back down. While there was a collegial

relationship between government administrators

and sector leaders, the nonprofit sector often left

behind one of their most powerful assets, which in

Washington State alone includes more than 10,000

board members serving housing and homelessness

organizations. If we could mobilize even half of this

constituency, we would have a chance at establishing

housing policy as a permanent community value

rather than an annual repetitive wish list.

Yet in expecting board members to become

advocates, we found that we were coming up against

the same fears identified earlier—a confusion

between advocacy and “politics” in the board room,

what is legal for nonprofits, fear of partisanship

disrupting board relationships, and, in some cases,

a reluctance to stand up forthrightly for one ’ s

real mission. Changing nonprofit norms was not

something we as a small foundation felt we were up

to until we met Board Source, the nation ’ s leading

Sonya Campion

Campion Advocacy Fund

Leveraging Democracy by Strengthening the

Nonprofit Advocacy Muscle