Advocacy and Election Resources for Nonprofits

(Update: We wrote a guide to all the advocacy platforms that integrate with Salesforce.)

So…elections are on our minds.

For those of you who are up to your eyebrows in legislative advocacy, the elections will have a big impact on your chances to improve policy. And more and more nonprofits are getting involved in electoral politics, whether it’s ballot initiatives or candidate endorsements and campaigns.

Your organization may already be lobbying locally or at the federal level, or supporting a ballot initiative or making candidate endorsements. Or your staff or board may be considering such activity. In either case, the rules which govern how nonprofits can play in the advocacy and electoral space are complicated and evolving.

We would like to point you in the direction of the Alliance for Justice and their project Bolder Advocacy. They spend all of their time interpreting law and IRS rules as they relate to 501(c)(3), 501(c)(4), and 527 PAC organizations, and they publish the best guides and resources in the sector for nonprofit advocacy work.

Here are a few of our favorites that we often share with clients who are pushing the advocacy envelope:

• Comparison of 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) Permissible Activities
• Commenting on Candidates and Campaigns: How 501(c)(3)s Can Respond During an Election Year
• Benchmarks for Advocacy Evaluation

Bolder Advocacy also provides a number of excellent toolkits that range from immigration advocacy to ballot initiatives.

If you’re a nonprofit or a funder that wants to learn more about what’s possible on the advocacy front, check out Bolder Advocacy and get involved.