How can nonprofits advocate or lobby for their causes without jeopardizing their tax-exempt status?

Nonprofit Advocacy 101

Many nonprofit leaders I speak with are afraid to engage in advocacy because of a prevalent myth that it’s an illegal activity for a 501 C 3 organization. Yet we all recognize that the deep problems we are addressing require policy and system level change. How can nonprofits advocate or even lobby for their causes without jeopardizing their tax-exempt status? To find out exactly what we can and can’t do, four partners - Healthcare Foundation Northern Sonoma County, Community Foundation Sonoma County, Peter E. Haas Jr. Family Fund and SRJC Foundation - co-hosted Nonprofit Advocacy 101, a workshop for 75 nonprofit CEOs, EDs, and Board Chairs. We invited Bolder Advocacy, a program of Alliance for Justice, to lead a training for a very full room of engaged participants.

As keynote speaker Henry A. J. Ramos, Senior Fellow at the Institute for Race, Power and Political Economy at The New School, said in his opening remarks:

“Today’s nonprofit leaders must come together as never before to create new conditions and opportunities for a more inclusive economy and a better way forward for all.… Democracy is not a spectator sport. In order to work, it requires activism, organizing, and collective action.”