Nonprofits and Advocacy: Engaging Community and Government in an Era of Retrenchment

Preface

preface Nonprofit advocacy across a wide range of issues has received unprecedented attention in recent years. The decision of the US Supreme Court in the 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case, allowing unlimited campaign contributions of corporations and wealthy individuals, unleashed a torrent of spending on general elections. In particular, political action committees (PACs and even Super-PACs) such as Crossroads GPS, Restore Our Future, and Priorities USA Action spent huge sums on the 2012 US presidential campaign. These PACs are typically organized as 501(c)(4) tax-exempt organizations. Further, the presidential campaign and a host of high-profile Senate and House races called attention to the mobilization of citizens at the local level by nonprofit organizations including charitable 501(c)(3) organizations , churches, political parties, unions, and trade associations such as chambers of commerce. President Barack Obama’s reelection led to a lot of speculation about the actual impact of the flood of Super-PAC cash on the election (Freeland, 2012). Since a disproportionate amount of Super-PAC money was spent to defeat President Obama and Senate Democrats, the natural reaction to Obama’s victory and the victories of many targeted Senate Democrats such as Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts was to question the impact of this spending . Indeed, it would appear likely that the Super-PACs changed the national political conversation and even the candidate’s positions. Super-PACs have thus had an important influence even if the election’s outcome was not what many of the Super-PACs desired (Bouie, 2012). In addition to Super-PACs, the advocacy of a wide assortment of nonprofits has received media attention. The intense political controversy surrounding the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s decision to end its funding of Planned Parenthood (and the subsequent reversal of this decision) high- x Preface lighted the complex dilemmas for nonprofits in a highly polarized political environment. PAC activity is also evident in religious groups, such as church leaders who have been active in opposing gay marriage referenda and President Obama’s health-care reform law. Many ballot initiatives across the country —from the legalization of marijuana in Colorado and Washington State to charter schools and gay marriage—have attracted the involvement of countless nonprofit organizations and their supporters. While the focus has been on US electoral politics during 2012, nonprofits have also been increasingly active in advocacy efforts that target corporations , especially national and international nonprofits active in environmental causes and fair labor practices (Yaziji and Doh, 2009). For instance, Greenpeace has pressured corporations through aggressive advocacy to adopt certain environmental practices and to reduce the use of genetically modified foods (Yaziji, 2004). A coalition of nonprofit advocacy organizations has tried to preserve old-growth forests by targeting large companies such as Staples that sell paper goods (O’Rourke, 2004). The growth of nonprofits has also meant more nonprofit engagement in local politics. As detailed by Jeffrey M. Berry and Kent E. Portney in chapter 1, nonprofits are now active in a host of municipal issues, from zoning to economic development to social welfare. Despite this activity, however, many nonprofits are less engaged in policy advocacy than would be expected or predicted, given the history of nonprofits advocacy dating back to the nineteenth century (Skocpol, 1999). Political scientists have long studied interest groups (Berry, 1977; Moe, 1980; Walker, 1991), but they have rarely directly investigated nonprofits as a distinct example of interest group advocacy. Further , scholars of nonprofits and philanthropy have tended to approach advocacy by nonprofits without a direct engagement in the rich political science literature on interest groups and political participation, with some exceptions (see Bass et al., 2007; Berry and Arons, 2003; Jenkins, 2006). This volume unites political science and nonprofit scholarly perspectives to further our understanding of nonprofit advocacy, an increasingly vital topic to the future of American democracy. Following the introductory chapter, part one contains research on local nonprofit organizations and their engagement in advocacy. In chapter 1, Jeffrey M. Berry and Kent E. Portney present detailed findings on the role of nonprofits in urban politics, especially small community groups such as neighborhood associations. In chapter 2, we evaluate research on nonprofit advocacy in Seattle and Washington, DC. Elizabeth Boris and Matthew Ma- Preface xi ronick focus in chapter 3 on nonprofit agencies that contract with government agencies for various social and health services. These agencies have a deep stake in the policy process but...