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Organizational characteristics of successful advocates.

Article Excerpt
ABSTRACT

Recent decades have seen an increase in government reliance on nonprofit agencies, particularly in administering social welfare programs. This research looks at one aspect of this relationship, specifically examining if and how social service providers shape state and local politics. It analyzes factors that impact the advocacy work of nonprofit organizations, notes the characteristics of successfully advocating nonprofits, and compares the findings with similar national studies. It also presents how 501(c)(3) type organizations understand and apply the advocacy requirements imposed by their tax exempt status.

INTRODUCTION

The traditional role of nonprofit organizations has been to deliver services and implement social policies especially in the welfare arena. The public sector entered the welfare arena in response to the economic crisis of the late 1920s and early 1930s when the Social Security Act of 1935 and New Deal policies laid the foundation of the contemporary welfare state in the US. During the 1960s spending on social welfare programs increased dramatically, and the nonprofits were a direct beneficiary of this growth.

By the 1970s, the US economy was experiencing high unemployment and increasing poverty rates due to international competition, declining productivity, and rising welfare costs. The increasing demands on public resources and the fiscal crisis created by the huge federal deficit led to a growing public sentiment of dissatisfaction with poverty-based welfare policy, which in turn led to government retrenchment in the 1980s. The nonprofit sector found political favor in this conservative era, which enhanced its implementation role in public policy (Salamon 1987; Wolch 1990), when states entered into subcontracting relationships with either for-profit or local nonprofit agencies to deliver social services.

In the late 1980s and 1990s, privatization, conservatism, budget reductions, and a growing demand for services marked the changing conditions in nonprofit-government relations. Today the nonprofit sector is solidly established in its traditional role, that of service delivery and program implementation. It was predicted that this role would continue to grow through public policy reform in the 1990s because it is considered an economically efficient and politically acceptable mechanism for implementation (Salamon 1987, 1995; Wolch 1990; Saidel 1991). Salamon (1989, 1995) argued that the human service nonprofit-government relationship is essentially a partnership that recognizes the diversity of needs and preferences of US society. Berry and Arons (2003, 125) describes this relationship in terms of need: "local governments must depend on nonprofits to operate their programs."

This partnership is continuously challenged by changes in federal spending priorities, social changes, and challenges to the tax-exempt status of nonprofit organizations. One of these challenges was the recent government retrenchment. According to Wolch (1990), with welfare state expansion, voluntary groups gained more influence over state policy because of their own individual resources, the large numbers of workers whose economic well-being was linked to voluntary activities, and the stature of the sector as a whole. In other words, Wolch (1990) argues that the recent government retrenchment has enabled nonprofits to have more influence in shaping welfare policy.

This new and interdependent relationship between government and nonprofits has gained a new dimension: the relationships between state and local governments and nonprofits. Wolch (1990) and Salamon (1995) found that beyond their financial role, local and state governments play an even more critical role in administering social welfare programs. As state and local authorities empowered the nonprofit sector with the management and development of welfare programs, the sector was expected to play a role in public policy at these levels too. Ostrander (1985) found that under the condition of financial restraint created by the withdrawal of state funds, nonprofit agencies moved toward greater political advocacy in favor of welfare services and benefits in state policies and programs.

The success of nonprofits in public policy advocacy has varied by the type of organization. For example, health/mental and social service organizations seek to be influential in redistributive policy on behalf of their clients. Health organizations have successfully lobbied to influence health care legislation related to Medicare/Medicaid and have participated in activities to influence national health care reform (Jenkins 1987; Clotfelter...

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