Advocacy by Nonprofit Human Service Agencies

Exploring Lobbying Practices in Israel’s Nonprofit Advocacy Organizations: An Application of the Libby Lobbying Model

“…Advocacy organizations make these efforts choosing different forms of influence from direct lobbying (Berry and Arons 2003;Donaldson 2007;Kimberlin 2010;Hoefer 2015;Libby 2012), to increasing civic participation, to providing opportunities for disempowered constituents to be heard by decision-makers (Boris and Mosher-Williams 1998;Unsicker 2012), to public education, to research on community needs, to monitoring policy implementation (Reid 2000(Reid , 2006Libby 2012).…”

“…As service providers (frequently on behalf of or in collaboration with the state) and as representatives of low-income and other politically under-represented groups, nonprofits are uniquely positioned to enter these debates (Berry 2005;Donaldson 2007;Kimberlin 2010;Hasenfeld and Garrow 2012). Yet often, for a variety reasons, they do not.…”

“…When nonprofits engage in advocacy, their efforts can take many forms, ranging from direct lobbying (Berry and Arons 2003;Donaldson 2007;Kimberlin 2010;Hoefer 2015;Libby 2012), to increasing civic participation, to providing opportunities for disempowered constituents to be heard by decision-makers (Boris and Mosher-Williams 1998;Unsicker 2012), to public education, to research on community needs, to monitoring policy implementation (Reid 2000(Reid , 2006Libby 2012). When nonprofits choose to engage in direct lobbying (also known as legislative advocacy campaigns), scholars have proposed a variety of frameworks to guide them in these efforts (Berry and Arons 2003;Hoefer 2015;Libby 2012;Unsicker 2012).…”

Advocacy in Nonprofit Organizations: A Leadership Perspective

“…While Salamon (1995) found a nonlinear relationship with age and advocacy, with older groups engaging in more advocacy, others including Donaldson (2007) or Child and Grønbjerg (2007) found no relationship between age and advocacy. An organization's capacity has also been a determinant of advocacy, with a positive relationship between capacity measures and advocacy (Berry and Arons 2005;Donaldson 2007;Child and Grønbjerg 2007;Vita and Mosher-Williams 2001;Suárez 2009). U.S. Census data allowed to consider whether the organization was based in a rural or urban community (a dummy variable with urban ¼ 1).…”

“…Previous research has suggested that nonprofits in rural communities may struggle to find adequate resources (and the resulting capacity) compared to their urban counterparts (Besel, Williams, and Klak 2011), suggesting a positive relationship between being located in an urban community and advocacy. In addition, the natural log of the organization's gross revenues and assets in the last year reported (from Form 990 data) were also included, which has been found to have a positive relationship with advocacy (Donaldson 2007;McCarthy and Castelli 1996;Suárez 2009). The natural log of the population in the organization's home city was also included, as similar to the urban and rural distinction, population may affect the resources available to an organization, and thus is also expected to have a positive relationship.…”