The Ethical Imperative of Advocacy

Every nonprofit organization has an ethical responsibility – individually and in partnership with its sister organizations – to influence public policy for the common good. There is no more critical time to do so than when the fabric of our social contract is at risk and the integrity of our safety net is compromised. There is no more appropriate agent of this imperative than the organization’s board of directors. It is the inherent role of the nonprofit to be the community conscience.

Nearly four decades ago, Lester Salamon, a prominent expert on the nonprofit sector, wrote, “of all the functions of the nonprofit sector, few are more critical than that of advocacy, of representing alternative perspectives and pressing them on public and private decision makers.”

Every time a legislator takes the scalpel to a budget, it is our job to reveal the associated human costs, the social and economic costs, of that decision. Our cause necessarily transcends the interests of individual organizations; our obligation is to speak on behalf of those whom we serve, to be the voice of humanity in the political process.

For those of us who have waged the battle with legislators to preserve public investments in health, human services, education, and the arts, we know the limits of our case in the face of staggering deficits. Regardless, we are obliged to fight as hard and as strategically as we can to be the voice of conscience, to offer viable options to draconian cutbacks, to speak truth to power.

One of the nasty truths is that we as a society will pay a much larger price and bear larger social costs as a result of cutting the budgets of schools, libraries, health services, mental illness assistance, and arts and cultural programs. This has been well-documented elsewhere, and so I will not belabor the point here. 

Rather, in this context, I want to emphasize how essential it is that every board of directors of a nonprofit organization clearly understands that among its core responsibilities is advocacy on behalf of its core values and the interests of its constituencies.

The role is not optional. It is what being stewards of the public trust means.

To this end, the following six steps constitute the essential elements of an advocacy strategy:

1. Defining clearly what factors and values are critical to the organization’s success and viability and the well-being of its customers (e.g., patients, students, clients, audiences, trees,whales, etc.)
2. Defining those trends and issues which could significantly impact the conduct of the organization’s business
3. Developing a public policy agenda that enumerates, prioritizes, and monitors the issues that the organization needs to track and identifies what potential actions it deems worthy of support or opposition
4. Cultivating, developing relationships with, and educating key legislators and regulators regarding the public social and economic benefits derived from the organization’s work
5. Cultivating, educating, and communicating with one’s constituency so that, when necessary, it is ready for mobilization
6. Working in collaboration with coalitions of aligned interests.