Soapbox Engage Blog

Countless nonprofits and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) around the world are doing invaluable work to promote justice, care for people, and enact change. The scale of their impact often depends on the amount of support they can build up from various communities.

Advocacy campaigns are one of the most effective ways to mobilize people into action. They raise awareness, educate people, seek to influence decision-makers, attract donations, help build your brand, and much more. A well-designed advocacy campaign has the potential to trigger wide-scale responses, prompt people to change their actions, and even affect government policies.

Advocacy can be misunderstood and difficult to define at times. To further complicate things, there are some rules and regulations about how nonprofits can engage in advocacy. Before you start planning your first campaign, we created this resource to help guide your organization in incorporating advocacy into your work.

What is advocacy?

Put simply, advocates express their opinions and convictions about specific issues. It's the active support of a cause. Advocates take particular actions to help advance those issues. During an advocacy campaign, the goal is to raise awareness about the issue and move people to act in a way that will bring about change.

Many organizations use advocacy in an attempt to address the root causes of the problem they are trying to solve. As the great saying from Desmond Tutu goes, "There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they're falling in." Advocacy can be a way for many nonprofits to "go upstream".

For example, if your organization provides free school lunches for at-risk elementary school students, your actions in the schools are addressing your cause on a small scale. Your organization might lobby to address some of the root causes for kid's lack of access to healthy food at home, or why the school systems aren't receiving enough funds.

Or perhaps your organization serves homeless populations. Your programs might include running a soup kitchen, offering job training, and a wide range of other services. Advocacy might involve petitioning and lobbying for more affordable housing in your communities.

These are relatively complex examples because there are many potential "root causes" and countless ideas on how to deal with them, but hopefully, you get the idea.

Advocates have many reasons for doing what they do (some motives are more altruistic or cause-motivated than others, but we won't get into that).

Unlike nonprofit funding campaigns, advocacy campaign goals are usually more difficult to measure and quantify. They also typically require a larger support base and take longer than other types of campaigns.

Why is advocacy important?

Advocacy benefits your organization and the people for whom you are advocating, whether it's the homeless population, at-risk youth, abused and mistreated animals, or any other cause.

Advocacy generates visibility and public support

Public policy advocacy helps organizations generate more visibility, which leads to greater awareness about specific causes. Advocacy also helps local, regional, and national government agencies to understand better how they can support your efforts to improve your community and enact change.

Advocacy helps communities avoid problems

Nonprofit voices are critical in the public policy arena. Organizations see first-hand the effects of current policies. They can often predict with high accuracy how proposed policies will impact specific populations in our communities. Nonprofits are concerned with the public interest and are often in an excellent position to speak on behalf of people who will be directly affected by particular policies or actions.

Advocacy gives citizens a louder voice

Nonprofits often play the role of "great equalizer" in the public forum. They help individuals band together in support or opposition of a cause. Nonprofits can also serve as a voice on behalf of people who cannot advocate for themselves--like financially at-risk people, children, people with disabilities, immigrants, future generations, and other marginalized groups. In many cases, these at-risk groups are not just passive beneficiaries of advocacy efforts, they are helping and participating in the advocacy work.

Advocacy builds your community

Many individuals learn how to be citizen-leaders while volunteering with nonprofits and participating in advocacy campaigns. People who participate in advocacy efforts learn about (and have plenty of opportunities to practice) conflict resolution, teamwork, leadership, compromise, communication, and many other valuable skills. Whether you are learning these skills from nonprofit advocacy, volunteering for a local community board, or serving on the school's PTA, advocacy campaigns are an excellent way for people to learn skills that help them better participate in their communities.

How nonprofits usually use advocacy

There are a host of different kinds of advocacy campaigns that nonprofits use. In general, nonprofits use advocacy campaigns for one of three reasons.

• Raise awareness about a specific issue or cause.
• Change something: whether it's a policy, law, or system, the advocacy campaign is meant to create a specific outcome.
• Start (or continue) a movement: these advocacy campaigns are usually part of a larger plan to rally a group of people to do something.

What advocacy Is (and What It Isn't)

Nonprofits are allowed to advocate, but there are strict rules about nonprofit engagement in lobbying. One of the tricky things about advocacy that causes many nonprofits to shy away from it is that it can be hard to draw a clear line between advocacy and lobbying.

There are plenty of ways nonprofits can advocate to change policies and improve their communities without violating federal laws or putting their tax-exempt status at risk.

What's the difference between advocacy and lobbying?

Part of what makes this tricky is that lobbying is always a form of advocacy, but advocacy is not always a form of lobbying (remember those crazy logic problems from middle school?). We'll try to explain it.

Advocacy is the process of making people's voices heard on issues that affect their own lives and communities at the local, state, and national levels. It often includes helping lawmakers come up with solutions to specific problems.

Lobbying, on the other hand, usually involves actions that directly support or oppose specific legislation and encourages other people to do the same. Lobbying often includes attempts to influence decision makers and lawmakers. Nonprofits can participate in some lobbying, but the IRS has strict regulations about how much a nonprofit can spend on lobbying activities.

For example, if your nonprofit serves the homeless population in your community, you are entirely free to participate in conversations about how your community should serve the homeless. Your organization is in an excellent position to help policymakers change the laws to protect the homeless and prevent more people from becoming homeless. So, of course, you should be active in those conversations! You might even notify all your supporters to encourage them to go out and vote in support of specific legislation or call their representatives on particular issues. Your organization might help conduct research that would help shape policies. All these things are types of advocacy.

However, if your organization starts taking action to influence legislation, you are now lobbying. Paying for local television commercials about particular policies or spending money to support political campaigns, are forms of lobbying. Some lobbying is acceptable for nonprofits to do, but it can only occupy a small percentage of your finances and your time.

What's the difference between advocacy and activism?

Some people use the terms "advocacy" and "activism" interchangeably, but they aren't quite the same (though there is some overlap). Advocates are almost always people-oriented. Advocacy work is almost always on behalf of a particular group of people. Activism, on the other hand, is almost always action-oriented. Activists usually set out to create social, political, or legal change.

For example, an advocate is one who represents the elderly population and seeks to protect their interests. An activist is one who seeks to change the laws about what chemicals are allowed to be used on crops grown for human consumption.

We aren't really sure where puppies fall on the advocacy vs. activism spectrum, but advocacy might include representing people who benefit socially, emotionally, and physically from having community structures that promote responsible pet ownership. In contrast, activism might involve trying to change the leash laws.

Effective advocacy is a mix of all of the above

Effective advocacy requires a balanced approach of identifying the right audience, communicating your message clearly, telling a compelling story, and showing people how to respond. While there are limits to how much lobbying and activism a nonprofit can engage in, effective advocacy campaigns balance the right amounts of lobbying, activism, and advocacy.

Think of a baking recipe; you would never use equal parts flour, sugar, and baking soda when baking cookies! No baker is afraid to use the right amount of baking soda because it's an essential ingredient in many delicious recipes. Nor should any nonprofit be frightened to use the right amount of lobbying and activism in their advocacy campaigns.

Types of Advocacy Organizations

To keep things simple, we'll just highlight the three most common types of advocacy groups, even though there are dozens of different types.

501(c) Groups (Nonprofits)

These are tax-exempt groups under section 501(c) of the IRS tax code. There are over 20 different types of 501(c) groups, and each of them has different rules about how much activism, lobbying, and political activity they can engage in.

For example, 501(c)(3) groups include religious, charitable, and educational groups. Their political activity is meant to be kept to a bare minimum. 501(c)(4) groups, on the other hand, bear the nickname "social welfare groups." They are allowed to engage in political activity as long as it doesn't become their primary objective.

527 Groups

These organizations are also tax-exempt and fall under section 527 of the IRS tax code (hence their name). They exist to raise money for political activities. These groups are usually political parties, individual candidates seeking election, and committees or associations trying to influence policy or elections.

Section 527 groups can raise unlimited amounts of money for political causes. They must register with the IRS and publicly disclose all their contributions and expenses, but are not usually regulated by campaign finance laws.

Political Action Committees (PACs)

PACs are committees that raise (and spend) limited amounts of money to help candidates get elected (or defeat other candidates). Most PACs represent businesses, labor groups, or ideological interests. A PAC can contribute $5,000 to a candidate per election, and up to $15,000 annually to a political party.

"Super PACs" can raise unlimited amounts of money to support or oppose specific candidates. However, they cannot donate directly to the candidate or coordinate with them.

Now that you're up to speed on advocacy, we hope you have some ideas about how your organization can start incorporating advocacy campaigns into your work! Nonprofits are invaluable resources when it comes to understanding how to improve our communities and better serve vulnerable populations in our society.

Are you looking for more ways to improve your advocacy campaigns or fundraising? Here are three resources to get you started.

• Everything You Need To Know About 501(c) Categories Before Starting A Nonprofit: Your 501(c) category will impact how much lobbying and activism you can participate in. Here's a guide to help you understand your options and select the right type for your organization.
• 4 Easy Steps to Planning An Effective Advocacy Campaign: Every advocacy campaign is unique, with a variety of goals, causes, and other variables. Here's a handy strategy plan to help you get started on your early advocacy campaign planning.
• Surprising Fundraising Email Subject Line Tips That Increase Open Rates: Advocacy often includes sending emails to your supporters. Of course, you want your email to stand out from the dozens or hundreds of emails cramming everyone's inbox. Here are some practical ways to improve your email subject lines and increase your open rates.