The National Council of Nonprofit Associations got a new head and a new name at this week’s Nonprofit Congress.

The group’s board appointed Tim Delaney — founder and president of the Center for Leadership, Ethics & Public Service, in Phoenix — executive director. He will take charge in early July, replacing Audrey Alvarado, who is stepping down after nine years in the job.

The council’s members also voted to change the group’s name to the National Council of Nonprofits — an effort to signal that the group represents all of the more than 20,000 nonprofit groups that are members of its network of 41 state nonprofit associations.

The name change, which will take place sometime before January 2009, reflects the council’s desire to encourage individual charities to think of themselves as part of a national movement, said Doug Sauer, chairman of the council’s board.

Mr. Delaney is a lawyer who earlier in his career served as Arizona’s solicitor general and chief deputy attorney general. He created the leadership center — which provides training, develops strategic plans, and publishes materials about public policy — in 2001.

At the closing session of the Nonprofit Congress, Mr. Delaney told participants to buy a “high-quality hammer” because the council was going to start “knocking down the silos that divide our sector.”

He also urged them to get every staff member, board member, and volunteer to register to vote in the November elections.

“We need to hear the nonprofit voice at the ballot box,” he said.

And he said organizations should make sure they have filed Form 5768, a tax document that will help them calculate how much money they can spend on lobbying.

Ms. Alvarado, who will stay with the council through July, was a co-founder of the Nonprofit Congress, which met for the first time in 2006 in an effort to unite nonprofit groups nationwide so they could have a stronger political and public voice. She said she does not have set plans but thought it was time to take a break.