Nonprofit Leaders Map Out Plan to Bolster Their Political Clout

Almost 400 nonprofit leaders from across the country vowed at a meeting here this week to take action in their states to bolster their political clout and improve the image of charitable organizations.

"Our detractors perpetrate the myth that what we do is wasteful, that we are takers, not givers, to the economy," said William J. Walczak, chief executive officer of Codman Square Health Center, in Dorchester, Mass. "The best of our detractors say that, although our missions are good for people, we are managerially filled with incompetence."

The truth, he added, is that nonprofit groups make a significant contribution to state economies — one that is growing as manufacturing industries decline.

Mr. Walczak and other nonprofit officials attending the Nonprofit Congress National Meeting, the first of its kind, said charities must unite to fight damaging stereotypes and demand a seat at the political table.

The two-day meeting was the brainchild of Audrey R. Alvarado, executive director of the National Council of Nonprofit Associations, in Washington, a network of state and regional nonprofit associations, and Robert Egger, executive director of DC Central Kitchen, a hunger-relief charity.

The meeting comes as nonprofit groups face increasing scrutiny in Congress, especially by Sen. Charles Grassley, the Iowa Republican who chairs the Senate Finance Committee and has been pushing for increased regulation of charities and foundations to curb alleged abuses of tax-exempt status.

"What we need today is the beginning of a dialogue that brings us together so we can answer Senator Charles Grassley: With all due respect, we hold your state up, we hold every state up, we hold this country up," Mr. Egger told the group.

Mr. Egger said charities need to be regulated, but that new legislation should not be passed "without our full and active participation."

'Bottom-Up' Approach

The meeting did not adopt a national strategy for starting a nonprofit-power movement. Instead, taking a "bottom-up" approach, the organizers asked delegates to agitate for change at the state level. Mr. Egger said charities need to transform their state nonprofit associations into organizations that can speak for them, instead of just about them, and influence members of Congress like Senator Grassley.

After meeting separately, each state delegation announced its own action plan. Several delegations said they planned to organize "town hall" meetings when they returned to report on the Washington session and plan next steps.

Several from states without nonprofit associations, including West Virginia and Wisconsin, said they would work to create such organizations. The New Hampshire delegation, whose state hosts an early presidential primary, plans to organize a forum in 2008 to get the candidates' views on nonprofit issues. The Maine delegation will try to get every newspaper in the state to publish a weekly section about nonprofit organizations, similar to the business and religion news sections.

A Utah delegate, Pat Drewry Sanger, said after the meeting that she hopes charities in Utah will give more authority to the state nonprofit association to speak on their behalf, something it has been hesitant to do without a specific mandate.

"We haven't really taken leadership, we haven't really understood where we are and thought of ourselves as a unified voice," said Ms. Sanger, founder of Arts-Kids, an after-school arts program in Park City.

This week's meeting was preceded by more than 100 meetings of nonprofit leaders that were held across the country during the past year to help identify priorities that nonprofit groups can rally around. The delegates were selected to mirror as closely as possible the national distribution of nonprofit groups by budget size and mission. More than half of them represented groups with budgets less than $1-million.

One of the delegates' main jobs was to vote for three top priorities out of six themes that emerged from the town halls.

They chose "nonprofit organizational effectiveness," "public awareness and support of the nonprofit sector," and "advocacy and grass-roots community activities."

Mr. Egger said he was "ecstatic" at those choices, especially because the first one emphasizes the need for charities to manage their operations well and to be accountable to their clients and donors.

"We recognize that whether it's the public mood, whether it's Capitol Hill, or whether it's our own sense, that we have to have some kind of standards that hold us together," he said in an interview. "It would be imposed on us if we did not embrace it."

Ms. Alvarado said she was concerned that news coverage of charity scandals has tarnished the image of all organizations. She said she hoped the Nonprofit Congress would spark a movement to "instill our values and restore our good name."

She called on the delegates to work together to bridge the country's rancorous political divide and help solve systemic social problems.

"We believe the nonprofit or charitable sector of our society has a significant, and some would say moral, obligation to lead this movement," she told participants.

Next Steps

A couple of speakers offered the delegates advice as they move forward.

Mark Lloyd, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank in Washington, suggested that nonprofit groups push to create a federal agency to champion their interests — for example, something along the lines of the Small Business Administration.

But William Schambra, director of the Bradley Center for Philanthropy and Civic Renewal at the conservative Hudson Institute, in Washington, warned charities not to mimic the worst attributes of business or government in trying to bolster their status.

He said nonprofit groups are adopting business language — "investments," "business plans," "generating revenue" — at a time when Americans are fed up with "corporate snappy patter."

Charities also are mistaken when they work to restore trust in government, one of their major sources of financial support, he said. "The nonprofit sector is identified with small, immediate community, and compassion. Government is viewed as distant, alienating, and unresponsive."

The Nonprofit Congress plans to organize another national meeting in spring 2008, with a view to influencing the Democratic and Republican national conventions. One delegate — Jonathan D. Schick, president of the Goal Project, a leadership-consulting firm in Dallas — said he's worried about losing momentum by waiting that long. "My opinion is they should have those follow-ups a little bit sooner than 2008, to make sure these things get into play."

Mr. Egger said he, the National Council of Nonprofit Associations, and state nonprofit leaders would be working to keep things moving. "I've already got a lot of invitations to speak at different state gatherings," he said.

Information about the Nonprofit Congress is available at http://www.nonprofitcongress.org.