Here’s an intriguing method of gaining lobbying clout for the nonprofit community: let corporations carry our message. Washington’s K Street crew may not be welcome in the new Administration but there’s no fear that they’ll run out of work on Capitol Hill or in state capitals.
Are corporations actually more likely to have success in securing favorable legislation on social issues than the charities most concerned with those issues? At the very least, they’re freed of the [often overstated] fear that “We’ll lose our tax exemption;” and at the very least, lobbying help is something nonprofits can ask of their corporate friends without costing the corporation much extra money–a useful posture in these tough times!
Kelly Kleiman, who blogs as The Nonprofiteer, is a lawyer and freelance journalist whose reportage and essays about the arts, philanthropy and women’s issues have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor and other dailies; in magazines including In These Times and Chicago Philanthropy; and on websites including Aislesay.com and Artscope.net.
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