Advocacy and Grantmaking, Parts 1 and 2

The coronavirus pandemic and resulting economic crisis has thrown enormous challenges in front of the nonprofit sector. Our communities are facing unprecedented needs with record unemployment, school closures, evictions, and lack of access to medical care.

In response, organizations and communities are pushing for additional stimulus funding, changes in the charitable deduction, release of incarcerated people from prisons and immigrant detention facilities, moratoriums on evictions, and so much more. In addition, with the national elections only months away, groups are implementing their traditional voter and candidate engagement work, but also fighting to ensure fair and safe elections and voting methods. Grantmakers can and should support these efforts.

Part 1

This 90-minute training for foundations addresses why advocacy is so important, how to distinguish advocacy from lobbying, and ways in which foundations—both private and public—can fund the advocacy work of their grantees. In addition to walking through the definitions of lobbying, we discuss how the rules differ between private and public foundations, and best practices for how to legally and efficiently fund grantees that advocate.

Recorded July 14, 2020.

Part 2

This 90-minute training for grantmakers addresses how foundations can best build the advocacy capacity of their grantees and use their own voices as advocates. During this session, we explore how private and community foundations can advocate themselves and highlight the many roles foundations can play along the advocacy continuum. We also discuss how foundations—and their staff and trustees—can interact with candidates for public office, support civic engagement activities like election protection and voter registration and GOTV drives, and share issue-specific information.

Recorded July 21, 2020.