LEGISLATIVE OUTREACH
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Nonprofit Organizations and Legislative Outreach
The tax code places certain constraints on the activity of non-profit organizations (501(c)3 corporations) in regard to political activity. The law states that non-profits cannot engage in more than an “insubstantial amount” of political activity, which is defined as any action directly in support of, or in opposition to, pending legislation or a specific candidate running for office. In order to protect our tax-exempt status, it is important for Tikkun not to engage in political activity as it is defined in the tax code. As a Tikkun group, therefore, you cannot officially endorse or oppose a specific candidate or pending legislation.
This doesn’t mean, of course, that your TCN group cannot approach individual legislators or legislative bodies in order to educate them. But you must be careful that when you do so. Your focus should always be on educating the lawmakers about the issues, not lobbying for a specific bill or candidate. Tikkun’s annual Teach-In to Congress, for example, does not condone or attack specific legislation, but rather seeks to educate Congress about the impact of US policies on the Israel/Palestine conflict.
What is legislative outreach?
Legislative outreach for a nonprofit organization such as Tikkun involves working with individual lawmakers and lawmaking bodies to educate legislators and the public about the needs of a specific population, an organization or group of organizations, or specific services. Through the relationships you form with legislators, you may also be able to network to other lawmakers or people who are seeking information about your issue.
Actual legislative outreach can involve anything from working personally with a legislator or aide by providing information on your issue, to mobilizing hundreds, or even thousands, or supporters to bombard a legislator with phone calls about a cause. It includes educating legislators, supporters, and the public about an issue; continuously seeking out allies; and being persistent over long periods of time.
Why should you engage in legislative outreach?
Advocating for what they believe in comes naturally to many people, but there are a host of good reasons for legislative outreach in particular.
• Legislative outreach lends focus to your issue. Outreach forces your group to define exactly what it needs, and to communicate that clearly to others. It also makes it necessary for everyone to speak with one voice, and to stick to a common purpose in order to accomplish what you set out to do.
• Outreach creates its own positive publicity. Speaking out on behalf of an issue and getting coverage in the media add to public awareness and an understanding of what you’re educating about.
• Legislative outreach often gains you powerful allies. Working with and getting to know lawmakers and familiarizing them with your concerns can make them into educators about your cause as well.
When should you engage in legislative outreach?
Real estate agents often say that the three most important factors in selling a house are location, location, location. By the same token, the three most important factors in conducting effective legislative outreach are timing, timing, timing. Times when outreach efforts are particularly important include:
• When the lawmakers are about to take up something crucial to your issue, or vote on an important bill, and you believe you can provide important insights and information.
• When it’s important to make legislators aware that your issue exists. For instance, because the public discourse about Israel/Palestine in the US has consistently obscured the very existence of a Palestinian people with legitimate rights, the concept of creating security for both Israel and Palestine is often overlooked.
How should you organize for legislative outreach?
It cannot be said too many times that having an effective organization is crucial to successful legislative outreach. You have to gather your allies, create a coordination structure, do your homework on the issue, define your message, and establish and maintain a communication network. Finally, legislative outreach demands that you take the long view, and expect that you’ll be at it for a long time. What follows is a series of organizing steps in the order they should be carried out.
Step 1: Marshaling your allies
There is strength in numbers. Identifying the people in your camp and getting them to commit to an outreach effort is the first step toward building a powerful organization.
Who are the people you need to involve?
• Any legislators who are already in favor of your position.
• Legislators who have a personal interest in your cause.
• Actual or potential beneficiaries of the policy you’re educating about. Make sure that these people are registered to vote, if they’re eligible.
• People who work in organizations offering services aimed at the issue or population in question.
• Recognized “experts” in the field. Academics and former legislators who’ve had experience with the issue are authoritative voices that legislators often listen to.
• Community and business leaders and other citizens who understand the issue. Community opinion leaders—business people, clergymen, heads of organizations, newspaper columnists—are particularly important, because they are often able to influence large numbers of people.
• People who simply have the time and inclination to work on the outreach campaign, and will stuff envelopes, man phones, and act as go-fers when they’re needed. Such people are often the heart of a grassroots outreach campaign.
• Credible celebrities who are sympathetic to the issue.
• Professional or other organizations concerned with the issue or with the population affected.
• Labor unions and other organizations that already engage in outreach are especially helpful. Be careful not to write off people with because you disagree with them on other issues.
Putting together a core group for an outreach campaign takes some serious work. It means using your network—or creating one—to reach an ever-widening circle of concerned people and organizations.
When you find recruits to your outreach cause, you are also finding, though them, the folks who are part of your networks. Ask each recruit to become a recruiter. You may be alone, or almost alone, at the beginning, but if you interest a few key people, your outreach campaign will grow quickly.
As you collect allies, make sure that everyone agrees on the positions you will take when you educate officials and the public. It’s better to have a smaller group that’s rock-sold than a larger one that’s split into factions, or that can’t agree on a reasonable message.
Step 2: Creating a coordination structure.
It’s vital to have a single coordinating individual or body at the core of your outreach effort. This facilitates communication and decision-making, but, more importantly, it puts one person or small group at the center of the effort. This person or group is responsible for knowing what’s going on, and for directing the rest of the outreach group to act quickly, decisively, and effectively. The coordinating individual or group should, of course, involve all the participants as much as possible, but there may be times when the whole outreach group will need to trust the coordinator to make a decision and mobilize support for it.
The coordinator should serve as the focal point for the educational campaign, orchestrating communication, directing action, and doing whatever else needs to be done. She might also be responsible (either personally or by enlisting others) for acting as the coalition’s spokesperson, writing and distributing press releases, drafting public statements or position papers, and gathering and relaying information.
Step 3: Doing your homework.
Know your issue inside out. To educate others, you must first educate yourself and everyone involved in your group. Don’t focus only on your position; know the other side as well. If you have opponents, you need to know their arguments as well as you know your own, and develop point-for-point responses.
It’s important to know the other side personally as well. If you have opponents, either legislators or others, you need to know who they are, why they are opposed, and what they’ll respond to. If you can maintain a personal relationship with them regardless of your disagreement, all the better. You may be allies in the future, and they are more likely to deal reasonably with you if they see you—and you see them—as reasonable people.
Know who is on committees that are important to your issue. Find out who is supportive, who needs to be convinced, and what will convince them. Know who other key legislators are, and their positions on your issue.
Step 4: Defining your message.
You need to be specific about the issues you wish to educate people on. The outreach message has to make sense, be easily understandable to those unfamiliar with the issue, and effectively address the issue in reasonable ways. If it offers solutions, they should be feasible, given the economic and political climate.
There are several reasons why it is important to be clear and specific about your issues:
• A well-defined message is easier to pass on to your allies, easier to understand, and less likely to be misstated.
• A clear message is easier for legislators and the public to understand, especially if they’re unfamiliar with the issue.
• A message that’s specific and concise is more likely to appeal to legislators. Legislators dislike ambiguity; if there’s something they can do that benefits constituents and that they can then take credit for, they’re apt to favor it if it’s not too controversial. If the issue is controversial, they will appreciate the fact that you are trying to educate them about all the possible implications. They can then weigh the consequences, and know what they’re getting into.
Step 5: Creating a communication network that works.
It’s vital that you and your allies be able reach one another quickly, and to mobilize for immediate action. The best way to insure effective action (putting together an urgent strategy meeting, calling legislators, organizing a public event on short notice, etc.) is through an effective communication system. Effective systems vary with circumstances, but they have a few features in common:
• An individual or small group responsible for coordinating communication. A communication system needs someone at its hub to manage it. The logical person for this is usually the outreach coordinator, but it could be a separate communication coordinator who works with him or her.
• Communication methods obviously need to be geared to what is possible. Email can’t be used if most people in the loop don’t have access to it. Even phone trees are a problem when a large percentage of those who need to be contacted don’t have phones. Communication needs to be adapted to the needs of the people involved; if the only way to reach them is to drive to their houses, then someone needs to get behind the wheel.
• A feedback loop that helps the coordinator determine whether a requested course of action – phone calling to legislators, information-gathering, etc. – is being carried out and what the results are. If people report back to the coordinator about the results of their contact with legislators, for instance, she’ll have the information that will allow the group to decide what to do next.
• There should be a system of links between the outreach group, allies in the legislature and elsewhere, and other resources—other coalitions, sympathetic celebrities, national groups, etc.
• Regular updates must be conducted so that you can keep track of new jobs, staff, emails, and phone numbers.
• The communication system has to be constantly checked so that everyone’s contact information is accurate and they can be reached on the first try.
• If something happens that results in adverse publicity or scandal you should have a crisis management plan to help minimize the damage.
Step 6: Taking the long view
One of the most fundamental pieces of a solid outreach effort is the understanding that outreach takes time. It may take years to really make a difference by educating people about your issue. Your group has to be willing to keep at it, even in the face of apparent defeat, or worse, indifference. There is no guarantee that sustained effort will lead to success, but there is an absolute guarantee that a lack of sustained effort will lead to failure.
Remember, too, that successfully providing information or changing outlooks is a continuing process. Legislators change, social movements grind to a halt, memories—especially those of politicians—are short. As soon as activists turn their backs, their issue ceases to exist for legislators (and, to a great extent, for the public as well), to be replaced by the issue of the moment. A sold outreach effort never ends and never stops for a rest.
How to approach legislators and other policy makers
The final element in organizing for outreach is approaching legislators and others. Activists don’t have to—and in fact shouldn’t—wait until there’s a burning issue to make contact with policy makers. Establishing and maintaining regular contact with as many legislators, staffers, and other influential people as possible will serve you well when the crunch comes.
Most policymakers will be appreciative of your efforts to educate them about an issue, if you approach them in a personable, non-confrontational way. Make sure that everyone involved in the outreach effort knows who his or her state representative, state senator, Congressman, and U.S. Senator are, and that s/he has a personal relationship with someone in each person’s office. On the local level, contact with City Councilors, County Commissioners, Selectman, town administrators, chairs of town boards, etc. is also important. Ideally, your group should have enough contact with either the legislator or an aide so that that person recognizes your name and will answer or return your calls.
Use your constituency. Schedule mass visits to legislators’ offices. Try to create, with the help of allies in the legislative body, a caucus to deal specifically with your issue. A group of interested legislators and aides who meet on a regular basis, and who are well-versed in the needs of the target population, the intricacies of the issue, etc. can be tremendously helpful in educating other legislators, and the general public.
Remember, the goal of your Tikkun group should always be to raise the awareness of lawmakers and the public. Think creatively about how to get your message out to the world. Hearings, information sessions, and presentations are particularly powerful ways —at the State House, or in the field— to educate legislators and gain allies.
Additionally, it is often helpful to gently and compassionately confront legislators with the consequences of their policymaking decisions. Introduce policymakers to people who are or will be directly effected by their policies, and let those people tell their own stories. Presenting the stories of real people and putting faces on labels such as “Israelis,” “Palestinians,” and “progressive Jews” are perhaps the most powerful ways to get policymakers to think about the effects of the decisions they make.
Regardless of how a legislator responds in a particular situation, maintain contact and good relations. Today’s opponent may be tomorrow’s ally, depending upon the issue and upon the circumstances of the issue and the legislator’s life. Tip O’Neill, Speaker of the House in the Vietnam War era, for instance, changed his position on the war as a result of many long and painful conversations with his children. Your ability to keep talking to someone may ultimately mean that he’ll see you as a friend, and be willing to listen to and support you.
To sum up
Successful legislative outreach depends on a well-organized outreach group that is dedicated to educating the public and policymakers. You must make sure that you, and all members of your group, are informed about your issue, and able to express yourselves in a way that is diplomatic, compassionate, and clear. You should also develop relationships with lawmakers, legislators, and aides. Approach them respectfully and educate them by exposing them to the people who are affected by their policymaking decisions. If you can develop and sustain an organized effort that incorporates all or most of these suggestions, you have an excellent chance of engaging in successful legislative outreach and education.
Courtesy of the Community Toolbox at
http://ctb.lsi.ukans.edu/tools/ http://ctb.lsi.ukans.edu/tools/
The tax code places certain constraints on the activity of non-profit organizations (501(c)3 corporations) in regard to political activity. The law states that non-profits cannot engage in more than an “insubstantial amount” of political activity, which is defined as any action directly in support of, or in opposition to, pending legislation or a specific candidate running for office. In order to protect our tax-exempt status, it is important for Tikkun not to engage in political activity as it is defined in the tax code. As a Tikkun group, therefore, you cannot officially endorse or oppose a specific candidate or pending legislation.
This doesn’t mean, of course, that your TCN group cannot approach individual legislators or legislative bodies in order to educate them. But you must be careful that when you do so. Your focus should always be on educating the lawmakers about the issues, not lobbying for a specific bill or candidate. Tikkun’s annual Teach-In to Congress, for example, does not condone or attack specific legislation, but rather seeks to educate Congress about the impact of US policies on the Israel/Palestine conflict.
What is legislative outreach?
Legislative outreach for a nonprofit organization such as Tikkun involves working with individual lawmakers and lawmaking bodies to educate legislators and the public about the needs of a specific population, an organization or group of organizations, or specific services. Through the relationships you form with legislators, you may also be able to network to other lawmakers or people who are seeking information about your issue.
Actual legislative outreach can involve anything from working personally with a legislator or aide by providing information on your issue, to mobilizing hundreds, or even thousands, or supporters to bombard a legislator with phone calls about a cause. It includes educating legislators, supporters, and the public about an issue; continuously seeking out allies; and being persistent over long periods of time.
Why should you engage in legislative outreach?
Advocating for what they believe in comes naturally to many people, but there are a host of good reasons for legislative outreach in particular.
• Legislative outreach lends focus to your issue. Outreach forces your group to define exactly what it needs, and to communicate that clearly to others. It also makes it necessary for everyone to speak with one voice, and to stick to a common purpose in order to accomplish what you set out to do.
• Outreach creates its own positive publicity. Speaking out on behalf of an issue and getting coverage in the media add to public awareness and an understanding of what you’re educating about.
• Legislative outreach often gains you powerful allies. Working with and getting to know lawmakers and familiarizing them with your concerns can make them into educators about your cause as well.
When should you engage in legislative outreach?
Real estate agents often say that the three most important factors in selling a house are location, location, location. By the same token, the three most important factors in conducting effective legislative outreach are timing, timing, timing. Times when outreach efforts are particularly important include:
• When the lawmakers are about to take up something crucial to your issue, or vote on an important bill, and you believe you can provide important insights and information.
• When it’s important to make legislators aware that your issue exists. For instance, because the public discourse about Israel/Palestine in the US has consistently obscured the very existence of a Palestinian people with legitimate rights, the concept of creating security for both Israel and Palestine is often overlooked.
How should you organize for legislative outreach?
It cannot be said too many times that having an effective organization is crucial to successful legislative outreach. You have to gather your allies, create a coordination structure, do your homework on the issue, define your message, and establish and maintain a communication network. Finally, legislative outreach demands that you take the long view, and expect that you’ll be at it for a long time. What follows is a series of organizing steps in the order they should be carried out.
Step 1: Marshaling your allies
There is strength in numbers. Identifying the people in your camp and getting them to commit to an outreach effort is the first step toward building a powerful organization.
Who are the people you need to involve?
• Any legislators who are already in favor of your position.
• Legislators who have a personal interest in your cause.
• Actual or potential beneficiaries of the policy you’re educating about. Make sure that these people are registered to vote, if they’re eligible.
• People who work in organizations offering services aimed at the issue or population in question.
• Recognized “experts” in the field. Academics and former legislators who’ve had experience with the issue are authoritative voices that legislators often listen to.
• Community and business leaders and other citizens who understand the issue. Community opinion leaders—business people, clergymen, heads of organizations, newspaper columnists—are particularly important, because they are often able to influence large numbers of people.
• People who simply have the time and inclination to work on the outreach campaign, and will stuff envelopes, man phones, and act as go-fers when they’re needed. Such people are often the heart of a grassroots outreach campaign.
• Credible celebrities who are sympathetic to the issue.
• Professional or other organizations concerned with the issue or with the population affected.
• Labor unions and other organizations that already engage in outreach are especially helpful. Be careful not to write off people with because you disagree with them on other issues.
Putting together a core group for an outreach campaign takes some serious work. It means using your network—or creating one—to reach an ever-widening circle of concerned people and organizations.
When you find recruits to your outreach cause, you are also finding, though them, the folks who are part of your networks. Ask each recruit to become a recruiter. You may be alone, or almost alone, at the beginning, but if you interest a few key people, your outreach campaign will grow quickly.
As you collect allies, make sure that everyone agrees on the positions you will take when you educate officials and the public. It’s better to have a smaller group that’s rock-sold than a larger one that’s split into factions, or that can’t agree on a reasonable message.
Step 2: Creating a coordination structure.
It’s vital to have a single coordinating individual or body at the core of your outreach effort. This facilitates communication and decision-making, but, more importantly, it puts one person or small group at the center of the effort. This person or group is responsible for knowing what’s going on, and for directing the rest of the outreach group to act quickly, decisively, and effectively. The coordinating individual or group should, of course, involve all the participants as much as possible, but there may be times when the whole outreach group will need to trust the coordinator to make a decision and mobilize support for it.
The coordinator should serve as the focal point for the educational campaign, orchestrating communication, directing action, and doing whatever else needs to be done. She might also be responsible (either personally or by enlisting others) for acting as the coalition’s spokesperson, writing and distributing press releases, drafting public statements or position papers, and gathering and relaying information.
Step 3: Doing your homework.
Know your issue inside out. To educate others, you must first educate yourself and everyone involved in your group. Don’t focus only on your position; know the other side as well. If you have opponents, you need to know their arguments as well as you know your own, and develop point-for-point responses.
It’s important to know the other side personally as well. If you have opponents, either legislators or others, you need to know who they are, why they are opposed, and what they’ll respond to. If you can maintain a personal relationship with them regardless of your disagreement, all the better. You may be allies in the future, and they are more likely to deal reasonably with you if they see you—and you see them—as reasonable people.
Know who is on committees that are important to your issue. Find out who is supportive, who needs to be convinced, and what will convince them. Know who other key legislators are, and their positions on your issue.
Step 4: Defining your message.
You need to be specific about the issues you wish to educate people on. The outreach message has to make sense, be easily understandable to those unfamiliar with the issue, and effectively address the issue in reasonable ways. If it offers solutions, they should be feasible, given the economic and political climate.
There are several reasons why it is important to be clear and specific about your issues:
• A well-defined message is easier to pass on to your allies, easier to understand, and less likely to be misstated.
• A clear message is easier for legislators and the public to understand, especially if they’re unfamiliar with the issue.
• A message that’s specific and concise is more likely to appeal to legislators. Legislators dislike ambiguity; if there’s something they can do that benefits constituents and that they can then take credit for, they’re apt to favor it if it’s not too controversial. If the issue is controversial, they will appreciate the fact that you are trying to educate them about all the possible implications. They can then weigh the consequences, and know what they’re getting into.
Step 5: Creating a communication network that works.
It’s vital that you and your allies be able reach one another quickly, and to mobilize for immediate action. The best way to insure effective action (putting together an urgent strategy meeting, calling legislators, organizing a public event on short notice, etc.) is through an effective communication system. Effective systems vary with circumstances, but they have a few features in common:
• An individual or small group responsible for coordinating communication. A communication system needs someone at its hub to manage it. The logical person for this is usually the outreach coordinator, but it could be a separate communication coordinator who works with him or her.
• Communication methods obviously need to be geared to what is possible. Email can’t be used if most people in the loop don’t have access to it. Even phone trees are a problem when a large percentage of those who need to be contacted don’t have phones. Communication needs to be adapted to the needs of the people involved; if the only way to reach them is to drive to their houses, then someone needs to get behind the wheel.
• A feedback loop that helps the coordinator determine whether a requested course of action – phone calling to legislators, information-gathering, etc. – is being carried out and what the results are. If people report back to the coordinator about the results of their contact with legislators, for instance, she’ll have the information that will allow the group to decide what to do next.
• There should be a system of links between the outreach group, allies in the legislature and elsewhere, and other resources—other coalitions, sympathetic celebrities, national groups, etc.
• Regular updates must be conducted so that you can keep track of new jobs, staff, emails, and phone numbers.
• The communication system has to be constantly checked so that everyone’s contact information is accurate and they can be reached on the first try.
• If something happens that results in adverse publicity or scandal you should have a crisis management plan to help minimize the damage.
Step 6: Taking the long view
One of the most fundamental pieces of a solid outreach effort is the understanding that outreach takes time. It may take years to really make a difference by educating people about your issue. Your group has to be willing to keep at it, even in the face of apparent defeat, or worse, indifference. There is no guarantee that sustained effort will lead to success, but there is an absolute guarantee that a lack of sustained effort will lead to failure.
Remember, too, that successfully providing information or changing outlooks is a continuing process. Legislators change, social movements grind to a halt, memories—especially those of politicians—are short. As soon as activists turn their backs, their issue ceases to exist for legislators (and, to a great extent, for the public as well), to be replaced by the issue of the moment. A sold outreach effort never ends and never stops for a rest.
How to approach legislators and other policy makers
The final element in organizing for outreach is approaching legislators and others. Activists don’t have to—and in fact shouldn’t—wait until there’s a burning issue to make contact with policy makers. Establishing and maintaining regular contact with as many legislators, staffers, and other influential people as possible will serve you well when the crunch comes.
Most policymakers will be appreciative of your efforts to educate them about an issue, if you approach them in a personable, non-confrontational way. Make sure that everyone involved in the outreach effort knows who his or her state representative, state senator, Congressman, and U.S. Senator are, and that s/he has a personal relationship with someone in each person’s office. On the local level, contact with City Councilors, County Commissioners, Selectman, town administrators, chairs of town boards, etc. is also important. Ideally, your group should have enough contact with either the legislator or an aide so that that person recognizes your name and will answer or return your calls.
Use your constituency. Schedule mass visits to legislators’ offices. Try to create, with the help of allies in the legislative body, a caucus to deal specifically with your issue. A group of interested legislators and aides who meet on a regular basis, and who are well-versed in the needs of the target population, the intricacies of the issue, etc. can be tremendously helpful in educating other legislators, and the general public.
Remember, the goal of your Tikkun group should always be to raise the awareness of lawmakers and the public. Think creatively about how to get your message out to the world. Hearings, information sessions, and presentations are particularly powerful ways —at the State House, or in the field— to educate legislators and gain allies.
Additionally, it is often helpful to gently and compassionately confront legislators with the consequences of their policymaking decisions. Introduce policymakers to people who are or will be directly effected by their policies, and let those people tell their own stories. Presenting the stories of real people and putting faces on labels such as “Israelis,” “Palestinians,” and “progressive Jews” are perhaps the most powerful ways to get policymakers to think about the effects of the decisions they make.
Regardless of how a legislator responds in a particular situation, maintain contact and good relations. Today’s opponent may be tomorrow’s ally, depending upon the issue and upon the circumstances of the issue and the legislator’s life. Tip O’Neill, Speaker of the House in the Vietnam War era, for instance, changed his position on the war as a result of many long and painful conversations with his children. Your ability to keep talking to someone may ultimately mean that he’ll see you as a friend, and be willing to listen to and support you.
To sum up
Successful legislative outreach depends on a well-organized outreach group that is dedicated to educating the public and policymakers. You must make sure that you, and all members of your group, are informed about your issue, and able to express yourselves in a way that is diplomatic, compassionate, and clear. You should also develop relationships with lawmakers, legislators, and aides. Approach them respectfully and educate them by exposing them to the people who are affected by their policymaking decisions. If you can develop and sustain an organized effort that incorporates all or most of these suggestions, you have an excellent chance of engaging in successful legislative outreach and education.
Courtesy of the Community Toolbox at
http://ctb.lsi.ukans.edu/tools/ http://ctb.lsi.ukans.edu/tools/
We are an international community of people of many faiths calling for social justice and political freedom in the context of new structures of work, caring communities, and democratic social and economic arrangements. We seek to influence public discourse in order to inspire compassion, generosity, non-violence and recognition of the spiritual dimensions of life.
