Nonprofit stakeholder relations lecture 10

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University of North Florida

Master of Public Administration program

PAD 6934 Nonprofit stakeholder relations

Social capital and policy impact Nonprofit manager of the week

Photo credit

George Bailey Nonprofit social capital builder

*

Dumont and I justify the inclusion of social capital and policy impact in our framework as

follows:

Social capital – the impact an organization has on the community in which it operates –

is the second key output included in this framework. Tossutti (2007), for instance,

analysed the link between volunteering and political engagement. While Bryce (2006)

treats nonprofits as social capital assets, for Gallagher and Weinberg, the bottom line of

nonprofits is often „social profit‟, and the benefits of nonprofit activity “go beyond the

individual being served and extend to a broader community. The importance of these

goals is undeniable, but so is the fact that progress toward them cannot always be

measured by dollars and cents” (1991: 29-30; though see also Franke 2005).

The laggard record of nonprofits in „social accounting‟ is especially ironic given progress

made on this front by the business community, as a result of nonprofit calls for „non-

financial‟ accounting by for-profits (Economist 2004). A solution to this gap between the

important role of nonprofits in contributing to social capital, and the inattention in

accounting for it, lies in social accounting. For Richmond, Mook and Quarter, “social

accounting is based on a critique of the limitations of financial accounting, particularly

the limited range of items that it considers, its exclusion of items that do not have an

established dollar value (nonmonetized), and its focus on shareholders and other

financing providers to the exclusion of other shareholders” (2003: 308-9). Social

accounting is therefore “a systematic analysis of the effects of an organization on its

communities of interest or stakeholders, with stakeholder input as part of the data that are

analyzed for the accounting statement” (Quarter, Mook and Richmond 2003: 3; see also

Smith 1998: 93).

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Figure 1

Member-based NPOs’ accountability relationship to stakeholders

for social capital and policy impact

Accountability „for what‟

Outputs

Stakeholder Social capital Policy impact

Members

Yes Yes

Clients

n/a n/a

Constituents

n/a n/a

Donors

If in the mission? If in the mission?

Government

No If target

General public

In broad sense In broad sense

Media

Yes, to recruit new members Avoid crisis

NGO staff

Yes, if in the mission Yes, if in the mission

Partners/allies

N/a N/a

Key: Ongoing

relationships

Regular

newsletter

Annual

report

Passive

Web page

Situational

formal

n/a,

or no

Policy impact. Finally, given the prominent role of policy advocacy among a significant

portion of nonprofit organizations, assessing the policy impact of advocacy nonprofits

becomes a third important output of nonprofit organizations. The concept is conceptually

challenging, though. Scoble and Weisberg, in a discussion of Amnesty International,

note that the effectiveness of advocacy groups (they use the term „interest group‟) “is

either not treated at all… or it is treated in a nonsystematic manner which simplistically

equates activity with impact” (1974: 22). Hudson agrees, noting that “NGOs‟ evaluation

of advocacy is very limited, with most NGOs struggling to come to grips with it” (2001:

415).

GEORGE‟S „COMMON SENSE‟ RUMINATIONS ON

SOCIAL CAPITAL AND POLICY IMPACT!!!

Accountability relationships: see the beginning of pages 2-5.

Both are very difficult to measure.

Policy impact:

If an organization works to bring about a policy that then comes about (!), maybe it

happened despite your effort?

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Figure 2

Human service NPOs’ accountability relationship to stakeholders

for social capital and policy impact

Accountability „for what‟

Outcomes

Stakeholder Social capital Policy impact

Members

n/a n/a

Clients

Yes Yes

Constituents

n/a n/a

Donors

n/a n/a

Government

No If target

General public

In broad sense In broad sense

Media

N/a N/a

NGO staff

N/a N/a

Partners/allies

Yes Yes

Key: Ongoing

relationships

Regular

newsletter

Annual

report

Passive

Web page

Situational

formal

n/a,

or no

If an organization works to bring about a policy that does not come about, perhaps the

organization did a very effective job, but the other side had more resources. All may

not have been lost, either:

consciousness may have been raised,

seeds planted for the next round of the policy cycle,

effects may have spilled over to related policy arenas.

Social capital: just what is it, anyhow?

Policy impact is complicated! For me, this is best illustrated through reference to a classic

„stages‟ model of public policy, presented on the next page in Figure 4

Sandfort:

Sandfort especially emphasizes the „it‟s complicated‟ point above. This complexity is evident in

her reference to:

“complex systems, where financial resources, policy ideas, and relevant practices flow across

institutional boundaries in unpredictable ways” (p. 637),

The „policy field‟ network graphics (pages 639 and 40), and

“competition among nonprofits for funding and authority is heated. Any coalitions for policy

change have fragile bonds. The structure of the field separates all from their common aim –

assuring that all the state‟s children are ready to learn when they enter kindergarten” (p. 641).

Nonprofit stakeholder relations lecture 10

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Figure 3

Arts & culture NPOs’ accountability relationship to stakeholders

for social capital and policy impact

Accountability „for what‟

Outcomes

Stakeholder Social capital Policy impact

Members

Yes Yes

Clients

Yes Yes

Constituents

n/a n/a

Donors

Yes Yes

Government

No If target

General public

In broad sense In broad sense

Media

N/a Yes

NGO staff

Yes Yes

Partners/allies

Yes Yes

Key: Ongoing

relationships

Regular

newsletter

Annual

report

Passive

Web page

Situational

formal

n/a,

or no

Figure 4

The stages model and required skills for policy advocacy NPOs

Stage Description NP skills required

Agenda setting Bringing an issue to the attention of

either the public, and/or the formal

policy system (i.e. legislators,

regulatory agencies, etc.).

Public relations skills (for the public‟s

attention) and/or policy access (for the

attention of the formal policy system).

Formulation Analysis: what are the options, how

likely are each to work?

Robust analytical skills.

Selection Which option to choose? Good presentation skills (if the

evidence is on your side), good

political skills/influence (if the

evidence is not on your side).

Implementation Git „er done! Practical management skills, as well as

field specific technical capability.

Evaluation Assess whether the program worked. Robust analytical skills.

Termination Assess whether the program should

be modified (return to agenda setting

stage) or shut down.

Good presentation skills (if the

evidence is on your side), good

political skills (if the evidence is not

on your side).

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Figure 5

Policy advocacy NPOs’ accountability relationship to stakeholders

for social capital and policy impact

Accountability „for what‟

Outcomes

Stakeholder Social capital Policy impact

Members

Yes Yes

Clients

n/a n/a

Constituents

Yes Yes

Donors

Yes Yes

Government

No If target

General public

In broad sense In broad sense

Media

Yes Yes

NGO staff

Yes Yes

Partners/allies

Yes Yes

Key: Ongoing

relationships

Regular

newsletter

Annual

report

Passive

Web page

Situational

formal

n/a,

or no

Teles & Schmidt:

“advocacy…is inherently political.

“And it‟s the nature of politics that events evolve rapidly and in a nonlinear fashion, so an

effort that doesn‟t seem to be working might suddenly bear fruit, or one that seemed to be

on track can suddenly lose momentum.

“Because of these peculiar features of politics, few if any best practices can be identified

through the sophisticated methods that have been developed to evaluate the delivery of

services.

“Advocacy evaluation should be seen, therefore, as a form of trained judgment – a craft

requiring judgment and tacit knowledge – rather than as a scientific method.

“To be a skilled advocacy evaluator requires

“a deep knowledge of and feel for the politics of the issues,

“strong networks of trust among the key players,

“an ability to assess organizational quality, and

“a sense for the right time horizon against which to measure accomplishments.

“In particular, evaluators must recognize the complex, foggy chains of causality in

politics, which make valuating particular projects – as opposed to entire fields of

organizations – almost impossible” (pp. 39-40).

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The authors inadvertently (I‟d argue) nicely illustrate the points above in what follows:

First, they offer US „health care reform‟ as an example of successful advocacy. The

result, after all the work the authors describe, was the Patient Protection and Affordable

Care Act.

Is there a health care crisis in the US? Let‟s look at some numbers (I like numbers):

Table 6

Comparative health indicators

US UK Australia Canada France Japan Brazil

Life expectancy

(years)

77.9 79.1 80.9 80.3 80.2 82.3 71.7

Infant mortality

(per 1000 births)

6 5 5 5 4 3 31

Physicians

(per 100,000 population)

256 230 247 214 337 198 115

Health spending

($ per capita)

6096 2560 3123 3171 3040 2293 1520

Health spending

(% of GDP)

15.4 8.1 9.6 9.8 10.5 7.8 8.8

Health spending

(% from government)

44.8 86.4 67.7 69.4 78.1 80.8 54.5

Alcohol consumption

(liters p.c., 15+ years)

8.4 11.8 9.0 8.0 11.4 7.6 5.8

Smoking

%

23.6 26.5 19.5 25.0 34.5 33.1 33.8

Obesity

%

32.2 24.4 16.4 14.9 11.3 3.1 11.1

Economic freedom 7.60 7.71 7.98 7.81 7.16 7.44 6.19

Civil/political freedom 1 1 1 1 1 .5 2

Sources: Human Development Report 2008; World Health Organization, Data and Statistics;

Freedom in the World Report 2011; Economic Freedom of the World Report 2011.

Was the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act an example of successful US

„health care‟ reform, given that crisis?

They then follow this with global warming policy, which has failed to yield US policies

to combat the certainty, the inconvenient truth, of di-bloody-sastrous climate change, as

Nobel Peace Prize and Oscar winning cinematographer Al Gore indicated.

Is there a global warming crisis in the world, with numbers as dire, and as robust as

that for the need for health care reform?

Has there been viable policy to address this threat?

Range of techniques. Consider some of the techniques the authors identify:

An aggressive grass roots campaign

Behind-the-scenes, cross-partisan strategy involving paid lobbyists

„Disruptive innovation‟. They offer MoveOn.org, but the current „Tea Party‟ fits the bill

nicely, too.

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Adaptation is necessary: “declining returns on political tactics…are a result of the

repeated, competitive nature of advocacy” (p. 41).

“…the quiet work – such as the long process of slow persuasion and litigation that led to

the repeal of the „don‟t ask, don‟t tell‟ policy in 2010” (ibid0.

Ebrahim:

“…pressures on nonprofit leaders that militate against meaningful interactions with

government on policy issues” (p. 628).

A central tension in government/NPO relations: the desire for NP autonomy against

government control.

The reference to Ghandi‟s political advocacy, as well as the People Power revolution in

the Philippines (Brazil saw two similar „people power‟ revolutions), makes a good point

about how the nonprofit sector has occasionally controlled (even overthrown!)

government.

“On the subject of policy engagement, one is hard pressed to find social service nonprofits

that see policy work as a critical piece of what they do, with the exception of a handful of

very large agencies such as Catholic Charities and umbrellas such as the United Way of

America” (p. 629).

Though smaller organizations do get involved in policy, through coalitions (with

„partners & allies‟!). Ebrahim, though, argues that this is central to the work of these

groups.

Ebrahim clearly argues that social service NPOs need to do more policy advocacy. Part

of his point is that if a group cares about ameliorating the symptoms of a social problem

(beds for homeless people), it makes a lot more sense to try to tweak the social realities

that lead to homelessness (better education and safer neighbourhoods for poor kids?).

To be effective, this will require collaboration (again: with partners & allies!)

For what it‟s worth, I‟m skeptical of his arguments that societies in “the Global South”

are that much better than the US in terms of government/ civil society relations.

He closes with suggestions for educational reform (by this he means university-level training

of nonprofit managers):

Multi-disciplinarity key, with a combination of the skills of the

Policy wonk,

Business manager, and

Understanding of the dynamics of NPOs and the sector on the whole.

Problem-based: all of this should take place within a problem-based environment.

Avner. Finally: a „how to‟ approach:

Advocacy v. lobbying v. organizing:

Advocacy: general support for a cause or issue

Lobbying: support for a specific legislative proposal (or equivalent)

Organizing: building coalitions

It‟s legal!

Yet many NPOs don‟t realize this. After all, for-profit firms that get billions in

government contracts can directly lobby in their self-interest for those contracts.

Similarly, you‟d think non-profits should be able to do the same in the public interest for

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the issue areas in which they are involved, even when some organizational self-interest is

involved in the awarding of contracts.

Nonprofits and election activities

In the post Citizen‟s United era, my guess is that this section is obsolete.

A checklist for nonprofit advocacy engagement! (Checklists are good!)

Formalize the organization‟s commitment to advocacy

Know the laws governing nonprofit lobbying and election activity

Develop a strategic plan for advocacy work

Set goals: what do you want to have happen?

Focus on position and power

Prepare key messages and messengers

Identify capacity needs and plan to build the capacity needed

Be issue experts: conduct and prepare research and communications

Learn about policy arenas where you will be working

Target and recruit [partners and allies]

Study and prepare to respond to opponents

Build advocacy and organizing skills Avner, p. 357-61

Primary advocacy actions

Direct lobbying: checklist/key points

Indentify and learn about the key decision makers

Establish strong working relationships with legislators as early as possible

Indentify those who champion your cause, and work with these

Support them, too: let your supporters know who champions your cause, and so

who your supporters should vote for!

Present information to targeted elected officials and their staff

Ask for support

Treat appropriately (criticize critics when appropriate, always support supporters)

Grassroots organizing

Identify supporters

Identify potential supporters

Recruit (buy lots of beer)

Engage supporters and make them feel like part of the team (buy lots more beer)

Build (or identify!) skills among supporters

Mobilize the base when appropriate (and don’t waste my time!)

Assess and evaluate, do better the next time around

Media advocacy

o Scope out the options: both traditional and new media

o Cultivate relationships with members of the media who cover your area

o Present your organization as a source of expertise: get air time!

o Be available 24/7

o Develop a key message (or messages) and adapt for different media.

o As Dr. D(umont, not eTarnowsky) would put it: brand yourself.

o Once developed, nurture these relationships (yes: more beer!), keeping them strong.