This dissertation argues that advocacy is a two-stage decision in which
organizations must first decide whether or not to undertake political activity through
advocacy or lobbying and then choose between the set of strategic actions that, based on
available financial and human resources, are available to them. These are separate
decisions with separate constraints. The decision to advocate is a strategic stance taken
by nonprofit organizations in policy environments that necessitate such activity and in
which it is politically conducive for them to undertake the cost of such actions. Once an
organization has decided that it will undertake advocacy activities, it must determine the
specific activities, collaboration, grassroots advocacy, or direct lobbying, that will help it
to pursue that course most effectively.
These hypotheses are tested in an analysis of the advocacy activities of over 500
nonprofit reproductive health service providers. Data for this study were gathered from
the National Center for Charitable Statistics within the Urban Institute and directly from
IRS Form 990s filed by the organizations. The findings suggest that there are strong and
consistent relationships between policy and politics and the political activity of nonprofit
service providers. In states with more restrictive reproductive health policy
environments, nonprofit organizations that provide these services are more likely to engage in advocacy activity. The findings also suggest that, even when controlling for
the policy environment, 501(c)(3)s are more likely to become politically active in states
where they have a larger number of political allies. Additional analyses suggest that
there is a negative relationship between government monies and the aggressiveness of
advocacy and the use of multiple advocacy strategies. Interestingly, this finding is
consistent with the expectations offered in the resource dependence literature and the
results suggest only a tenuous relationship between institutional variables and decisions
regarding organizational aggressiveness in the choice of advocacy strategies.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/4956 |
| Date | 25 April 2007 |
| Creators | Nicholson-Crotty, Jill Denise |
| Contributors | Hill, Kim Q. |
| Publisher | Texas A&M University |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Dissertation, text |
| Format | 474353 bytes, electronic, application/pdf, born digital |
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