With congressional and state elections heating up, grant makers are focusing on new ways to help connect the people they serve to the political process — and ultimately lead more of them to the ballot box.
Those efforts were in the spotlight at a conference held here this week by the Council on Foundations, which drew more than 200 grant makers from across the country.
Among those efforts:
- Independent Sector, Nonprofit Vote, and the council produced two guides — one for private funds and one for community foundations — to help grant makers understand how they can promote get-out-the-vote drives without running afoul of federal law that restricts lobbying and political activity.
- The Silicon Valley Community Foundation is hosting a debate of candidates in California’s gubernatorial debate that will be moderated by NBC’s Meet the Press host Chuck Todd.
- The Seattle Foundation is working with King County’s election department to award $400,000 in grants to promote voting among people who might feel left out – such as those who are not fluent in English.
Reaching Those Left Out
Many nonprofits and foundations stepped up their activities to focus on advocacy after the election of Donald Trump, which produced policies that affected many of the people philanthropy serves.
The need for a greater emphasis on public policy was driven home to many foundations after the tax overhaul was signed into law in December. Despite their advocacy, foundation priorities received little attention in the once-in-a-generation legislation.
As foundations seek to improve their advocacy skills, they should make educating citizens about the importance of their vote a priority, said Brian Miller, Nonprofit Vote’s executive director.
Action on the part of nonprofits is necessary because political campaigns have little incentive to reach out to minorities, young people, disabled people, and others who have lower-than-average voting rates, he said.
“Those gaps distort the electorate, and by distorting the electorate, they distort democracy,” he said.
A number of nonprofits, including the Food Research & Action Center, Goodwill, and the YMCA are considering plans to encourage Americans to go to the ballot box, including hosting voter-registration days at their facilities, said Mr. Miller.
“A lot of nonprofits are stepping into this game,” he said. “We need to make sure this is a long-term trend and not a short-term bump.”
Lacking Experience
But many foundations have thin experience with get-out-the-vote efforts because the rules governing their involvement in the policy-making process have driven many grant makers away, according to some foundation leaders. All nonprofits are prohibited from activities that support or oppose political candidates. Community foundations can spend limited funds on advocacy, but private foundations are largely prohibited, unless the legislation directly affects their ability to operate.
Voter registration “is a sticky wicket for us” because it could lead to perceptions that a foundation is involved in political activity, said Carla Thompson Payton, vice president for program strategy at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
But that doesn’t mean Kellogg has been silent as political debates swirl. Payton says the grant maker prefers to play the role of an educator rather than an activist. To help build momentum to advance its work to promote early-childhood education and equitable work-force development, Kellogg is concentrating on giving its president, La June Montgomery Tabron, a larger voice nationwide.
Payton says the goal of greater civic engagement is best achieved by providing grantees and local leaders with data they can use in policy debates and helping them spread their messages.
Local Efforts
Community foundations are also stepping up their efforts to encourage people to vote.
In California, Silicon Valley Community Foundation will be in the spotlight when it hosts a prime-time televised debate May 8 featuring all the major declared gubernatorial candidates. The debate is part of the foundation’s $3 million Choose Children 2018 campaign, which aims to educate politicians about issues affecting kids.
“Rest assured, early-childhood questions will be asked of every candidate,” said Avo Makdessian, vice president for the foundation’s Center for Early Learning. “We’re hoping someday we’ll have a children’s champion as governor of California.”
The Choose Children effort aims to support research on children’s lives in the state, share that research with candidates, develop policy options, and build consensus on those plans. The effort will include social-media campaigns, pitching article ideas to traditional news-media reporters, and footing the bill for statewide polls on childhood issues to get the issue on candidates’ radar.
The plan is to generate a “constant drumbeat to get the issue front and center” on the minds of those running, said Makdessian.
Watching the States
California’s focus on state-level issues is important, said other speakers, who urged greater attention to state and local policy.
Shena Ashley, who runs the Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy at the Urban Institute, said there is “great potential” for grant makers to influence state policy, especially efforts to increase people’s ability to move out of poverty. States are often more nimble than the federal government at implementing innovative ideas, Ashley said.
David Thompson, vice president for public policy for the National Council of Nonprofits, noted that some states, like Minnesota, have a “universal deduction” that allows all taxpayers to deduct charitable giving from their state taxes regardless of whether they itemize. There are opportunities to spread that idea to other states, Thompson said.
Charity advocates pushed unsuccessfully for such a provision at the federal level during last year’s tax debate.
Turnover at the Top
Thompson also warned grant makers to keep an eye on personnel changes in Washington even aside from the elections. He cited the announcement by House Speaker Paul Ryan that he will not run for re-election in his home state of Wisconsin. Rep. Steve Scalise, a Louisiana Republican who is one of the leading candidates to succeed Ryan as speaker, is also one of the leading advocates of a plan to end the ban on nonprofit involvement in political campaigns.
“Personnel changes really do matter,” Thompson said.
Dan Parks contributed to this article.
Correction: An earlier version of this article mistakenly referred to Seattle’s King County election board instead of its election department.
