Lobbying Activities and Your Non-Profiit 501(c)3 Status

Q I’m a volunteer board member of a nonprofit agency, and the state has run out of money to fund our rape crisis center. We are trying to figure out if we can get involved in a campaign to convince the Governor to find the money elsewhere or submit a supplemental budget to the Legislature. Our lawyer warned us that if we, as a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, got involved in any lobbying we could lose our nonprofit status and all of our funding from foundations and individual contributors.

A. Find another lawyer or accountant who has read and understands the IRS regulations governing public charities. Your 501(c)3 organization is a public charity. The IRS regulations do impose limitations on lobbying, but do not forbid it. Take a good look at the Alliance for Justice at www.allianceforjustice.org/nonprofit. Their materials spell out very clearly the limitations on how much of a non-profit’s budget (staff time and material resources) may be spent on lobbying activities. Meanwhile, please know that as a volunteer board member you can do all the lobbying you want as long as you avoid threats of bodily harm and bribes.

Access to Your Legislator

Q. Every time I call my State Representative, he’s always tied up in a meeting or in session, and I end up talking to a staff person. She is always nice and polite, and has been very helpful to me in the past, but damn it, I’d rather talk directly to my Rep than spend 10 minutes dictating a long message about my problem to somebody I barely know.

A. First of all you wouldn’t get 10 minutes of your Rep’s time; you’d get 2 minutes on the run. He wouldn’t be able to find any paper to write your story on, and if he had some he’d probably spell your name wrong and mix up your telephone number. You are so lucky! Good staffers are supposed to respond politely to both serious and silly requests from constituents. They keep files on each issue, record the names and numbers of all callers and figure out how to solve a constituent’s problem and then give their boss the credit for it. They even know how to decipher the scribbles on the scrap of paper that Rep throws on their desk with a “Here, take care of this guy for me will you?”