Nonprofit Advocacy Tactics: Thinking Inside The Box?

As part of a social change agenda, nonprofit organisations engage in activities that contribute to debate and influence the development of public policy. This article presents the initial findings from a study investigating whether nonprofit organisations do participate in advocacy activities and if they do, how are they advocating and engaging in public debate without risking their current and future sources of funding. The key findings from the research have identified that the extent of advocacy by the nonprofit organisations studied has not diminished. A model, built on the findings from the literature on how nonprofit organisations approach advocacy, is applied to explain the advocacy activities by the case study organisations. These nonprofit organisations are identifying what they see to be the appropriate advocacy strategies to fit their organisational objectives, policies, funding sources and resources.