Bolder Advocacy

Advocacy efforts, including lobbying, are critically important to the success of many nonprofits. Advocacy by 501(c)(3) organizations is legal, as long as your organization follows the rules. Of course, like other work your organization does, advocacy requires financial support. There are many ways in which you can raise money for advocacy, including fundraising events, membership dues, individual donations, and grants from public or private foundations.

Your organization may choose one or all of these options. Chances are you will want to approach foundations to support your advocacy activities. When you do, there are a few things you should know about foundations and how to successfully obtain their funding for advocacy and lobbying. Sometimes the wording in your grant proposal or report can make all the difference, as in the example at the beginning of this section. This guide will focus on helping you understand foundations’ capacity to fund advocacy and how you can maximize your opportunities to gain foundation support through careful proposal writing and reporting.

In this resource, you will find information on the rules that govern advocacy funding by private and public foundations, the different kinds of advocacy that you can choose to engage in as a nonprofit, the types of grants you can seek to support this advocacy, and Do’s and Don’ts for writing grant proposals and reports.