After the three-day Nonprofit Congress in May, the National Council of Nonprofit Associations (NCNA), which produced the Nonprofit Congress, organized a lobbying day to create awareness about the nonprofit sector. The New York delegation was one of many that went to Capitol Hill to lobby our Representatives and Senators about the National Capacity Building Initiative (put forth by NCNA). The bill provides $25 million for training and infrastructure for charities to help them become more effective and sustainable (half the funds from the federal government, half from private sources). That’s me (Howard Adam Levy, Principal of Red Rooster Group) in the yellow jacket, with Fred Fields, from the United Way of New York City, behind me, and Doug Sauer, Executive Director of Council of Community Services of New York State, bottom left.
The lobbying effort was important on three fronts:
1. To generate awareness about the need for funds specifically for non-program activities to allow nonprofits to pay for leadership training and operational costs.
2. To demonstrate to government the impact and importance of the nonprofit sector, which accounts for $1 trillion of the economy and 10% of the workforce.
3. To promote advocating for the nonprofit sector as an essential activity for nonprofits and to show that we can be effective when organized (with the NCNA the organizing body for the social services sector).
WAKE UP CALL: What are you doing to advocate for the nonprofit sector?
At the CT Association of Nonprofits’s conference, Paul Light discusses what it means to be nonprofit and why we should advocate for change. Read more here.