Advocacy for Social Change

Coalitions and the Organizations That Lead Them

Herbert J. Rubin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351348478
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Ciencias sociales
• Subtopic: Sociología

This book portrays how small, geographically dispersed, and progressive social change and social service organizations working within a coalition can influence national-level social policies. Based on extensive empirical research on two national organizations and their local affiliates, one focusing on affordable housing and the other working to protect lower-income communities, this book shows the ways in which professionally staffed organizations that coordinate coalitions come about, and describes their work to mobilize coalition members to lobby and advocate, providing information, analysis and instruction to facilitate such action and, in so doing, becoming the public voice for the social change efforts of coalitions. Advocacy for Social Change details the characteristics of these organizations that the author has labeled as focal catalytic coalition organizations and then provides numerous examples of campaigns led by them on affordable housing and economic justice; campaigns that illustrate tactics that other social change organizations can emulate. As such, it will appeal to scholars of sociology with interests in social problems, social action, political sociology, urban studies, community development and organizing while extending the literature on interest group lobbying.

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Part I

The focal catalytic coalition model

This section introduces the concept of a focal catalytic coalition organization—an FCCO—an organization formed to guide the members of a progressive advocacy coalition in efforts to promote and defend policies and public programs that benefit the clients of the member organizations. It provides the background examples that are used throughout the book to illustrate techniques of coalition action that other groups can emulate.

Chapter 1 suggests a theory on the development and role of an FCCO, then elaborates on how an FCCO mobilizes coalition members to join in shared advocacy efforts. Particular attention is paid to the signature issues, proactive efforts spearheaded by FCCOs to bring about major changes that benefit the clients that the coalition members serve.

The next two chapters describe the NCRC and the NLIHC—the organizations that suggested the FCCO model. The NCRC—the National Community Reinvestment Coalition—promotes economic justice for lower-income people, paying particular attention to the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), and works to ensure that banks comply with this act while pushing to extend CRA to accommodate the major changes to the financial system. The NLIHC—the National Low Income Housing Coalition—advocates for programs for affordable housing, concentrating on those that aid the lowest-income groups, both defending current programs and seeking out new sources of funding for housing extremely low-income individuals.

Both chapters contain brief summaries of on-going policy issues of concern to each of the coalitions, along with discussions of the signature issues.

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1 Advocating for the poor through state and national coalitions

On a daily basis millions of individuals, especially those living in poor communities, confront a series of cascading, reinforcing problems—lack of job opportunities, crime, inadequate opportunity for education, along with the deteriorating physical infrastructure of their neighborhoods. Many of these individuals are rent-burdened, and cannot obtain affordable quality housing without assistance, yet public subsidies for housing have fallen far behind the need. To improve both their personal situation and that of their neighborhood—with better housing or expanded employment or educational opportunities—requires access to capital, yet, as a result of systemic changes in the financial system, along with persisting class and racial discrimination in lending, access to capital for the poor and minorities has decreased. Larger banks have gobbled up smaller ones eliminating branches in poor neighborhoods. When a person in a poor neighborhood needs a loan to purchase or fix a home, start a business, pay for a medical emergency, or send a child to college, options are limited, often forcing individuals to take out over-priced subprime loans or, worse yet, dealing with predatory lenders.

To assist poor individuals and lower-income neighborhoods, thousands of service, advocacy, housing and development non-profit organizations—ranging from community development corporations, advocates for low-income renters, tenants’ associations, alternative financial organizations, legal assistance agencies, along with social service agencies for the poor, elderly and disabled—have come into being. These small non-profits do yeoman work, helping individuals, person by person, and neighborhoods, place by place. But they are limited in the scale of what they can do. Resources, especially those provided by the public sector, are nowhere near enough to handle needs while laws and regulations favor financial institutions, disadvantaging lower-income people and communities.

To lobby the public sector for increased funding or to advocate for laws and regulations that benefit lower-income individuals and poorer neighborhoods requires a substantial commitment of time. Yet, these small non-profits are already overwhelmed by their daily work and their staff lack the time and the expertise required for sustained lobbying efforts. When they do engage in political or regulatory battles they face a slew of skilled and experienced lobbyists working for the for-profit sector, along with persistent opposition from conservative officials who abhor progressive social programs. We have a David and Goliath situation in which the contest is slanted in Goliath’s favor. A modern-day David’s sling shot is needed.

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In spite of these obstacles, non-profit agencies try to advocate for the poor (Bass et al. 2007; Berry and Arons 2003; Hula 1999). For instance, a national survey of non-profit organizations found that most non-profits engaged in policy advocacy, but could only devote a small percentage of their resources to do so (Salamon et al. 2008: p. 1). These organizations faced opposition that was far better funded (Salamon et al. 2008: p. 3). Furthermore, most lobbying was done by the executive director who is overwhelmed with other tasks (Anasti and Mosley 2009: p. 3). When expertise in lobbying is gained by these smaller organizations, it is then lost because of the frequency of turnover in knowledgeable staff (Bass et al. 2007: p. 37).

To further complicate matters, some non-profits feel that their funders oppose advocacy work (Bass et al. 2007: pp. 18–20), while others mistakenly fear that they will lose their non-profit status if they lobby (Berry and Arons 2003: pp. 146–166). This fear gains credence as conservative politicians seek to legislatively muzzle the efforts of non-profits to engage in advocacy and lobbying efforts (Cigler et al. 2007: p. 15; Berry and Aron 2003: p. 85; Bass et al. 2007: p. 77).

Leaders of on-the-ground non-profit organizations eventually recognize that to succeed in battling well-funded for-profit opponents and conservative officials they must form coalitions that “are now playing a considerable role in nonprofit lobbying and advocacy” (Salamon et al. 2008: p. 1). Coalitions transmit information as “coalitions are a lifeline of information, scuttlebutt, and rumors about developments in the policy process. Coalitions function as an early warning system for developing issues” (Hula 1999: p. 35). While sister national citizen groups that aid the non-profit world “invest substantial resources in hiring Ph.D.’s and garner the expertise that enable them to become players in the cycles of policy making that may extend over decades” (Berry and Arons 2003: p. 129). In addition, being part of a coalition encourages the individual non-profits to increase their own efforts at advocacy as collaboration between organizations in a coalition on issues regarding clients they serve also increases the willingness to be further involved in advocacy work (Mosley 2010: p. 62).

However, research is mostly silent on how coalitions are able to sustain advocacy work. This study demonstrates how, when coalitions form an organization that I have labeled as a focal catalytic coalition organization—FCCO—to help them with their advocacy work, they also bring about an entity that can speak for them, teach them what to do and provide them with the wherewithal to do so to catalyze and sustain the work of the coalition.

An FCCO is a permanently staffed organization that stimulates and coordinates a coalition’s advocacy efforts. Focal catalytic coalition organizations closely track the issues that impact coalition members and their clients, provide the expertise need to advocate, teach and motivate member organizations on how to effectively lobby, and provide sophisticated technical analyses on both problems and legislative or regulatory solutions. Focal catalytic coalition organizations help coalesce widely scattered coalition members through on-going e-mail contact, newsletters, conference calls and, most importantly, by holding national conferences during which members share information, lobby together and through mutual support sustain the morale needed over what are often long-drawn-out legislative and regulatory battles. The FCCO itself hires staff with the expertise to continually develop and push for the coalition’s legislative and regulatory agenda and it becomes the catalyst that turns coalition members into a group of effective advocates.

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The skilled staff of focal catalytic coalition organizations engage with regulatory and administrative agencies, working to clarify regulations and administrative procedures; they closely monitor and, at times, propose legislation that impacts coalition membership; they comment on proposed rule changes and testify at legislative and regulatory hearings, while encouraging coalition members to do likewise. The FCCO staff learn about the problems faced by clients of coalition members and then initiate programmatic and policy ideas that become the basis for sustained campaigns for legislation or regulatory reforms to alleviate these problems. The technical staff of the FCCOs analyze data that speak to the policy issues and distribute this data widely.

Bringing about policy changes requires years of dedicated effort. Smaller community-based non-profits do not have the resources to sustain such efforts; a crucial role of the focal catalytic coalition organization is to maintain the drum beat supporting change efforts, all the while adjusting coalition proposals to mesh with a changing political climate.

Focal catalytic coalition organization staff devote themselves full time to these efforts, becoming David’s sling shot in a coalition’s battle against Goliath. Yet little is known about how FCCOs accomplish their work, what they do on their own, and how they guide and motivate coalition members in their legislative and regulatory battles. The purpose of this book is to fill this gap in the literature on how non-profit interest group lobbying is done and, in doing so, to draw out examples that progressive groups can emulate.

As indicated in the appendix, the descriptions in this book are primarily based on a long-term, micro-level examination of the efforts of two DC-based focal catalytic coalition organizations: the National Low Income Housing Coalition—NLIHC—that works to preserve and increase the supply of affordable housing; and the National Community Reinvestment Coalition—NCRC—whose purpose is to assure access to capital for lower-income individuals and minorities, in part through defending the Community Reinvestment Act. Supplementary detailed examples are also drawn from three Illinois coalition organizations associated with NCRC and NLIHC.

A schematic model of how FCCOs work with coalition members to influence the public sector

The major thesis of this book is that the success of smaller non-profits in advocating for lower-income people depends on their being guided by a focal catalytic coalition organization—an FCCO—that coordinates and stimulates advocacy efforts. In the remainder of this chapter, I present a schematic model suggesting how FCCOs come about and how they then guide the effort of coalition members.

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While the model was developed by observing the actions of NLIHC and NCRC, three Illinois affiliates, and interviewing and re-interviewing their staff and some board members, it extends far beyond the case study to suggest a general process of interest-group mobilization within coalitions. The interactions and techniques described—how an FCCO intermediates between government and smaller non-profits, techniques for prioritizing issues in a coalition with a diverse membership, the procedures of lobbying and advocacy stimulated by an FCCO, or the importance of research data in understanding and then acting to solve problems—are applicable to all forms of coalition advocacy, irrespective of the specific issue areas.

I present the model in three separate overlapping stages: the formation of an FCCO, what functions FCCOs perform, and how coalitions led by FCCOs determine which issues to pursue.

The formation of an FCCO

An FCCO comes about from the convergence of three separate streams. First, city- or state-wide coalitions of smaller non-profits come into being through the efforts of the leaders of local activist organizations. These leaders know each other—they work in a small arena—how many people in one city are building homes for extremely low-income people or are bringing legal cases against economic predators? These individuals seek the same grants and are present at the same public hearings on state and local legislation. Eventually the leaders recognize the value of forming a city-wide or state-wide coalition organization that can speak with elected officials for the shared interests of coalition members while disseminating program-relevant information to activists. Over time, these separate state-level organizations make contact with one another, as again they are operating within a narrow arena in which personal contact is inevitable. Recognizing that much of importance occurs in Washington, DC, these state-level organizations become part of the effort to set up a national-level FCCO.

Concurrently, in Washington, two distinct types of organizations are paying attention to programs of concern to the local organizations. When major federal funding programs come into being freestanding organizations are formed to monitor and report on the specific federal programs. In addition, in Washington, DC, a handful of progressive organizations—functionally somewhere between think tanks and advocacy organizations—are present. Organizations such as the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities or the Center for Community Change, each with a skilled professional staff, monitor numerous federal programs, accumulating knowledge on the effectiveness of specific programs as well as data on program need. These organizations disseminate information on programs and at times lobby. These organizations usually focus on a broad array of issues varying from welfare policies to environmental issues, and cannot devote their full resources to any one matter. Their staff are acutely aware when problems crop up in specific programs or regulatory arenas but lack the time to steadfastly pursue all matters of concern.

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We have, then, state coalitions of smaller local organizations, as well as nationally based think tank or research organizations that are concerned about an issue area but often lack the time or means to mobilize a network of local organizations to lobby. This situation persists until a crisis occurs impacting a specific programmatic or regulatory area. For example, funding for a vital program might be seriously threatened, or a social or economic problem dramatically intensifies. The state coalitions are aware of the problem but lack the Washington presence, while the think tanks or advocacy organizations located in Washington have too many issues on their plates to spare resources to try to alleviate the specific crisis.

In response, the DC-based think tank or research organizations join with the state coalitions to cobble together funding to jump start an organizational entity that can focus on the narrow issue of immediate concern. This entity can vary from being a meta-coalition, that is a loose grouping of separate organizations with staff temporarily lent from the existing DC organizations, at one extreme, or, at the other extreme, it becomes the seed for an FCCO. When the problem is transitory and is resolved the meta-coalition is abandoned, and no permanent FCCO comes into being.

However, when it becomes apparent that problems are persisting and that continual attention is required, the Washington-based organizations that monitor numerou...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Advocacy for Social Change
• Solving Social Problems
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Abbreviations, Acronyms or Shorthand Expressions
• Part I The Focal Catalytic Coalition Model
• Part II Mobilizing and informing members
• Part III Advocacy and Lobbying Efforts to Bring about Policy Changes
• Part IV Bringing it all Together at the Annual Meeting
• Conclusion: Reflections on the Theory and Models for Coalition Advocacy and Suggestions for Progressive Activism
• Appendix: Methodological Approach
• Index