The Stages and Strategies of Advocacy Among Nonprofit Reproductive Health Providers

Research suggests that 501(c)(3) organizations play an active role in governance, shaping both the formulation and implementation of policy through advocacy. Previous work has, however, produced relatively inconsistent findings concerning the causes of and constrains on the advocacy function. In an attempt to reconcile these inconsistencies, this study draws on a theoretical model of strategic decision making in organizations, which suggests that decisions such as advocacy are best conceived of as a two-stage process. This approach produces the expectation that nonprofit organizations considering advocacy first decide whether the potential policy benefits are sufficient to undertake any form of political activity and then choose among the set of political tactics available to them. These hypotheses are tested in an analysis of the advocacy activities of more than 500 nonprofit reproductive health service providers.