Role of Non-Profits In Election Campaigns Debated

Last week, the Hudson Institute sponsored a discussion between author Robert Egger and Georgetown University fellow Pablo Eisenberg titled Should Nonprofit Organizations Play an Active Role in Election Campaigns? A transcript of the discussion, an audio recording of it and opinion pieces from the participants that appeared in the Chronicle of Philanthropy are all available from a page on the Hudson Institute's website. Melissa Rogers has a long posting about the exchange on her blog, and BNA's Daily Report for Executives [subscription required] covered the discussion last Friday.

Here is Egger's provocative challenge:

If most people have a choice between feeding a poor kid and fighting the reason the kids are poor, they’re going to opt, right now, historically, for the organization that feeds the kid. It's like the old line – and I forget which activist said it: When I fed the poor, they called me a saint. When I asked why they were poor, they called me a communist. That's to a certain extent what’s going on here. And I think that we have to challenge this. And I do want to be able to say, vote for Joe, or vote for Jane, openly.

Eisenberg however thinks that there is plenty for non-profits to do without endorsing political candidates:

There are so many issues on which nonprofits ought to be speaking out and putting their muscle into that they're not doing. For example, how many nonprofits have had the guts to challenge foundations, corporate donors, and United Ways throughout the country on the pattern of their giving, which has in fact neglected poor people, has refused to find advocacy, and has supported primarily established organizations. You can almost count the number of nonprofits on the fingers of both hands.... How many nonprofits have attacked the excesses of corporate America? .... They should focus on those issues and not try to get involved in politics, which at the same time would endanger their tax status.