Navigating the Fine Line: Balancing Advocacy and Lobbying for Effective Impact

Are you passionate about advocacy but concerned about the fine line between impactful advocacy and lobbying expenses? Join us for an insightful webinar, ” Navigating the Fine Line: Balancing Advocacy and Lobbying for Effective Impact,” where we delve into the art of structuring advocacy efforts strategically within the boundaries of non-lobbying expenses.

Speaker

Allen Mattison, a partner at Trister, Ross, Schadler & Gold, PLLC, represents nonprofit organizations on federal and state lobbying and campaign finance laws, in addition to corporate, tax and employment law.  He advises a variety of public health organizations on where the line lies between educational and lobbying activities, helping them to stretch their non-lobbying funds for the greatest possible advocacy impact.  That way, nonprofits can save scarce lobbying dollars for when they will have the biggest bang for the buck.

Before becoming a lawyer, Allen worked in political communications, serving as the Sierra Club’s national media relations director and in communications roles on campaigns and in the U.S. Senate.  These experiences give Allen perspective on the challenges nonprofit managers face in developing programs that maximize their advocacy power within the restrictions imposed on section 501(c)(3) organizations.

Using his communications background, Allen has helped numerous organizations understand how to structure their social media outreach without violating lobbying and campaign-finance restrictions.  He wrote Friends, Tweets, and Links: IRS Treatment of Social Media Activities By Section 501(c)(3) Organizations, 67 Exempt Org. Tax Rev. 445 (May 2011), one of the first scholarly articles to address charities’ election-related use of Facebook, Twitter and other social networking tools.  He also wrote Influencing Public Policy in the Digital Age: The Law of Online Lobbying and Election-related Activities (Alliance for Justice, Fall 2011), a guidebook for nonprofit managers seeking to maximize their social media power.