So, my SRP advisor was arrested(Or how I learned about nonprofits and political advocacy)

This past Saturday, one of my onsite SRP advisors was arrested in Fountain Hills at protest blocking the road to a Donald Trump event. He was detained for 14 hours and then released. You may have seen his mugshot on the local news

I mention this because it ties in with the topic of this week's blog post, the political advocacy of nonprofits. Before I begin, however, I want to make a few things clear: This post is not in support or opposition to Donald Trump, nor do I want a discussion/argument over Trump himself. Also, Mike, my supervisor, was not at all acting in his capacity as executive director of DCC during the protest. Rather, he was participating in a protest organized by Puente Arizona, a migrant rights nonprofit.

With all that established, lets talk about nonprofits and the political advocacy. Due to their tax exempt status, non-profits face very strict rules in how they go about influencing politics, and these rules can vary, depending on nonprofit. For the purpose of this discussion,however, we are going to focus on two types of nonprofits: 501(c)3s and 501(c)4s. 501(c)3s are defined by the IRS as organizations with goals to provide "charitable, religious, educational, scientific, literary, testing for public safety, fostering national or international amateur sports competition, and preventing cruelty to children or animals." There is a noticeable lack of any explicit mentions of  political activity in that definition, and as a result, 501(c)3s are extremely limited in how they can influence the political process. Most significantly, they cannot participate in any election campaign. That means they cannot even issue a written statement in support or opposition of a candidate. However, they are allowed to educate and mobilize voters in the communities they serve, as long as they do so in a non biased and nonpartisan manner. For example, a 501(c)3, such as DCC, could publish a voter guide as long as it did not clearly favor one candidate over the other. 501(c)3s can also engage in a limited degree of legislative activities, more commonly known as lobbying. However, this lobbying cannot form a substantial part of the organization's activities. There are two tests to determine if 501(c)3 violates this rule: the substantial part test and the expenditure test. The substantial test, according to the IRS, is based off of a variety of factors, including the time a 501(c)3's compensated and volunteer workers spend on the lobbying and what percentage of its expenditures the 501(c)3 spends on lobbying. The expenditure test is more rigid and harder to explain, so I pasted the IRS table describing it:

If the amount of exempt purpose expenditures is:	Lobbying nontaxable amount is:
≤ $500,000	20% of the exempt purpose expenditures
>$500,00 but ≤ $1,000,000	$100,000 plus 15% of the excess of exempt purpose expenditures over $500,000
> $1,000,000 but ≤ $1,500,000	$175,000 plus 10% of the excess of exempt purpose expenditures over $1,000,000
>$1,500,000	$225,000 plus 5% of the exempt purpose expenditures over $1,500,000

If a 501(c)3 violates these rules, its tax exempt status is revoked by the IRS, which can be a huge blow for the organization, as all of its expenditures become taxable.

The second type of nonprofits discussed in this post are 501(c)4s. Their primary purpose is to maintain the social welfare of the communities they serve. As a result, they allowed more freedom to participate in the political process. They can lobby legislation related to the welfare of the community they serve. They can also participate in a candidate's election campaign, either in support or opposition. However, it cannot comprise a majority of their activities.

So what does this mean for DCC? Since they are a 501(c)3, they cannot officially engage in any explicit political advocacy. However, that does not mean they cannot influence their local government or focus on certain political issues. For example, if there was a candidate running on an anti-immigration and pro-deportation platform, DCC would be able to inform their local community about this candidate and his or her beliefs, as long as it is a nonpartisan manner(they can't take a side). DCC can also use its services to support other nonprofits(specifically 501(c)4s), that engage in political advocacy. For example, during the "Yes for Dysart" vote on whether to continue an override to fund Dysart Unified School District Schools, DCC lent its space to the Valley Interfaith Project(VIP), a 501(c)4 dedicated towards maintaining and raising school funding throughout the Valley. Using DCC's space as base of operations, VIP was able to run a door to door campaign throughout El Mirage. As cuts to education can particularly affect low income neighborhoods, DCC engaged in an indirect form of political advocacy by supporting groups that represent the interests of their clients. However, DCC cannot discriminate in how it offers its services. That means if a group opposed to the override want to use DCC's services in a similar way to VIP, DCC could not deny them.

Unlike DCC, whose primary goal is to provide services to the community of El Mirage, Puente(who organized the Donald Trump protest) seeks to represent and maintain the social welfare of their community, immigrants in Arizona. Therefore, they are classified as a 501(c)4. As a result, they can play a far more direct role in the political process, such as the protest they organized last Saturday against Donald Trump. However, they are not solely political in their methods, as that would violate IRS rules. Outside of their political campaigns, Puente also runs arts programs that help migrant communities express and describe their experiences and also organizes courses that educate migrants on their legal rights when detained by immigration enforcement officers.

That's the basics of political advocacy and nonprofits. In the future, I hope to expand on the relationship between the funding nonprofits receive and the political advocacy they engage, as well as the national role of nonprofits in the political process.