The recession may actually be prompting nonprofit organizations to boost their involvement in advocacy and civic engagement according to data from a recent Johns Hopkins Nonprofit Listening Post Project Sounding. The survey covered a diverse nationwide sample of nonprofit groups in four broad fields of nonprofit action (children and family services, community and economic development, elderly housing and services, arts and culture) and specifically focused on the effects of the current economic recession on such organizations.

More specifically, the survey revealed that nearly half (45 percent) of all respondents implemented or expanded advocacy efforts for organizational funding between September 2008 and March 2009 in direct response to the economic downturn. In addition, over a quarter of all respondents increased advocacy activities on behalf of their clients or field (27 percent) and joined an advocacy coalition with other organizations (26 percent). Moreover, despite the significant economic downturn, just 2 percent of all respondents noted that they reduced advocacy on behalf of their clients or field during this six month period.

A significant proportion of respondents also are planning on increasing their advocacy activities over the next 12 months in light of their expectations of future and deeper revenue cuts. Thus, 50 percent of all respondents indicated that they plan to become more involved in advocacy, while just 3 percent expect to decrease such activities.

Overall, then, our data show that economic stress may actually encourage nonprofits to become more involved in the political process. Hopefully this will be one silver lining of the turbulent economic times our country’s critical nonprofits are experiencing.

Lester Salamon and Stephanie Geller are the Director and the Research Project Manager, respectively, for the Center for Civil Society Studies at Johns Hopkins Institute for Policy Studies.