Conceptualizing Organizational Advocacy Across the Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector: Goals, Tactics, and Motivation. (April 2023)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Mosley, Jennifer E.; Suárez, David F.; Hwang, Hokyu
• Other Names: Guo Chao guest-editor.; Bies Angela guest-editor.; Phillips Susan guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Nonprofit and voluntary sector quarterly. Volume 52:Number 1(2023)Supplement
• Page Start: 187S
• Page End: 211S
• Publication Date: 2023-04
• Subjects: advocacy -- nonprofit -- tactics -- social change -- social movements -- international; Nonprofit organizations -- Periodicals; Voluntarism -- Periodicals; Charity organization -- Periodicals; 361.763
• DOI: 10.1177/08997640221103247
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0899-7640

Abstract

Advocacy, essential to the unique role of the nonprofit sector, is a term that suffers from a definitional morass that is both crowded and inconsistent, undermining research progress. This problem has been exacerbated by changes in our understanding of the wide variety of nonprofit and voluntary organizations involved in advocacy. To address construct clarity and help research bridge disciplinary silos, we present a framework that, while drawing clearer boundaries around the construct's peripheries, integrates three major dimensions of organizational advocacy among nonprofits: goals, tactics, and motivations. This integrative framework focuses on the targets, contexts, and types of nonprofit actors associated with these dimensions, pointing to avenues for new lines of comparative research. We demonstrate how this framework can elucidate institutional change and advance the field by promoting new understandings of advocacy that better matches changing empirical reality.