Advocacy Organizations

The Covering Kids and Families program was a national initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to reduce the number of eligible but uninsured children and adults through enrollment in Medicaid and SCHIP. This report presents trends in media use and in-person outreach conducted by state grantees and local projects funded through the initiative. While grantees faced funding and staffing limitations, demand for their services remained high due to decreases in state-funded outreach. Grantees stretched their resources by partnering with other organizations, relying heavily on media outreach to reach large numbers of families, and performing outreach at already-established events.

This report concludes a comprehensive evaluation of The Data & Democracy II project, a program funded by The California Endowment and implemented by UCLA. These organizations sought to increase the capacity of local community-based organizations (CBOs) to collect, analyze, and interpret data to identify and prioritize areas for action. The program was structured after the Train-the-Trainer model, in which a group from local CBOs is trained in these skills and required to disseminate the information by conducting workshops in their own communities. We examine the program's effectiveness, long-term impacts, and challenges through observations, surveys and case studies.

There are more than 19,000 nonprofit organizations devoted to supporting public education in the United States. These organizations include booster clubs, parent-teacher groups, public education funds, scholarship funds, high school alumni associations, and others. This report assesses the current status of education support organizations; provides details on the activities, capacities, and resources of public education funds; and compares Public Education Network member organizations with other types of education funds. On the basis of a survey of public education funds and an analysis of the latest data available from the National Center for Charitable Statistics, the report identifies key similarities and differences among the groups.

This study examines immigrant integration through the lens of community-based organizations. Based on interviews with nonprofit leaders and an analysis of data from the National Center for Charitable Statistics, the study found that immigrant-serving nonprofits provide a wide range of programs and services to foreign-born communities which promote the social and political mobility of newcomers. Findings also suggest a potential spatial mismatch between immigrant-serving organizations and the people they serve. The organizations are concentrated in the metropolitan area while immigrant populations are growing in the outer suburbs. Moreover, different political and administrative structures and policies affect the ability of these nonprofits to serve their constituents.

This study, the first comprehensive look at IRS data on more than 26,000 environmental and conservation organizations – 8,000 of which had revenues of $25,000 or more – reveals a core of prominent national organizations and a larger, more rapidly growing universe of regional, local, and other specialized groups. Taken as a whole, the environmental movement expanded in number of organizations, members, and in total revenues almost every year since 1960. It focused less on advocacy than on projects and education, and was younger, more densely networked, and more dependent upon grants and contributions than was the nonprofit sector in general.

This brief profiles community-based nonprofits in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area that are helping newcomers adjust to their new social and political environment, while affirming their cultural identities. The brief focuses on nonprofit groups that serve Asian, Middle Eastern and African populations and examines the characteristics of these organizations in terms of their number, size, location, and scope of activities. The findings provide a unique picture of the community-based resources that are helping immigrants incorporate into American life.

Over the past decade the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area has become increasingly diverse, driven in large part by the growth of the Latino population. By 2006, almost 610,000 Latinos lived in the region. Today's immigrants, like those before them, contribute to the development of civil society organizations and rely on them for services and activities. Yet little is known about these organizations and the ways they help newcomers build and engage in civil society. This brief provides an overview of nonprofits and religious congregations in the Washington, D.C. region that focus on providing services and support to the Latino population.

America's nonprofit sector continues to grow faster than its business sector or its government. The Nonprofit Almanac 2008 presents data on nonprofits' place in the national economy and trends in wages, employment, private giving, volunteering and finances. The tables and graphics will give scholars, practitioners, and policymakers the data they need at a glance, while the textual analysis will help them plan for the future.