Info You Can Use: What Is Lobbying and Can I Do It?

I wasnʻt looking for it, but I fortuitously stumbled across a post from last year on Charity Lawyer Blog regarding lobbying and what sort of activities constitute lobbying and what doesn’t. There are a number of activities that don’t constitute lobbying, many of which are obvious such as sending your season brochure to people or efforts made with one’s own resources and time. There are other nebulous areas which may leave one wondering if they qualify as lobbying or not that are addressed by writer, Ellis Carter. I have only included a short list of the permitted activities.

# Some communications with executive or administrative officials. Communications with executive or administrative officials or their staff where (i) there is no reference to a specific legislative proposal; (ii) no view is expressed on such a proposal; or (iii) the official or staff person will not participate in the formulation of the legislation are not lobbying.

# Attempts to influence regulations or other administrative or executive action. Attempts to influence regulations or other administrative or executive action (including those that are implementing legislation) are not considered lobbying, even if the recipient of the communication is a legislator. This is because the action sought is not itself legislation.
[…]

# Responses to legislators asking for technical advice. Responding to written requests from a legislative body, committee or subdivision (not a single legislator or informal group of legislators) for technical advice or assistance on pending or potential legislation is not lobbying.

# Nonpartisan analysis, study or research on legislative issue. Making available the results of nonpartisan analysis, study or research on a legislative issue (with no direct call to action if it is communicated to the general public) is not considered lobbying. This must constitute an objective, educational presentation but may express an opinion or conclusion as to the desirability of legislation.

# Discussions on broad policy issues. Discussions of broad policy issues requiring a legislative solution are not lobbying, so long as the merits of the specific legislation are not discussed.

While I knew that 501 (c) 3 organizations could lobby, I didn’t know that the amount they could expend was determined on a scaled percentage of the organization’s total exempt purpose expenditures. This gets a little complicated because there are different percentages for direct lobbying and grassroots lobbying and what sort of funds those percentages apply to so I will direct you to the Charity Lawyer blog entry for more detailed information.

The definitions of direct and grassroots lobbying, according to the blog are:

* Direct lobbying. Direct lobbying is a communication with a legislator, an employee of a legislative body, or any other government employee who may participate in the formulation of the legislation that both (1) refers to a specific legislative proposal and (2) reflects a view on that proposal.

* Grass-roots lobbying. Grass roots lobbying is a communication with one or more members of the general public that: (1) refers to a specific legislative proposal, (2) reflects a view on that proposal, and (3) includes a “call to action”, directly or indirectly encouraging the recipient of the communication to engage in direct lobbying.

Carter points to the Alliance for Justice website as a resource for more information on lobbying and advocacy.

Info You Can Use: Board Minutes

Emily Chan over at Non-Profit Law Blog has written a two part series on board minutes. Both entries comprise a fantastic resource for anyone who has questions about the format and content of board minutes and the laws surrounding them. I was fortunate enough to be working on my most recent board minutes when part 1 was published and made some changes in response to the suggestions she makes. I am also a big arts administration geek and excitedly awaited the second installation of the series so I could post about it.

Part One is mostly about the format and content of the minutes. In it, she enumerates some common mistakes that are made.

* Failing to document a quorum was present;
* Failing to document or provide a clear description about a board action taken;
* Drafting a transcript of everything said at the meeting, including information that might be harmful to the organization if read by someone with access to the minutes (e.g., employees or members) or by a court reviewing a board action;
* Drafting and distributing minutes to directors after a lengthy period of time has passed;
* Waiting to approve minutes from past meetings until a substantial period of time has passed, decreasing the likelihood that mistakes will be caught and corrected; and
* Failing to maintain a reasonable document management system, resulting in the loss of minutes from past meetings.

The format of the minutes can vary, but a person unfamiliar with the organization and the issues it faces should be able to easily understand what happened in a meeting and what decisions were reached. Chan outlines what specific information that should appear in the minutes. She also discusses what information should be kept confidential, how a board should proceed into executive session to keep that information confidential, how the minutes should reference the executive session and how the minutes of the executive session should be kept.

The format should be standard from meeting to meeting, including the detail in which decisions are recorded. Minutes should be issued before the next meeting or within 60 days of the last meeting and kept forever. I always wondered about that last part. Minutes are among the items the IRS advises a non-profit keep for ever.

Which provides a segue to Part 2 of the series which deals with the legal aspect of board minutes. Directors and members both have a right to access the board minutes. The rules relating to access vary from state to state, Chan deals with California’ laws.

The IRS also has an interest in seeing the minutes. The bulk of the entry is devoted to discussing what practices are important to stay in compliance with rules and regulations for non-profits related to governance, tax code and audits.

Different agencies of your local and state government may also want access to minutes, especially if the organization is involved with legal actions associated with decisions made by the board. In the course of the merger my presenters consortium is seeking to pursue with a sister organization, the secretary of state requires copies of board minutes where different decisions and resolutions were discussed and passed.

Info You Can Use: Rebutt This!

This first one is more of a project to contribute to than use, but ultimately useful just the same. Via the Americans for the Arts blog, an artist in Pennsylvania, Amy Scheidegger, got a little steamed when she overheard two teenagers dismissing the arts as a valid pursuit. “Art is, like, the most worthless degree anyone can get. Like, haha, they have a degree in making shit with popsicle sticks.” Scheidegger decided she was going to put together a book of responses to the idea that art is worthless, an Artistic Rebuttal Book.

She has put out a call for entries to be included in the book.

“For anybody who wants to contribute to the book with their own statement on the importance of art, or where art is hiding that the normal non-artist doesn’t see, or statistics about how much money is spent in any art-related field, whatever you want really, that cites the importance and everywhere-ness of the art we live and breath, now’s your chance to voice your love of art!

YOU don’t even have to be an artist, maybe you just know one (married one, birthed one or just appreciate their hard work, etc) And the statement can be about any kind of art as well: theater, dance, music, visual, the written word, movies, you name it,”

March 12 is her deadline so she can take an abridged version to law makers on Arts Advocacy Day. May 15 is her hard print deadline.

Second tip of the day:

You may or may not know that Facebook has changed their Pages layout. Those are the non-personal pages that businesses can make for themselves. Thanks to the Technology in the Arts Twitter feed, an article about how to best use the new features came to my attention. You should read the tips if you have a Facebook Page account because the changes become permanent whether you opt-in or not on March 1 and some settings you may have turned off will get turned back on by default.

One thing they don’t talk about that I have finally gotten to work with the upgrade is the Username function. I could never get a short, easy to remember username to register so I could actually post a Facebook address that wasn’t 60 characters long and full of arcane symbols. (e.g. www.Facebook.com/mytheatre) I was always told the name was available, but when I confirmed I wanted it, the webpage just hung. Today, first try I finally won the battle and have a nice brief address. If you too have had this problem, the solution may be at hand!

Info You Can Use: Free Speech and Copyright Law Resource

There is a handy online guide about free speech and copyright and the arts, appropriately named Online Arts Rights, created by the Center for Democracy and Technology. While you ultimately want to consult a lawyer about such things, the site provides a good resource if you have questions on a variety of subjects.

They tackle issues related to “Sexual Content, Violence, Political Speech, Hate Speech, Depictions of Real People and Sampling and Appropriation.” Another area looks at the role of an artist and an online content provider and issues they should take into consideration. A third area deals with the penalties under U.S. criminal and civil law as well as how the government can and can not apply regulations.

Because so much content is being delivered over the internet, they also touch briefly upon how one might run afoul international law. As you might imagine, there is very little concrete to tell because it is often unclear what laws apply. Those where the content was created, those where the servers and routers are located or those where the recipient is located. On a related note, the site also addresses violations of an internet provider or content host’s terms of service and how material protected by the First Amendment won’t protect you from having your account shut down.