Via the ever interesting Non Profit Law Blog and apropos to the portion of Barry Hessenius’ interview with Fractured Atlas’ Adam Huttler I recently focused on, is a piece by Ezra Klein in the Washington Post about politicizing your giving to non-profits.

In a piece titled “Giving is personal. Make it political,” Klein paraphrases Shakespeare, “I come not to praise charity. I come to politicize it. Or at least make it more aware of the political world around it.” He essentially takes the “give a man to fish…teach a man to fish” approach by suggesting while giving to a organization focused on helping the community assists them in their immediate purpose, giving to a non-profit that does policy advocacy helps change the operating environment for all the non-profits pursuing that goal.

He ends the piece saying,

“The point of this isn’t to polarize philanthropy or to warn anyone away from traditional charities. There’s room – and need – for an array of approaches. But at the end of the day, the government is the central player in many of these spheres, with the scale and power to make changes that other actors simply can’t contemplate. Charities that work to make the government’s policies better have a unique ability to take small investments and turn them into tremendous outcomes. If you’re looking for bang for your philanthropic buck, they’re the place to start.”

I have to admit a fair bit of skepticism when I read this. Klein writes for a paper in a town where lobbying makes the world go round so his view about effective use of money is necessarily tainted by that.

On the other hand, he writes for a paper in a town where lobbying makes things happen so he has first hand expertise on the subject.

And as I noted as I began this post, there is a lot of discussion these days that the arts need to assert themselves in the political arena. It is a sentiment being repeated so often of late that I wonder if this has become the equivalent of the stereotyped artist who doesn’t want to be bothered with the dreary details of handling the business side of their career and gets cheated. Politics can be a dirty, intimidating business that most right minded folks don’t want to get involved with. You need only read a little further in Mark Antony’s speech where he keeps referring to Brutus and those who stabbed Caesar as honorable men to recognize this is a situation which has endured in politics for a very long time.

Many lobbyists tend to be a little unsavory too. It is enough to make you wonder if the lesser evil might be to give to a local charity who may have high overhead costs versus paying large amounts to a lobbyist and getting little in return. Is it better to be cheated locally? Granted, the arts have a number of national and regional groups who perform various advocacy functions and the arts world is small enough that we can interact with the leadership and gauge their trustworthiness.

But would you encourage your supporters to donate to them rather than to you? Would you try to convince them to support the national group so that things would be better for your organization five or ten years down the road? People give to people, not organizations so your local supporters would likely prefer to give to you. Do you then pass some of their support on to an advocacy group? Even if their gifts are not designated to a particular use, most donors likely give because they believe the donation will have a direct benefit in their community. Do you tell them your plan is to create a better environment for all the arts in your state/city/county through political activity of some sort when you solicit their donation?

Perhaps these are conversations people will start to have with those that provide support. Some may have a sophisticated understanding of the process already and can provide assistance. A minimal benefit of such effort may serve to raise the profile of many advocacy groups in the public’s mind in the process shifting them from a logo in the “We Thank Our Supporters” section to the guys fighting for policy decisions. Granted, it might be difficult to explain why the local arts organization wants to give funds to the regional organization which gives the local guys funds for the summer concert series. It can be tough to understand why the regional organization can’t use NEA grants dedicated to free public programming for advocacy efforts.