BUSI 409 Week 8 Discussion Board Forum 4 Replies Example

Discussion Board Forum 4 Replies: Advocacy and Social Entrepreneurship

BUSI 409 Nonprofit Management and Governance, Discussion Board Forum 4 Replies

Thread by [Student Name]

The two classmates and their threads are composites; the textbook, research, tax rules and Scripture cited are real, and textbook locations are given by chapter because page numbers differ between printings.

Reply to Rachel

Rachel, your essay argued that the church-based refugee ministry should stay out of policy debates entirely because any lobbying would put its tax exemption at risk. Your caution is understandable, but the rules are less restrictive than many people assume. Worth (2017), in Chapter 11, distinguishes advocacy, which includes educating the public and policymakers about an issue, from lobbying, which attempts to influence specific legislation, and both from partisan political activity.

Federal law treats these differently. Public charities are allowed to lobby provided lobbying stays an insubstantial share of what they do, and many charities may elect a spending-based test under section 501(h) of the tax code that sets clear dollar limits (Internal Revenue Service, 2024). What a charity may not do is support or oppose candidates for public office. A ministry could therefore meet with legislators about a refugee resettlement bill, invite families to testify at a hearing and publish a guide to the issue, while never endorsing a candidate.

Proverbs calls on God's people to speak for those who cannot speak and to defend the poor and needy (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016, Proverbs 31:8-9). Refugees often cannot vote or speak easily to officials, so a ministry that serves them is well placed to speak on their behalf. Silence out of excessive caution may leave them without a voice. A simple policy approved by the board, setting what kinds of advocacy the ministry will do and how it will track lobbying time, would protect both the mission and the exemption.

Would your ministry's board be comfortable adopting such a policy, or would it want legal advice first?

Reply to Marcus

Marcus, your essay proposed that the youth mentoring program open a coffee shop staffed by its teens, so that within a few years it would no longer need donations. The idea has real strengths, since the teens would gain job skills and the shop would make the program visible. Worth (2017), in Chapter 14, describes such ventures as social enterprise and notes that earned income can diversify revenue and advance the mission at the same time.

Dees (1998) offered an important caution, however. He observed that many nonprofit ventures fail to earn a profit, that managing a business can pull leaders' attention away from the mission, and that the skills needed to run a shop differ from those needed to run a program. A coffee shop that trains teens may need subsidy, not provide it, because training workers slows service and raises costs. That does not make it a bad idea; it makes it a program with a revenue offset rather than a replacement for donors.

Jesus pointed out that no one sets out to build a tower without first estimating the expense to be sure it can be finished (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016, Luke 14:28). A careful budget, a small pilot such as a weekend cart and honest projections shared with donors would let the program test the idea before committing. Donors may even be more willing to give if they can see the teens at work. Would the program keep the shop if it trained teens well but never broke even?

References

Dees, J. G. (1998). Enterprising nonprofits. Harvard Business Review, 76(1), 54-67.

English Standard Version Bible. (2016). Crossway. (Original work published 2001)

Internal Revenue Service. (2024). Lobbying. https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/lobbying

Worth, M. J. (2017). Nonprofit management: Principles and practice (4th ed.). SAGE Publications.