Nonprofit VOTE is a left-of-center organization which engages non-profits to mobilize individuals they interact with to participate in elections and vote. ¹ The group has received funding from left-of-center funder organizations, most prominently the Ford Foundation, the Wellspring Philanthropic Fund, and the Tides Foundation. ²

Nonprofit VOTE’s Leadership Council,³ Advisory Board,⁴ and state and national partners include a number of left-of-center organizations and their representatives. ⁵ The group is associated with the larger Human Service Providers Charitable Foundation, the research and educational arm of the Providers’ Council, which is the largest human services association in the United States. ⁶

Background

Nonprofit VOTE is an offshoot of the larger Human Service Providers Charitable Foundation, the research and educational arm of the Providers’ Council, which is the largest human services association in the United States. ⁷ Providers’ Council is a left of center welfare program organization which lobbies on behalf of the human services industry. Providers’ Council has successfully lobbied the state legislature of Massachusetts to lock the state into paying set rates of funding for all publicly funded human services programs. ⁸

Services

Nonprofit VOTE provides 11 different types of resources aside from its general webinar series. These include topics such as Census 2020, Engaging your Staff, Voting in Your State, Voter Registration, and Engaging Candidates. ⁹

Census 2020

Nonprofit VOTE urges its members to strive to engage their communities to participate in the census, and highlights that LGBT, minorities, and non-English speaking communities must be particularly targeted to ensure their active participation in the census. ¹⁰

Efforts undertaken by Nonprofit VOTE include “action plans” encouraging non-profits to contact their local Census Bureau to connect with Census Bureau “partnership specialists,” integrate announcements regarding the census into their newsletters and social media, create visibility for the census by acquiring free census posters from the Census Bureau, and even suggesting that non-profits provide phones and computers to their audience and broad membership base to facilitate their ability to participate in the census. ¹¹

Engaging Staff

Nonprofit VOTE encourages its membership to mobilize their employees to increase voter turnout, specifically recommending that staff participate as a group during the week of National Voter Registration Day and go door to door in the office registering employees and volunteers to vote. ¹²

Voter Registration

Nonprofit VOTE provides organizations with resources that enable them to encourage others to register to vote. This includes practical advice on how to organize an office-wide effort to register voters,¹³ as well as technical resources such as pre-written scripts on what to say when communicating with others regarding elections and registering to vote. ¹⁴

Engaging Candidates

Nonprofit VOTE provides a variety of resources such as timetables, checklists, and advice on creating voter guides to both engage candidates and create interest in candidates and elections in communities. ¹⁵

While Nonprofit VOTE does recommend that questionnaires submitted to candidates and voter guides created based on responses avoid partisan content, they do recommend that voter guides include all endorsements which candidates received. ¹⁶

Many of the resources linked for further information are from the liberal Bolder Advocacy project of the left-of-center Alliance for Justice legal policy coalition. ¹⁷

Issue Advocacy

Nonprofit VOTE encourages its members to participate in issue advocacy, the practice of discussing policy issues in a non-partisan way which nevertheless can sway voters to one candidate over another. Nonprofit VOTE promotes issue advocacy among its membership by explaining how spreading information which is facially unbiassed will not risk their tax-exempt status. ¹⁸

Report of Nonprofit Power

In March 2024, Nonprofit VOTE released a report titled, “Nonprofit Power: Building an Inclusive Democracy,” which claimed to have collected the records of roughly 7000 voters contacted by nonprofit organizations in roughly 8 states during the 2022 midterm elections. According to its findings, the report claimed that nonprofits were more likely to engage with voters overlooked by political campaigns including voters of color, those with lower income, and voters between 18-24 years of age. The report also claimed that this engagement made it more likely for those in those demographics to vote, with 56% of voters claiming that being contacted by nonprofits during the midterms ended up voting. The report also claimed, “Unlike political campaigns, nonprofit-driven voter engagement is focused on ensuring that communities they serve participate and vote, regardless of previous voting history or partisan lean.” ¹⁹

Revenue and Funders

In 2017 Nonprofit VOTE reported $519,243 in revenue, $100,000 of which was received as “Contract Services.” ²⁰

The remaining $419,243 in 2017 revenue came from grants and contributions. ²¹  Identified left-leaning contributors to Nonprofit VOTE include the Annenberg Foundation,²² the Ford Foundation,²³ the George Gund Foundation,²⁴ NEO Philanthropy,²⁵ and Wellspring Philanthropic Fund. ²⁶

Grantmaking

In 2017 Nonprofit VOTE issued grants to four organizations:²⁷

• Cleveland Neighborhood Progress, $15,000.
• Community Resources Center, $14,000.
• Democracy North Carolina, $8,000.
• Protecting Arizona’s Family Coalition, $7,000.
• Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio, $12,500.

1. “About – Our Mission” Nonprofit VOTE. https://www.nonprofitvote.org/our-mission/
2. Data compiled by Foundationsearch.com subscription service, a project of Metasoft Systems, Inc., from forms filed with the IRS. Queries conducted September 4, 2019.
3. “Leadership Council.” Nonprofit Vote, n.d. https://www.nonprofitvote.org/our-mission/about/.
4. “Advisory Board.” Nonprofit Vote, n.d. https://www.nonprofitvote.org/our-mission/advisory-board/.
5. “National Partners.” Nonprofit Vote, n.d. https://www.nonprofitvote.org/our-mission/national-partners/.
6. “About Us” Providers’ Council. https://providers.org/about/
7. “About Us” Providers’ Council. https://providers.org/about/
8. “What is Chapter 257?” Association for Behavioral Healthcare. https://www.abhmass.org/images/publications/Ch257/chapter257flyer2.7.14.pdf
9. “Resources” Nonprofit VOTE. https://www.nonprofitvote.org/
10. “Resources – Nonprofit Counts: 2020 Census” Nonprofit VOTE. https://www.nonprofitvote.org/nonprofitscount/
11. “Resources – Nonprofit Couns:2020 Census – Nonprofit Action Plan: Census 2020 Activities” Nonprofit VOTE. https://www.nonprofitvote.org/nonprofitscount/nonprofit-action-plan-census-2020-activities/
12. “Resources -Engaging Your Staff – Factsheets” Nonprofit VOTE. https://www.nonprofitvote.org/documents/2015/07/planning-running-voter-registration-activity.pdf/
13. “Resources – Voter Registration” Nonprofit VOTE. https://www.nonprofitvote.org/resource-library/voter-registration-2/
14. “Resources – Voter Registration – Sample Script for Voter Registration with Common Responses” Nonprofit VOTE. https://www.nonprofitvote.org/documents/2016/07/sample-script-for-voter-registration-and-common-responses.docx
15. “Resources – Engaging Candidates” Nonprofit VOTE. https://www.nonprofitvote.org/resource-library/candidate-engagement-2/
16. “Resources – Engaging Candidates Candidate – Questionnaires and Voter Guides” Nonprofit VOTE. https://www.nonprofitvote.org/documents/2016/04/candidate-questionnaires-voter-guides.pdf/
17. “Resources – Engaging Candidates Candidate – Questionnaires and Voter Guides” Nonprofit VOTE. https://www.nonprofitvote.org/documents/2016/04/candidate-questionnaires-voter-guides.pdf/
18. “The Basics – Guide to Nonpartisan Voter Engagement” Nonprofit VOTE. https://www.nonprofitvote.org/nonprofits-voting-elections-online/
19. “Nonprofit Power: Building an Inclusive Democracy.” Nonprofit VOTE, Accessed July 9, 2024. https://www.nonprofitvote.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2024-Nonprofit-Power-digital-edition.pdf
20. “Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax.” Guidestar.org. Accessed August 22, 2019, Part VIII, Lines 2a-2g.
21. “Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax.” Guidestar.org. Accessed August 22, 2019, Part I, Line 8
22. Annenberg Foundation, Return of a Private Foundation (Form 990-PF), 2016, Part XV Line 3
23. Ford Foundation, Return of a Private Foundation (Form 990-PF), 2016, Part XV Line 3
24. George Gund Foundation, Return of a Private Foundation (Form 990-PF), 2017, Part XV Line 3
25. NEO Philanthropy, Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax (Form 990), 2017, Schedule I Part II
26. Wellspring Philanthropic Fund, Return of a Private Foundation (Form 990-PF), 2016, Part XV Line 3
27. “Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax.” Guidestar.org. Accessed August 22, 2019, Grants and Other Assistance to Organizations, Part II, Lines 1-5.