Nonprofit Initiatives
The nonprofit community is increasingly raising awareness of its issues and spurring citizen engagement in the election process. Organizations are making the most of campaign periods by educating the candidates about the issues that are important to them and possibly gaining the candidates' commitment on those issues.

As a way to encourage this increased engagement in the election process, each month Independent Sector will highlight examples of how charities and foundations have become involved in the 2008 campaign. As you consider how to get your organization involved, be sure to check the rules and learn what you can -- and can’t -- do during the election cycle.

Feature Initiative of the Month

Starting with the Kaiser Family Foundation’s first Election 2008 Kaiser Health Tracking Poll in March 2007, health care has been one of the top issues that the public wants presidential candidates to address. In developing health08.org, a hub for information about health care and the presidential campaign, Kaiser has sought to fulfill its mission as a non-partisan source of facts, information, and analysis for policymakers, the media, the health care community, and the public. The site provides a one-stop shop for election news and events with analysis of health policy issues, regular public opinion surveys, news summaries and video coverage from the campaign trail.

The health08.org website serves as a clearinghouse for information about health and the election, including original content produced by Kaiser and easy access to health-related resources from the campaigns, other organizations, and news outlets. The site also provides a free weekly email roundup of developments related to health and the election and free syndication of content available to other websites.

Other site features include:

• Pulling It Together: Separating the Forest from the Trees in the Health Reform Debate
  Kaiser Family Foundation President and CEO Drew Altman, Ph.D., draws from the compendium of candidates' statements on health reform assembled on health08.org and Kaiser’s side-by-side comparisons of the candidates' health plans to tease out the fundamental differences between Democrats and Republicans and liberals and conservatives on health reform.
  
• Tutorial on Health Care and the Election
  In this narrated kaiserEDU.org slide tutorial, Claudia Deane, associate director of public opinion and media research at the Kaiser Family Foundation, discusses public opinion data on health care and the 2008 election, using Kaiser's regular surveys taken throughout the campaign.
  
• 2008 Presidential Candidate Health Care Proposals: Side-by-Side Summary
  This online tool allows users to customize side-by-sides by selecting as many as four candidates for comparison that can then be formatted into a printer-friendly pdf. The tool summarizes positions in four overall categories of access to health care coverage, cost containment, improving the quality of care and financing.
  
• Webcasts of Presidential Candidate Forums
  Families USA and the Federation of American Hospitals organized this series of hour-long forums designed to elicit detailed discussion with Democratic and Republican presidential candidates about health reform. Kaiser hosted the forums at it's Barbara Jordan Conference center in Washington D.C. and webcast each of them live.

More Member Initiatives

It's time we ensure health and long-term financial security for all. Independent Sector members AARP and the Service Employees International Union, along with Business Roundtable and the National Federation of Independent Business, are leading Divided We Fail, an initiative to give voice to millions of Americans who are tired of letting Washington gridlock stand in the way of affordable, quality health care and long-term financial security -- the most pressing domestic issues facing our nation. Common sense solutions are needed, and everyone -- individuals, businesses and government -- has a role and a responsibility in ensuring health and financial security for all.

Since President Richard Nixon declared war on cancer in 1971, the disease has never drawn any significant political attention or opposition. Until now.

Last August, the Lance Armstrong Foundation invited all of the presidential candidates to address the cancer burden in our country. At the LIVESTRONG Presidential Cancer Forum, six of the then-candidates pledged to renew the war on cancer. The forum has helped put cancer into the national dialogue, as have print ads the Foundation ran in select newspapers leading up to early primaries.

The Lance Armstrong Foundation is working relentlessly to make cancer a national priority and make health care an important campaign issue. Learn about the candidates' commitments to the war on cancer on the Foundation’s website, and spread the word to your friends and family that cancer is an important issue for our nation.

The Nonprofit Voter Engagement Network has launched NonprofitVOTE, a new website, designed specifically for nonprofit staff, board members and volunteers to engage and educate communities around elections and voting. NonprofitVOTE acts as a portal to election information for all 50 states and features free, downloadable nonprofit toolkits, training resources, and online webinars on the range of voter engagement activities for 501(c)(3) nonprofit staff and volunteers as they work to register, educate, and encourage their constituents and communities to vote.

NonprofitVOTE, whose slogan is “Capacity for your nonprofit: Power for your community,” is an initiative of the Nonprofit Voter Engagement Network (NVEN) and a project of IS Member, the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits. As a national nonpartisan voter engagement initiative, it seeks to build the capacity of the nonprofit sector to participate in democracy and elections.

IS members The Annie E. Casey Foundation and The George Gund Foundation have joined with a growing number of funders including the Eos Foundation, the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation, and the Endowment for Health in an effort to build political will that leads to action against poverty in 2009 and beyond. Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity: Foundations Ask Presidential Candidates What They’ll Do For America seeks to engage candidates in substantive discussions about poverty and economic opportunity and keep these issues in the forefront as newly elected officials set their agendas.

To help develop the political will to address poverty, Spotlight is reaching out to candidates to answer five questions concerning poverty and economic opportunity. Spotlight also provides other poverty news updates, exclusive commentary from experts and national leaders, as well as easy links to organizations and research data. Visit Spotlight’s website to get the latest news once a week, just click here to sign up for updates.

The National Council of La Raza (NCLR) is deeply committed to expanding Latino civic participation and is engaging in several nonpartisan efforts to expand the Latino electorate. First, the Latino Empowerment and Advocacy Project (LEAP) trains and supports a number of NCLR Affiliates throughout the country in their voter engagement efforts. Second, the Ya Es Hora campaign, a partnership between NCLR, NALEO, SEIU, Univision, Impremedia, and others, is an unprecedented high-visibility effort focused on voter registration and mobilization. Finally, NCLR recently launched a new partnership with Democracia U.S.A., one of the country's leading Latino voter registration and civic engagement efforts with high-volume operations in five states.