Prepare you to have a good conversation with an attorney about what your organization may lawfully do in the way of advocacy, and to bring back a written definition of your legal room. This tool does not tell you what you may do. It helps you ask.
In Decide Whether and How to Advocate, after the mission frame and before the board decides.
What a tax-exempt organization may do in the way of advocacy and political activity is a real legal question. It varies by your type of organization and your jurisdiction, it can change, and getting it wrong can endanger your tax-exempt standing. This primer does not answer it, and neither should you, a board member, or a well-meaning volunteer. Only an attorney familiar with tax-exempt organizations can define your room for your situation. The legal and compliance side lives in compliance, legal and risk. Treat everything below as questions to take to that conversation.
It helps to know going in that there is generally a difference between speaking to issues and conditions, which is usually more open, and the narrow, more tightly restricted category of electoral and partisan activity tied to candidates and parties. But where exactly that line falls for your organization, what if anything you must track, and whether any election or filing applies to you, are precisely the things only your attorney can tell you. Do not treat this distinction as permission. Treat it as the first question.
You are ready to proceed only when you hold a written, attorney-defined account of your legal room and your bright lines. If you do not have that yet, you are not ready for the board decision or anything after it; the gate is not cleared. This is the most important boundary in the whole pathway, and it is the framework being honest that some questions belong to a professional. Precedes the Board Advocacy Decision Guide.
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