survey re: NP agenda for next U.S. President
A Cravens
Maureen Burke & David Cohen, Advocacy Institute
Rick Cohen, National Committee for
Responsive Philanthropy
Mark Rosenman & Bristow Hardin,
The Union Institute
The 2000 Presidential election marks the first time the
Internet has been widely used to get information to
voters. This also marks the first election in which
several nonprofits are utilizing the Internet to inform
both their constituencies and the public about important
issues that will factor into the campaigns. In this same
spirit, we are taking advantage of the Internet's low cost
and rapid turn-around to get your input on ideas for a
Nonprofit Agenda to present to the next President. These
ideas will lead to specific proposals that the new
President can make to strengthen the nonprofit sector,
particularly to address social justice issues.
We have put some ideas into a survey, available online at
http://ombwatch.org/npadv/2000/survey.html. The ideas were
developed from conversations with local, state and
national nonprofits and foundations during previous
presidential transitions and with the help of some state
nonprofit associations this summer. None of us endorse
every idea; rather they reflect the range of ideas that
have been presented to us. Please rate them in terms of
their importance, provide any comments or specific
recommendations by them, and add ideas you feel are
important that are missing.
We ask you to distribute this email or inform other
nonprofits about the survey. THE SURVEY WILL BE OPEN FOR
RESPONSES UNTIL SEPTEMBER 26 AT 6:00 P.M. EASTERN TIME.
Please be sure to complete the survey by then, and share
the deadline with others.
After tabulating the results we will send a note
identifying how the ideas were ranked to everyone who
provides their email address on the survey. An advisory
group will be convened to develop specific recommendations
based on the top ranked ideas. These recommendations will
be available on the same web site as the survey and will
be widely announced so that any additional feedback can be
obtained. After reviewing the feedback, we will prepare
written materials for the President's transition team. We
will request one or meetings with the President's new team
and invite some state and local groups to any meetings
that occur to discuss the ideas and recommendations.
Since nothing like this has been done before, we would
also appreciate any comments you have about the process.
There is a spot at the end of the survey for such
feedback.
We are sending this message to each of our networks. As a
result, you may get several copies. We apologize, but we
wanted to reach a wide audience for this unique
opportunity. If you send this to anyone else, please make
sure they know that they must go to
http://ombwatch.org/npadv/2000/survey.html by 6:00 p.m.
(EST) on September 26 to complete the survey.
If you are unable to access this survey on the web and
would like to get a copy, please contact Kay Guinane at
OMB Watch at 202/234-8494.
Thanks for your help. And thanks for your participation
in this exciting Internet experiment.