501(c)4 Incubator Program

The Campaign for Community Change works with grassroots groups in these neglected communities to increase voter participation and their ability to influence policymakers. Virtually all community based organizations are 501(c)3 tax exempt charitable organizations. Under this status, these organizations are able to conduct critical charitable work in their communities. However this structure limits their ability to conduct targeted voter outreach or to participate in the discussions in which political parties decide where to place their priorities and resources. Low-income people lack a voice in these critical public debates.

For that reason, the Campaign for Community Change—a 501(c)(4) organization—has launched a "C4 Incubator" program in 2008. We will help grassroots groups based in low-income communities establish and operate 501(c)(4) organizations. The Campaign for Community Change will incubate these new organizations in the following ways:

• Assess Goals: Help groups identify what they want to accomplish that they cannot do now. Do they want to conduct more lobbying or more aggressive electoral work regarding candidates or ballot issues? For example, a 501(c)(4) organization can inform the public about a candidate's record on specific issues, or even endorse a candidate because of her/his record on the issues that are important to the organization and publicize that endorsement to their membership.
• Assess Capacity: Assess whether the organization has the capacity—staff, leadership, expertise, legal advice, resources—to conduct a 501(c)(4) voter program that is separate in all the required ways from their 501(c)(3) entity. Would operating such a program deflect needed resources or personnel from their 501(c)(3) organization?
• Technical Assistance with Application and Planning: Help the grassroots organizations complete the paperwork needed to create a 501(c)(4) organization and establish all the required procedures and protections to keep it separate from the 501(c)(3) entity. We will assist groups to develop initial plans for the new organization's activities and staffing.
• Training: Engage Wellstone Action to train the newly established organizations on how to make use of the expanded opportunities for targeting, voter file analysis, field work and public education that are available to 501(c)(4) non profits. We will convene the groups for joint training, and provide individual assistance through site visits as well as phone and email consultations.
• Evaluation: At the outset of the incubator program, we will contract with M&R Strategic Services and Grassroots Solutions to conduct a rigorous evaluation of the program. The aim is to identify best practices, and refine inefficient approaches, so that the program can be replicated and broadened in future years.

Our preliminary goal for 2008 is to incubate four new 501(c)(4) organizations that serve low-income communities of color in operation by August of this year—two in Washington State, one in Illinois and one in New York. The Campaign for Community Change has chosen to pilot the incubator project in these states in order to work with four grassroots organizations that have demonstrated their ability to conduct successful voter engagement, and that most likely have the organizational capacity to establish an effective 501(c)(4) organization. The four groups are:

• Hate Free Zone (Seattle, WA)
• Washington Citizens Action Network
• Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights
• New York Immigrant Coalition