Advocacy in nonprofit human service organizations

Traditionally, voluntary social service organizations have had the dual roles of providing services and engaging in advocacy on behalf of their communities (Bremner, 1989; Gallegos and O'Neill, 1991; Rodriquez-Fraticelli, Sanabria, and Tirado, 1991; Smith and Lipsky, 1993; Withorn, 1984). Community-based organizations, multiservice agencies and neighborhood economic development groups, in particular, share a rich tradition that has emphasized advocacy as a means to solve community problems and acquire needed services.;The goal of this dissertation is to explore the depth of issues surrounding advocacy among nonprofit human service organizations, and explore the theoretical and empirical explanations of this activity. Specifically, the study examines the factors that constrain and enhance this function; the strategies that nonprofits use to manage these factors; and, the effects, if any, these strategies have in promoting or hindering the extent of nonprofit advocacy.;Advocacy presents a tiled of study that is rich in possibility and complexity. In this dissertation I have attempted to capture that complexity by exploring some of the issues from the perspective of those whom work in the tiled managing the decisions made around issues of advocacy. While there are limitations in this research, there are also within it the seeds of many more questions that open up a whole new field for future researchers.