The New Hampshire Center for Nonprofits (NHCN) announces it will pilot a national nonprofit advocacy project this fall, which will be designed to engage political candidates in dialogue in an effort to enhance these leaders’ understanding of the role the nonprofit sector plays in creating and maintaining healthy, safe, and prosperous communities.

The Candidates Education Project, funded by the Philanthropic Collaborative, is an initiative NHCN will spearhead as one of the strategies developed at the June 2008 National Nonprofit Congress, held in Washington D.C. At the Congress, 500 nonprofit leaders from across the nation identified action steps that state nonprofit associations could take to raise the visibility of the sector.

During the presidential primary season, NHCN piloted the successful Nonprofit Primary Project, which engaged 12 of the presidential hopefuls in discussion about the sector. Excerpts from this project can be viewed in our Primary Project section of the Website.
 
 “Our plan is to invite individual candidates who are running for US Congress, Senate and the Governor’s office to share their ideas in which government, business and nonprofit leaders can partner to preserve and strengthen our communities,” states Mary Ellen Jackson, NHCN Executive Director.

The bi-partisan forums will be held across the state at nonprofit locations and each candidate will be asked to share their personal experience with nonprofit organizations as well as how they would work with nonprofits to achieve their vision for New Hampshire. Nonprofit leaders representing all the disciplines including the arts, environment, human services, and more will be invited to share their ideas and questions with the candidates.

These sessions will begin in early September.  The coordinator for the project is Jamie Batson, a former nonprofit executive who is currently with Mather Associates Consulting. To learn more about the project, please contact either the NH Center for Nonprofits at 603 225-1947 or Ms. Batson at 603 767-2337.

Get Involved!
Would your nonprofit like to host a candidate education session? If so, please email us at info@nhnonprofits.org with information about your facility including size/capacity of meeting room(s), availability (i.e. business hours only, evenings, certain days of the week), and parking availability/accessibility. 

Do you want to be alerted about sessions so that you can plan to attend? We are looking forward to seeing representatives from a wide variety of organizations at these sessions to give the candidates an accurate idea of how broad and diverse the nonprofit sector is in New Hampshire. We will be sending out E-Newsletters announcing the candidate education sessions as they are scheduled. Sign up to receive these alerts. (Be sure the box for "Signals E-Alert" is checked!)