Advocacy and Special Interest Groups

Collectively Achieving Pull in Washington

"Though we cannot out-vote them we will out-argue them. They shall not do wrong without its being shown both to themselves and to the world." Doctor Johnson

Not a Federal resource, the advocacy organization (npo, pac, party, club, society, or corporation) is nevertheless a vital partner in almost any attempt to participate in government, and a vital expression of the rights to assembly and petition. There is little room for private groups in this Federal tool box, but here are some lists of organizations to get you started. (For some additional lists, see the General Sources section of the Enforcement drawer and the Non-Governmental section of the Regulatory drawer.)

Do-it-yourself Politics (Jefferson Project)

Most useful for its lists and directories of

advocacy mailing lists (decent but incomplete);
other directories;
Left-wing advocacy groups;
Right-wing advocacy groups;
political parties (quite comprehensive, but not completely up to date);
Radical advocacy groups;
Libertarian advocacy groups;
so-called "watch dog" special interest groups; and a
topical index of advocacy groups.

(http://www.stardot.com/jefferson/)

Civic Practices Network (affiliates page): Under "affiliates" (of CPN) are perhaps several dozen vaguely communitarian/ newDemocratic-oriented advocacy and governmental and non-profit organizations, each of which receives an elaborate description and contact information. CPN, a "learning collaborative for civic renewal," is described on their welcome page.
(http://cpn.journalism.wisc.edu/cpn/sections/affiliates/affiliates.html)

Policy Street: An excellent excellent alphabetical listing of over 100 advocacy groups and think tanks with capsule descriptions, and links to the orgs' web pages. Also a topical index by 18 topics. By no means complete, but a good start. Policy Street itself summarizes policy advice from a varied aggregation of think tanks and advocacy groups.
(http://www.policy.com/groups.html)

Political Participation Project

Hosted by MIT, the PPP provides a list of many "grass-roots organizations," for each of which it compiles an entry that looks like this:

  Name:         National Association for the Advancement of
                 Colored People (NAACP)
  Address:      4805 Mount Hope Drive,
                Baltimore, MD  21215-3297
  Phone:        410-358-8900
  Founded in    1909
  Membership:   400,000
  Groups:       2200 branches
  Budget:       $13,300,000
  Staff:        132
  Purpose:      "To improve the political, educational,
                 social and economic status of minority
                 groups" and "to eliminate racial prejudice."

Despite some inaccuracies, a very handy list.
(http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/ppp/groups.html)

Meta-Index of NonProfit Organizations: Meta-index of non profit organizations. Not just activist organizations, but more general. mostly a list of other lists, but a good place to go if you want to see everything. ed. originally by Ellen Spertus, now by Peter Tavernise
http://www.duke.edu/~ptavern/Pete.meta-index.html

Institute for Global Communications (IGC): The IGC list of member organizations includes the various organizations belonging to the IGC "ConflictNet," "EcoNet," etc. Thus subdivided, the same organizations can be reached through the IGC home page.
(http://www.igc.apc.org/igc/orgdir.html)

Town Hall: Intended, like the less formal "right side of the web," as a one-stop shop for the conservative activist, TownHall includes links to numerous conservative advocacy organizations.
(http://www.townhall.org)

Conflict Center Network: A searchable list, "the most comprehensive directory of nonprofit resources on the Web, with links to over 5,000 organizations, publications and directories around the world." Not specifically directed toward political advocacy.
(http://www.contact.org/sample/dir.html

Activist Organizations from Char's Web: Charlotte's Web (Char Roberts) list of activist organizations and other relevant sites on the web is rather chaotic, with minimal annotation; Char's Web itself would appear to serve chiefly as a spokespage for Ross Perot, with UWSA Washington news reports and connections to various "reform" (i.e. mostly Reform Party) sites.
(http://www.emf.net/~cr/groups.html)

Be An Activist!: A very extensive list of web sites for political activists, many out of date, many not organizations at all but agencies, etc. Very miscellaneous, but invaluable as a last resort.Maintained by Adam Rifkin. Organized in alphabetical order, which lumps "CQ ..." in with "FOIA" (text of ), etc.: i.e., no real organization at all.
(http://www.cs.caltech.edu/~adam/LEAD/active_links.html)