The New Regulation of Advocacy for Nonprofit Social Welfare Organizations: Implementation and Impacts of Lobbying Act Implemented on August, 2008, the Lobbying Act is one of “sunshine law” which prohibits nonprofit and for-profit organizations from disclosed collectively corrupts and ensures information of lobbying activity open to the public. However, nonprofit organizations argue the requirements of the act, such as responsibility of registration and reporting during the lobbying process, and limitation of lobbying purpose, would increase considerable costs for organizations working for public interest; meanwhile, little impacts would be imposed on for-profit interest groups meant to be regulated by the public. This proposal concerns whether the act will not favor nonprofit organizations with few resources in conducting lobbying and advocacy activities. A grant with 3-year research plan is purposed to investigate the impacts of Lobbying Act on nonprofit social welfare organizations. First, this research will apply in-depth interviews for managers and staffs who were in charge on the advocacy activities regarding Lobbying Act. Second, experiences and perspectives of the selected organizations will be analyzed and designed as a survey questionnaire. This research will then conduct a survey study for about 150 nonprofit organizations. Third, to understand different impacts of Lobbying Act on nonprofit and for-profit organizations, third stage of this research will focus on a single policy advocacy process with both organizations to compare their efforts and policy results. Findings of this research grant are expected to provide suggestions for Lobbying Act revisions and to enrich nonprofit research database in Taiwan.
