Ask candidates to complete a questionnaire on nonprofit issues

The North Carolina Center for Nonprofits has sent a candidate questionnaire on nonprofit issues to all 535 North Carolina candidates for Congress and the NC General Assembly. The questionnaire is intended to help nonprofit leaders learn more about the candidates on their ballots in the May 17 primary election and the November 8 general election and also to help candidates have a better awareness of the work of nonprofits. The Center will continue to post candidates’ responses as they are submitted.

Your local candidates for office are more likely to respond to the questionnaire if they hear from you rather than from the Center. Please take a few minutes today to reach out to your local candidates to ask them to complete the questionnaire.

We recommend that you reach out to candidates running for office in the county where your organization is based. Please make sure you reach out to all candidates running to serve the county or geographic area you serve. This both increases the chances we will hear back from everyone and demonstrates that you are not favoring any candidates or political parties. To make it easy for you, we have posted a list of all candidates and their email addresses. You can send this email to your local candidates:

Dear Candidates, As part of the state’s nonprofit community, I’m interested in learning more about your experiences with nonprofits and your positions on policy issues that have a direct impact on our work. I encourage you to reply to the NC Center for Nonprofits’ 2022 Candidate Questionnaire, which is only three questions long!

Your outreach to candidates can also be a great opportunity to start building relationships with whoever will ultimately be elected to represent you. You can do that by investing just a few extra minutes in composing a message that shares a few facts about what your organization does and what challenges it faces. Here is a template and a few (fictional) examples of how a staff or board member might use that template to engage the candidates running to serve you with the issues that concern you.