At the most basic level, administrative advocacy refers to any atempt to understand and intercede in the rulemaking process on the federal, state, or local level. It can include efforts to influence regulatory issues, the shaping of executive branch and agency budgets and grants, teaching or assisting others with the filing of comments on governmental actions and proposed regulations, monitoring program operations, engaging others in the practice of monitoring regulations and guidelines that control implementation of legislation, directing public attention to proposed regulations, or challenging policies or regulations in courts when they are inconsistent with the law.

Because it is the executive branch (the president, the governor, the mayor) that carries out, or executes, the will of the legislature (Congress, state legislatures, local councils), a large amount of the nitty-gritty details of lawmaking are the responsibility of the executive branch. For example, while Congress may make a law that gives funding to homeless shelters, it’s the presidential administration that designs and carries out the programs to actually get that money to homeless shelters, perhaps through the department of Health and Human Services.

In addition to writing the checks, the executive branch and its agencies are also in charge of developing rules and regulations (which govern the day-to-day operation of programs authorized by Congress), often at the direction of Congress. Legislatures often leave the language of laws purposely vague on the assumption that agencies will have more expertise on an issue than they could possibly have, and will develop regulations based on that knowledge. Other regulations are simply part of an agency’s ongoing work and fall under very broad authority from Congress. Many labor regulations, for example the hours that truckers can work, come from the ongoing authority of agencies.

Many people and organizations wrongly assume that once their issue is done in the legislature, their chances to advocate on that issue are gone. In fact, there are several ways to advocate within the executive branch.

The most basic way to get involved in administrative advocacy is to comment on proposed regulations or grant programs. While this is not as obvious (or simple) as legislative advocacy, almost every proposed agency regulation is first published in the Federal Register with a time period that the public can comment on it. While most groups don’t read the Federal Register on a regular basis (and who can blame them?), most important proposed regulations come to their attention either through coalitions that they are involved with, or with advocacy groups they are associated with. This is just one example of the importance of coalitions.

It should be noted that agencies are generally under no real obligation to take these comments into account when finalizing the rule, a good faith effort is usually made to incorporate the viewpoints presented. This is not always the case, as shown in the recent example of the FCC basically ignoring tens of thousands of comments against media consolidation. At the very least, filing a comment on a regulation gets your view on record.

The FCC example also shows another effect of administrative advocacy. Even though the FCC pretty much ignored thousands of comments against media consolidation, those thousands of commenters are constituents of members of Congress, which became involved in the debate and may take the rare step of overruling the FCC rule. A more direct route can be taken as well, simply by asking a legislator to comment on a proposed rule. Legislators, especially those that serve on committees that oversee an agency, can have great influence on rules and regulations.

Lawsuits are another administrative advocacy tactic, although not one that most people have the resources to engage in, which makes suing the government more of a final play than an opening move. To continue with the media consolidation example, no matter how or if Congress gets involved,, there are likely to be lawsuits from either or both sides challenging the ruling. While suing the federal or local governments may be beyond the reach of many nonprofits, there are some nonprofit organizations that specialize in exactly that (such as the Public Citizen Litigation Group). The most likely avenue for a smaller group to participate in a lawsuit would be through a larger group that specializes in litigation. Unlike lobbying, litigation can’t be done by anyone with an opinion.

There are other, less obvious, ways to engage in administrative advocacy as well. Many programs have advisory panels that nonprofit organizations can be a part of. Groups can also call public attention to regulations, either through advocacy campaigns, or be releasing research on their impact.

While not as obvious or well-known as legislative advocacy, administrative advocacy can be a very effective way for nonprofits to shape government policy.