 Hi, thanks for joining our Zoom meeting today, Executive Director's Chat. Today we're going to be hearing from Robert Geyer. He's the president of Engineering the Law. He's going to share how nonprofits can be a part of the policymaking process and how lobbying. I know we're kind of scared of that word, but you're going to learn a little bit more about this. For your organization, your mission and community is so, so important. My name is Aretha Simons. I'm the webinar producer here. We just met the webinar intern, Kevin Wong, who is doing an awesome job. Just want to remind you this presentation is being recorded, and we'll be emailed to everyone who's registered within 48 hours, and Kevin's going to go over some housekeeping before we get started. Hello, everyone. If this is your first time in our meeting today, welcome. And as we said, I'm going to go over some housekeeping rules. Here's how to engage day so that everyone can hear and participate. First, please keep your mic muted for the quality of the recording. It's also important to note that since you're all here and registered, we're always sending the recording out within about 48 hours after this webinar has ended. If you would like to respond live, please use the raise your hand button down below, or, and we will ask you to unmute, to ask your question or comments. If you can't find it or are having some technical trouble, sometimes waving your hand vigorously can get our attention. Closed captioning is available, so feel free to turn on the CC button located in your Zoom menu. Thank you. Thank you so much, Kevin. Now I'm going to introduce our speaker. I'm going to make his bio brief because I think you're going to hear a lot from him as he's putting down those seeds and nuggets he's going to share today. But Robert Guy, as I said, he's the president of engineering law and the lobby school. He's lectured at universities, including Harvard Medical, University of Texas, and he's a visiting professor at Florida State. He holds a degree, obviously, in law, engineering and political science. So he practiced law in D.C. and Florida. His mission is to increase effective participation by the many, regardless of their politics, believing that only through hearing diverse, wide, and well-equipped voices can the U.S. achieve its best for all of us. So Robert, thank you so much for being here. I'm so excited to hear from you. I'm going to turn this over to you. And while Robert is getting ready, he's on mute right now, but while he's getting ready, I'm going to pop a link in the chat room. There's a document that he's going to share with us. If you click on that link, you'll open your screen and you won't leave this webinar. So feel free to click on that in just a moment. Hi, Robert. Welcome. Thank you so much. Can you hear me? Yeah, we can hear you loud and clear. Excellent. All right. I'm ready to start whenever you are. You tell me when I should start sharing. You can start sharing right now. It's a privilege to be here. It's a privilege to share with you. I've been in government for 50 years now. And if I can pass on something to you that will make you more successful working with government, then this will have been a really valuable time. And so I'm going to speak to you today about lobbying, specifically legislatures and the executive agencies. And when Aretha had called me, she felt that it would be valuable for you to get the insights of someone who has been in government as a regulatory official who has worked as staff in government and has lobbied all over the world, literally other governments. And so I'm going to share with you something that I hope will make you more effective. So today we're going to talk about responsible regulated organizations must lobby. I've had the great fortune of working with many terrible organizations. Many of them do not like the word lobby. I've had them tell me my board of directors doesn't like that word. However, I'm a lawyer and I try to use technically accurate terms. And under the internal revenue code, it's not called advocacy. It's called lobbying. And so responsible regulated organizations must lobby. The best lobbyists are going to be relevant, supportive, home folk who are trained in what to do. They make the best lobbyists. I have read some say is that you can't teach lobbying. That is not true. I can make everybody you can become better as well at lobbying. Then we'll talk about how do we keep the non-profit lobbying legal? How do you keep yourselves legal, both tax and in practice? Disclaimer, I am a lawyer. I am admitted in the District of Columbia and in the state of Florida. And I know almost nothing about 501C3 internal revenue code law. So that will be brief. And perhaps you could bring that up in the discussions. And then finally, you have 27 fundamentals for successful lobbying. Aretha, have we been able to transmit to them the 27 fundamentals? It is on the registration page. So they were able to register and we're going to put it in the chat room. Okay, fine. Good. All right. So those are the four topics that we are going to cover today. And first of all, responsible organizations must lobby. Why? First, why do you have to lobby the legislature? Because they can do anything they want to do to you. Neither liberty nor property is safe when the legislature is in session. They can make you legal. They can make you illegal. They can tax you to death. If that's what they want to do. It all depends what the legislature decides. And because neither liberty nor property is safe, when the legislature is in session, in order to protect your missions and to protect your organizations, you are your surrogate has to be in the state house. Next, responsible organizations must lobby the regulatory agencies. That's because last in time is first in authority. What a police officer pulls you over and he or she is going to write you the ticket. They may decide to write you lots of tickets. They may decide to just give you a warning. They can do anything they want to do as well. For all practical purposes, last in time is first in authority. Said Thomas Jefferson, the execution of laws, that is, we're applying that to the executive agencies, is more important than the making of laws. Quite literally, you can get an appropriation from the legislature. That appropriation can go over to be implemented by the executive agency. And the executive agency can say this, we have no intention of implementing this law. And we are going to let the appropriation revert back to the general fund. They can do that if that's what they decide to do. Legislatures make approximately 10% of the body of law. The executive agencies make approximately 90% of the body of law. Quite literally, what the legislature give it, an executive agency can take it away. And what the legislature wouldn't give you, an executive agency might give you. So in order to be responsible to your missions, to your staff, and what you do, you have to lobby both the legislature and the regulatory agencies. The best lobbyists are relevant, supportive, trained in what to do, they do the best lobby. What does relevant mean? Relevant means this. That you, that lobbyist, your member, or yourself means something to that lawmaker. James Madison paraphrasing his philosophy was this. Self-interest is the engine of government. Self-interest in the engine of government. Everybody who was there in the legislature, you, those who are lobbying for prisons, those who are lobbying for legislation, those who are lobbying for whatever it is, they are there for their own self-interest. That lawmaker is in the capitol for his or her self-interest as well. So irrelevant and then supportive. If you bring in a constituent, someone who lives in the district, who votes and votes for that lawmaker and explains to that lawmaker, representative, I support you in what you're going to do. He or she will be most effective and then trained in what to do. We'll talk about that now. Lawmakers listen to these people because they can help the lawmaker further the lawmaker's interests. Park and back. James Madison. Self-interest is the engine of government. Everybody there in the capitol is there for their own self-interest just like you are. It helps the lawmaker. These relevant, supportive, properly trained in what to do, they help the lawmaker to stay in office. The most lawmakers are not elected for power. That's not why they got to the legislature, but that's why they stay in the law, in the legislature because they enjoy being in office for whatever reasons. It is the relevant, supportive, properly trained in what to do who make the lawmaker enable that lawmaker to succeed in office. They promote, he wants to promote his or her personal politics as well. The lawmaker wants to promote, advance the public good and filing those members from your organization or your surrogates. Navigate the political processes outside the legislature. 70% of winning in the legislature takes place before you ever talk to the first lawmaker. 30% of winning in the state legislature takes place in those committee rooms and the like. But know this, most committee meetings are just theater. The decisions were made a long time ago. And those long time ago, helping make those decisions are those relevant, supporting, trained in what to do who are navigating the political processes outside the legislature with the other special interest groups and lining up the votes. Lawmakers don't line up votes. It's the special interests. Yourselves who line up the vote. So the lawmaker listens to those who can help him achieve his or her interests and help him outside the legislature lining up the votes without the lawmakers and special interest groups. Next, we want to talk about how do you keep non-profit lobbying tax legal? Lobby is a legally correct term for the legislative advocate. That's the term that the internal revenue uses in its website and in its wording. The internal revenue offers 10 free training courses, video and on PDF, to keep you knowing what you need to do to protect your federal tax exempt status. If you listen to their courses or if you have outside the council or you have associations within your state, they can ideally be able to advise you as well. But it's your job in my view to know exactly what IRS is saying you need to know in order that you can both lobby and protect your federal tax exempt status. You also have to look at your state specific requirements for state tax exempt status. And these are live links when you get this sent to you by Aretha that you'll be able to check and see, okay, what do I have to do in the state of North Carolina, for example, to keep my state specific requirements for tax exempt status. So you have the IRS and you have the state tax exempt status you want to protect while you're lobbying. When you read about the IRS, when you read about what they say about lobbying, they'll say it is a proper function of 501c3s to be there in the legislature assisting in the making of laws that affect your people you serve. How do we keep non-profit lobbying practice legal? Now this is something I do have a fair amount of expertise. Lobbying is regulated by the federal governments, state and local governments. When you ask the legislature to do something for you or when you ask the administrative agencies to do something for you, you are attempting to influence government and that's what lobbying is. And those attempts to influence government are highly regulated by the federal, state and local governments. They're the legislative and the executive branch. Each may have its own licenses. For example, in the state of Florida, in order to lobby in Tallahassee, you have to get a license from the legislature to allow you or your representative to speak to lawmakers, and you have to get a separate license from the executive branch as well. So lobbying is highly regulated with licenses required to lobby. Those agencies registration, you will have to register as the principal. That is the one employing the lobbyist and the lobbyist himself or herself will have to be registered as well. These pay to the regulating agency. Each of these agencies has charges and their charges may be such things as you have to take their mandatory lobbying course as some agencies such as in Arizona require you to do. You have to pay to register. You have to pay fines if you don't get your reports in on time. Then there's the laws, the regulations and the rules that govern your lobbying. There's the statutory law that come from the legislature. There's the agency law that is put out by the administrative agencies. Then there's the rules of the chamber. And then there's the rules of the individual committee that you are lobbying and its members. So when you are going into the world of lobbying, you can't go in there like an innocent babe. There is a whole lot of law. Statutory administrative chamber rules and committee rules that regulate you. You have to report on regulated activities. The state will give you the forms on which to do that. Then there's the etiquette. That is socially rather than legally enforced conduct. The legislature and lobbying itself has certain unwritten rules. And these rules are called etiquette and etiquette basically means how you are supposed to behave in the legislature. And so you need to know not only what are the statutory legal written down on paper requirements, but also what is proper behavior, for example, in a committee meeting. How do you address the committee? You don't talk to the committee members. You talk to the chair normally. And when a committee member asks you a question, you don't respond to that committee member. You look over at the honorable chair or whatever it is you're going to say. So there's social rather than legally enforced conduct as well. And there's non-compliant penalties for violating the laws and the etiquette. So when it comes to you going before the legislature, you have to be trained to know what to do because one of the greatest destroyers of anybody who stands before the legislature is this disrespect for the ill informed is one of the driving forces found among lawmakers and found among the staff. And the minute they disrespect you, they will no longer listen to you. They will bypass you. So you want to keep your nonprofit lobbying practice legal. Then we have the 27 fundamentals and and Aretha has given you the link. Here's some discussion starters. First of all, and this is this is rule number three, fundamental number three lawmakers are your customers. Customers buy to meet their needs, not your needs. So let me ask you for your particular issue, your particular group that you service, you help. What's more important? Prisons, schools, elderly, roads, the environment. The lawmaker is faced with making so many choices. And I'll give you an example. In the state of New York, there are approximately 17,000 bills introduced every legislative session. Which of those bills is the most important? It's all going to depend upon how does that lawmaker winnow out? What's most important by what's good for me as a lawmaker, customers buy to meet their needs, not your needs. Facts don't vote. This is one of the great mistakes that technical organizations make. They have annual day on the hill, open parade, annual day on the hill has virtually zero influence on the legislative process, close parade. The lawmaker is going to vote his or her own peculiar political calculus. Is this person a Democrat? Is this person a Republican? Is this person from rural area? Is this person from the urban areas? All of these things factor into their own peculiar political calculus. Don't think that that lawmaker, as smart as he or she is, has the interest, the technical background, and the like in order for them to even know what you're saying, especially during session. This is why I told you earlier, 70% of winning in the legislature takes place before you ever talk to that lawmaker. And what are you doing during that 70%? You're back home in the district visiting with the lawmaker. Sizing him or her up, introducing them and the like. Don't fall into the trap where you make the lawmakers fall to sleep by bombarding them with facts that mean nothing to them politically or perhaps to their districts. 80 to 90% of lawmakers are irrelevant to your bill. Most votes are not cast in committee. They're not cast on the chamber floor. They are cast in the caucus. Depending upon the state, the caucus, for example, in Pennsylvania, nobody gets to go to that caucus. The caucus is where the lawmakers get together to decide how they as a caucus are going to vote on the bill. You look at a state like Pennsylvania, where the R's pretty well run the place, nobody gives a blank about what the Democrats have to say. They care about what the Republicans have to say. And the Republicans get off by themselves, they huddle among themselves and they pass every bill in the caucus. And as a consequence, the committee meeting is just theater. Why? Because the decisions were already established in the caucus. And on the chamber floor, most of the time, though at the chamber chair, the speaker or the president doesn't want to be embarrassed. And he or she is not going to bring up a bill unless he or she has a pretty good darn idea what's going to happen with that bill. And our last illustration is this. Legislatures operate on three types of rules. The written rules, you can find those on the web, the unwritten rules, largely etiquette, and then the unwritten and unspoken rules. And the most fundamental of the unwritten and unspoken rules in the legislature is this. You help me and I help you. First time I help you and you don't come back and help me, don't bother coming back at all. If you violate any of these three, you will be disrespected as being ill-informed. You weren't coached up, you weren't trained up, you didn't know what to do. You thought that the righteousness of your mission should be enough. It's a no-brainer. You want to vote my way. No, it doesn't work that way. They don't think that way. These are ideas of the 27 Fundamentals on how they think and how they can deal with it. And this is the last slide, and I'm not going to read it. It's simply, you'll see it when Aretha sends it out. That's my part, Aretha. Wow. I was writing down so many notes, and I felt like I was in law school, but at my level. So thank you so much. This was excellent. Oh, my goodness. We have somebody in the chat that said, I've attended 24 lobbies for non-profits for years. The law firms that I learned from suggest to advocate and oppose to lobbying. Very interesting thought. So Robert, let me get you, stop sharing your screen, and we'll open it up to everyone to see if you have questions for Robert. Use the raise your hand button or just wave. I'm sure there are lots of questions. Yes. Okay, let me see where I can see everybody. One second. Okay, Karen, I see your hand raised, and then I see Janet. You're next. Wow, great presentation. Thank you so very much. Really, really appreciate all of the information. What do you find to be the most effective, if you will, kind of argument? I mean, I was, I'm in California, so kind of a tough state for certain lobbies that are there. And so is an emotional appeal going to be better? Is a factual appeal going to be better? And how do you persuade someone potentially to change their mind from a position that they're pretty entrenched in? One is lawmakers vote the way their supporters want them to vote. There is unfortunately a misunderstanding that thinks money buys votes. Money does not buy votes. Lawmakers vote their own peculiar political calculus. So the threshold question is this, is how do you help me? What are you going to do for me, Karen? Now, here's the reality. I had, we had to lobby a particular lawmaker on just taxes on electricity used in manufacturing. He was a Democrat. I was corporate. I was Republican. I went down and visited him. We had the most warm, wonderful visit even though we lived in two world worlds. And I wanted them to repeal the legislature, the tax on electricity used in manufacturing. And at the end of our warm fuzzy, we really liked each other presentation. He said, Bob, yours is the best presentation I have ever heard in my life about why electricity used in manufacturing should not be taxed. But Bob, I will never vote your way because you are not my people. It's who is our birth. People are is how they vote. Don't think you're going to convince them. They do what one of our first slide says. Those who help and stay in office, those are the ones that they listen to. They don't listen to people that's going to harm their political careers. That was excellent. Karen, did he answer your question? Yes. Unfortunately, I guess maybe the question is, is how do you get more people to persuade them then so that you could get their vote? Because that way you can show them that, you know, I don't know that that's really a lobbying question or if that's more of a public opinion question. First of all, what you would do is you would go to the Secretary of State's website. You would go to that website. You would see who all of their campaign donors are. You would know who their campaign donors are. Then you would find rich of these campaign donors and I may have an overlapping interest. I'll give you a quick example. State of Colorado a number of years ago, there was Planned Parenthood and right to life, or not right to life, the focus on the family were able to walk to the California legislature hand in hand. How could such a thing possibly happen? Because there was a bill before the Colorado legislature to place all federal 501C freeze to take away their tax exempt status under state law. Do you think Planned Parenthood wanted to know? Do you think focus on the family? No, nobody wants to lose it. So you find out who interests can I intersect with to get them to support me. Excellent. That's brilliant. Thank you very much. That's great. Yeah. C. Janet, am I pronouncing your name right? Jenae. No, no worries. You're perfect. C.J. is perfectly fine as well. So I'm the one who mentioned that in the past, I've gone through quite a bit of training on the side of lobbying versus advocacy. And that's what I want to talk to you a little bit about because, and I'm rusty because I've kind of been out of this space for the last, I would say, five years. And in what I'm talking about, referencing is over 10 years old. But the law firms that we talked, that I was a part of as far as conferences and stuff like that, they mentioned to advocate versus lobbying because of course we're lobbying. Now I do have a certification in nonprofit management. So I do understand you have to fill out the, I think a schedule eight if you're going to lobby as a nonprofit organization. So there is a formula that we have to abide by. Now, but on the advocacy side, that was approach that was a little bit different. The language was just a little bit different. So I just want to know your take and whether or not there's still such a difference in our time now. But like I said, this when I was really heavily involved in nonprofits, it was, you know, that's 10 years ago when we were, when I went through all of that training. So if you can share your take as far as the difference between advocacy and lobbying. I have had this question many times over the years. I will give to you the same answer I give to everybody else. I am only a lawyer. That's all I know. I go to the statute. What does the statute say? And if the statute says you are attempting to get a lawmaker or agency official to do something that is lobbying per statute. So I can speak nothing more than what the statute say. And you can go to ncsl.com National Conference of State Legislatures. They have an entire page where they go every single state's statutes, governing, lobbying, and the definition thereof. It's all found in the statute. I dropped Jacobi. Is that who is that? Is a hyper, I can ask your name. Aretha, you're right on it. Yeah, it's Jacobi. How are you doing this morning? Okay, awesome. I had a quick question. I think, oh yeah, I am with a non-profit and I'm a board member for the Niles Foundation. Do a lot of stuff out here in Los Angeles. But my question actually was on the approach of a person that has a different, a lawmaker that has a different party, different supporters. In that setting, if you're pursuing their, you're trying to change their mind through the campaign funding, would they maybe perceive that as a bit of a threat in the sense that you're now talking to the people that are funding them in their campaign? That was just an interesting thought I had there. I don't understand the question. Please give me another chance. Not a problem. I'm trying to not interrupt this other meeting about my partners in here. Yeah, so you were saying go to the site, look at who's funding these specific lawmakers that have the opportunity to work with you or in a sense to not... So sorry, I'm really trying to articulate what you're sharing to the lady, I guess, Karen. In the event that you are approaching someone that is funding them or that has the same goals that you do, would that lawmaker maybe look at you as a specific type of threat in a sense that you're advising not to come off is that you want to help them secure their stance and power? But if you're talking to the people that are funding you, first of all, lawmakers expect you to solve all the problems you possibly can with a competing interest group before you ever talk to them. They don't exist to solve the problems among competing interest groups. They exist to apply what those competing interest groups have agreed to. Next is that's a form of coalition building and coalitions exist for advantage. They don't exist for love. They don't exist for loyalty. They don't exist for debt. They exist for advantage. And everybody in the process knows these are highly volatile relationships among interest groups. They would just say it's just another deal, part of the process of building coalitions. And the more agreement you bring to the legislature, the more likely they are going to do what you want. Consensus propels, controversy kills. It is vastly easier to kill a bill than it is to move a bill. You look at a state like Massachusetts, Massachusetts has a 0.041 enactment rate. Why? Because people are fighting so much. You go to Colorado, they have an 86% enactment rate. I can't explain why, but this is all online. So it's all about understanding the process. And this is why one of our earlier slides said, you train your people so they know what to do, who to deal with, how to approach, and the like. Consensus propels, controversy kills. Wow, that was a good one. Hi, Faith, how are you? Hi, good. How are you? So my question is I'm actually, in addition to working for my nonprofit, I'm a full-time student in college. I'm majoring in political science with a focus in environmental lobbying. And I guess my question is, what do you suggest the path for either beginners or just people who are just getting out of college? What path do you suggest they take to get started in the industry? May I say you're probably the 400th person who has asked me that question. And because I get so many of those questions, I wrote a little book. It's the first book in my Insiders Talk series. I wrote it for people like you who think, I think I'd like to be a lobbyist. I wonder what it's like. I wonder how I could possibly get involved in this field. And so my first book is how to get and keep your first lobbying job. And you read that book and that will advise you. It's just a little book. It's only 100 pages. But may I tell you some success in that book? I have had people, your age, call me up and say, Mr. Guyer, I read your book. How to get and keep your first lobbying job. I don't want to be a lobbyist now. After reading your book, it sounds too hard. You read that little book, you can get it anywhere. That'll help you. Thank you. Awesome. Awesome questions. Are there any more questions or comments? Somebody sent me a comment. This man is speaking my language. Thank you so much for saying that. It was a lot. Okay, I see a question. Oh, there was a question here in the chat room from Pete. It says, one problem for lobbying for people with ADHD is that I argue that politicians and parishes and some. Pete, did you want to ask that or mention that yourself? Go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. So the problem is while mental health is stigmatized, there's almost no more stigmatized condition than ADHD. Stigmatized, trivialized. And I would argue that politicians have higher rates of ADD. It's a competitive edge in some ways, right? Self-medicate with conflict, like something new, allergic to boredom, get staffers to do the boring paperwork. So, but because it's seen as so shameful, they don't want to admit they have it and they do psychological projection against it. They demonize ADD, so it's like, don't notice me. So a real big barrier is not just that people with ADD are hidden in the closet and they won't go public to lobby, but to deal with those politicians who, again, I would argue have higher rates. I have no data, but I'm a poly-sum major. And I've talked to a lot of people in politics who would say that many of the politicians and some of their staffers have ADD. How do people with ADD overcome that lobstacle? I would compare it to dealing, let's say, maybe 30 years ago, people who were gay, but in the gay closet, they would often project shame and stigma against LGBT people, so they wouldn't be looked at them. And it's the same thing with ADD. So how do I overcome that obstacle? Because that's a huge one. Remembering Madison's summation, quote, self-interest is the engine of government. The most important thing that lawmaker wants to know from you, what can you do for me? And when that lawmaker sees you can help me with regard to interest groups in my district, or you can help me with regard to this or that, they will be attentive to you. It is a system that is driven by self-interest, appeal to their self-interest. Why do they get benefit from what you're saying? Remember, facts don't vote. Nobody gives a blank about what your facts are. They care about what is the political consequence to me if I support you or I oppose you. What does it mean to my donors? And one of the most important things that they look at are the scorecards that are put out by what you said. For example, you said gays and lesbians. There's Texas. They have a big scorecard out. All the D's have A's and all of the R's have F's. Gives you a sense of polarization there. You're not going to get any one of those R's who has an F to suddenly become an A, and you're not going to get any one with an A to suddenly become an F. They vote their self-interest. So your job is to show that lawmaker not the facts. But why you can benefit him or her politically. Facts don't vote. Politics vote. Thanks. That's yeah. Yeah, that's good. Then that sort of overcomes the barrier. So I could like create a scorecard on mental health, add some other conditions. But if I'm running that scorecard and doing that, ADD is going to be the first question. Sure, you can do that. A lot of people create scorecards. It's a lot of work to do it. But if you did it, it means something because that's what their donors look at before they support that lawmaker. I don't know all this stuff this lawmaker wants to do. I'll just go to the scorecard. That makes my voting easy and donations easy too. Give them a nice easy cheat sheet. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. This is really good. Like this is, I've been in politics into politics for 30 decades. This is very, very useful. Thank you, sir. Yes. I agree. I agree. Richard, you put a question in the chat room. Would you like to unmute yourself to ask? It's a fairly long, lengthy question. Are you referring to me, please? Richard Muir. Is that how you say it? More. Yeah. That's you. Yeah. It's not really a question. It's just a comment because our organization, the National Committee on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, we don't work much at all with elected leaders. We mostly work on advising federal regulatory agencies, most specifically the Federal Highway Administration, on national standards for traffic control across the entire U.S. And we've been working for decades through contacts with federal agencies and through the federal register rulemaking process. But I just wanted to comment that a lot of this information that's in this presentation could be useful, not only for that process, but also should it become necessary to make contacts at the state or federal level as far as congressional or legislative. There are some issues that we're addressing right now that are remarkably controversial and have raised the interest of a lot of activists groups. And they have been very clear on making their comments clear to the elected officials as have we. And we're waiting to see what the final result will be because there was a major rulemaking last year. We're still waiting for the final rule in the issuance of the new national manual. But I just wanted to say this was really good information and thank you for bringing it together. One is you're welcome. Two is I in past years have given a number of seminars to the American Traffic Safety Services Association. So at least I have some sense of what you go through. ASSA is one of our sponsoring organization members and they've been a big supporter of ours. And they are very familiar with the legislative process. They're much more active lobbying than we are, but they've been great supporters. Thank you. And we'll put Robert's information in the chat room and of course you'll get it on the slides that we sent out during the replay recording. I saw a question from Nick, John. John, did you want to ask your question out loud? You want to know, can you say a little bit more on the IRS restrictions on 501c3 lobbying? And I think if you're Robert, you want to answer that real quickly. I know you said you're going to give the slides. Yeah, I know Robert said it, not his thing to talk about specifics too much, but I'm new to the whole nonprofit business and reading through some of the IRS stuff a couple of months ago, we said, okay, you can't have any more than 5% of your total budget dedicated to lobbying. Can you just give us a little bit more guidance on what you really can't do and what you can do as because I see it's mostly nonprofits here. I'd really like to hear more. Well, one is Arethas and TechSoup's lawyers preceded the presentation on the materials they set out that said, this cannot be legal advice. Do not rely on it for legal advice. Okay, so I will say that is a general principle. Don't trust anything I say about IRS internal revenue code. However, the general rule of thumb is this, an organization cannot spend more than $1 million or 20% of its budget, whichever is the less, in its lobbying activities. And the IRS gives you all these calculations in those 10 courses that I referenced to you where you can see the IRS answers. Secondly, there is a group called Charity, Lobbying in the Public Interest, an excellent group that understands all of this quite well. When I was writing one of my most recent books, I went to them and said, is this still good law? And they said, yes, it's still good law. There are resources out there. I am just not one of them, sir. Thank you, Robert. And Yvonne, thank you for putting that link in there. She put the link to the IRS website, and I know sometimes reading it, but there's also videos on there too. Yeah, great. Can he repeat that group in South Carolina? You mentioned a group in South Carolina, Bob. A group in South Carolina? If I did, I faux pas. I don't remember doing that. Okay, Tara, is it Tara? Tara, would you come on? Were you speaking of Robert mentioning the group or someone else? I'll meet yourself, please. There we go. Yeah, just in that very last part, you had said that there's a group that knows everything about this, and you had reached out to them, was it still the same? And they said, yes. I thought you said that they were in South Carolina. That's why I put that. I should have said this. The name of the group is Charity, Lobbying in the Public Interest. It is a DC-founded group, and they are outstanding, and they have done this forever. And that's really a group for you to become part of or otherwise to consult in this. Thank you so much. You're welcome. So I see, Ulta, did you want to ask your question? I'll meet yourself and ask your question. I'll see you in the chat room. But it's not going to come up for you all. No problem. Yes, since the executive agency that enforces the legislation has more to say really about what will happen than the legislature, should we in fact connect informally, if you will, with staffers for executive agencies? And if so, what titles or staffing positions would be the best to get informally known with? On a national basis, for every page of statutory law, there are 10 pages of administrative law. That's where the 90% comes from. Two is the most important person that you can possibly know is the legislative liaison for the department. The department has their own lobbyists. They are always looking out for the reputation of the administrative agency in the legislature. The legislative liaison also has the ear of the political appointees. The political appointees, when a new governor comes in, it creates all these new cabinet and the like. The political appointees can't change the content of a particular rulemaking, but they can change the direction or the general overview of it and they can even shut it down if they don't like it. So the most important contact you can have with the agency is the legislative liaison. Build relationships with him or her. Okay, is that a thing that applies at the state level as well? Everywhere, everywhere. Perfect, thank you. This political appointees, what's the thing they want to know? How's our appropriation going to be? Oh, wow. If the legislative liaison says, you know, you're going to really upset these particular lawmakers with what the department is doing in their administrative rulemaking process, they'll shut that process down. They're not going to worry. They're not going to lose their appropriations. Thank you. Thank you. We'll take a few more questions. I see David and then Lori, your hand is raised. Feel free to go first, David. Hey, thank you. Any specific insight for 501C3s that start a 501C4 affiliate for the unlimited lobbying? That's exactly what you should do. If you're going to exceed the IRS limits, you have to form a 501C4 otherwise the 501C3 will lose their tax exempt status. It is very common for 501C3s to form 501C4s. And so that is the exact proper legal thing to do. Excellent, Lori. Well, this is kind of a personal question, Mr. Geyer. Is that your son who's the Marine in the picture behind you? Yes. My son was also a Marine and our foundation, Lionheart Heroes, deals with advocating for sudden cardiac arrest screening in the military. And we've had some success. Good. This is kind of addressing the previous person's question about committees or not. We went directly to our congressman who was the head of the committee and he assigned his chief of staff. And we got a law pass. That's a really short version. Wonderful. But we also started with the staff liaison, like you said, and that's what got us in to see the congressman. So excellent answer. Thank you. We didn't upset anybody on this call. If I informed you that neither in Congress or in the state legislature any lawmaker ever reads the bills they're voting on, the vast majority of them have no idea what the bill is. What they do know is this. They listen to what you've got to say. They listen to what your opponent has to say. You're coached up and knowing what to do. And they know you have to be scrupulously honest. You deceive them one time. You are out of a lobbying business. Don't even knock on their doors anymore. You are scrupulously honest. Your opponent is scrupulously honest. They go and say, what's best for me? Who should I go with? And that's how they vote. They don't need to read this book. So my congratulations to you in getting this through. It must have great political appeal. It seems nice. Thank you. Awesome. Congratulations. Okay, last few minutes. Anybody else have a question? Karen had a comment in the chat section. So I'll let you read it, Karen. I just was trying to kind of clarify the differences between lobbying and administrative agency and lobbying a legislator. And so it seemed as though what was kind of being communicated is that the legislative funding for the administrative agency is kind of the most important. The most important factor to those administrative agencies. So what would be the kind of the strategy of the perspective for making that case to the administrative agencies that their funding could be influenced by the way that they position themselves as it relates to what we're focused on. The most powerful person you could ever have to make an argument is not you. It's the chair of the finance committee. If you can get the chair of the finance committee to come there and just say, you know, I just don't feel good about what the department is doing, they will change. You have to understand how power works. This is a very logical process. Lobbying is a very logical process, but it is utterly irrational. It is utterly irrational. You find yourself in a system where lawmakers don't read the bills that they're voting on. Facts don't vote anyway. And so that lawmaker is voting what his constituents want, his donors, what the scorecards say. Understand this is a logical process. That's why they have flow charts, but it's an utterly irrational process. So your threshold question is this. Can I survive in an utterly irrational process? I can possibly if I can bring in people who can help me convince them, not facts. They don't care about facts. They care about what these will mean to them politically. A comment on the agencies. Agencies are facts and law, facts and law. We don't care if you go out of business tomorrow because our job is permanent. We've got it forever, no matter what we do. With guaranteed races and guaranteed investment, we don't give a blank who your lawmaker buddy or lobbyist is. We only care about facts and law and our secure jobs. And as a consequence, when you deal with the department, it's the same principle in this sense. You have to show the department why doing what you want it to do is good for the department. And how do you know that? You go to their annual statement. You go to their strategic plan for the next five years and they will list everything that they want to do in the legislature. And they want to get an appropriation or they want to be able to help children, whatever it is. You read the strategic plan and you figure out how can I help the department advance their strategic plan? And if you can, they will listen. Self-interest is the engine of government, both legislative and administrative. Awesome. I saw someone had their hand raised but disappeared. I wanted to give you the last question. Did you want to ask? I'm sure. I was, you sort of answered the question, but you mentioned earlier about creating a scorecard might be the easiest way for them to just see which way to vote. You said actually creating a scorecard is very hard and long. So I was wondering how do you create a scorecard and if there are groups that do that, that you can hire to do that for you? I do not know the answer to are there groups that do that for you. I have no idea. I only know is that those scorecards are highly persuasive to that lawmaker because it gives his or her supporters an idea of should they support that lawmaker or not. It's all about power and the scorecard is just one more tool to exercise power. Power is not why lawmakers come to the legislature but it's why they stay. Thank you Robert. Wow, this was incredible. Would you guys put some thank you, some hearts of everything in the chat room for Robert? And please make sure you fill out our survey. We did put his contact information. Everybody is saying amazing. Look at the comments in the chat room. Thank you so much. Amazing. This was awesome. Wow, this is amazing. Great information. This was amazing. Thank you, Bob. Lots of thank you. One more thing. May I say one more thing? If this is possible, if you could send them the actual slides because the slides have active links in there. So where it says IRS, click on it. There's the IRS website. If you and so go send them out and I'll send you my revised one. It's slightly revised. Send that out to them and this there can click around and find out questions, the answers they wanted to. They never asked. Yeah, we send that. We send it all through slide share because you guys, somebody that asked me earlier, can we send it a different way? When we have to send slides to thousands of people a week through TechSoup, we have to use like one platform. I wish I could get send it through Google Drive but I can't because everybody would be asking permission. So I just want to say thank you all for being here. This is the way we have to learn to use technology. But this was a different topic and I think we had almost 500 people, if not more, sign up. So make sure when you get the video that you share this video, contact Bob if you want any other information. I always tell all my nonprofits as you're busy taking care of yourself. Make sure, as you're busy, take care of the world. Make sure you take care of yourself. Candice, I see your hand. I do not want to forget you. You might have been trying to use the button. Go ahead and unmute yourself. I know she had a... Okay, I'm just curious. What app are you using to do the translating at the bottom of Zoom? That's transcribing the verbal text. Whatever Zoom has, we just click on live transfer, enable live transcripts and whatever they're using. So yes, thank you all once again. Again, thank you. Thank you so much for all the comments in the chat room. Wow, wow, wow. You guys have a great day. Nobody wants to leave. No one wants to leave. Bob, they're still here. Thank you everybody. Have a great day. Bye-bye. Goodbye. Presentation, thanks. Thank you so much.