Give Advocacy a Chance: Social Workers’ Policy Practice in Nonprofit and Public Organizations in Italy

Abstract

Nonprofit organizations (NPOs) are often considered key actors in advocacy and social change, leading to the expectation that social workers employed in NPOs are more engaged in policy practice (PP) than their counterparts in public organizations. Drawing on the motivation–facilitation–opportunity framework proposed by Gal and Weiss-Gal, this article examines differences in social workers’ PP engagement across nonprofit and public organizational settings in Italy. Using survey data from 6,859 Italian social workers, the study distinguishes four forms of PP—internal informal, internal formal, external direct, and external indirect—and compares patterns of engagement across five organizational groups. Descriptive statistics and nested regression models examine the role of sociodemographic characteristics, political attitudes, occupational characteristics, and organizational support. The findings show that social workers employed by and working within NPOs exhibit higher engagement primarily in external–indirect PP, a form more closely associated with advocacy and collective mobilization. However, these differences are associated less with sectoral identity or organizational support for PP than with organizational opportunity structures, particularly hierarchical position and access to decision-making arenas. This article contributes to policy practice research and nonprofit studies by suggesting that the distinctiveness of NPOs in fostering advocacy-oriented engagement lies less in their mission and organizational culture than in the structural opportunities they provide practitioners. More broadly, the findings highlight the importance of organizational opportunity structures in shaping practitioners’ engagement in advocacy and policy practice and encourage future research to examine how the distribution of roles and resources within organizations interacts with welfare governance.