Primary Season Is Coming to NY, DC, MA, and CT — What Your Charity Can (and Can’t) Do at a Candidate Forum

Primary season is opening across our four jurisdictions over the next four months. The District of Columbia votes June 16, with registrations due May 26. New York votes June 23. Connecticut primaries begin with early voting on August 3. Massachusetts votes September 1 with early voting running from August 22 to 28.

For most public charities working in housing, education, health, civic engagement, or environmental advocacy, this is the moment when the invitations begin to arrive: host a forum, lend the meeting room, invite the mayor or governor to keynote the gala, register voters at the community fair.

The legal rules have not changed. Section 501(c)(3) public charities cannot intervene in any electoral campaign, in any direction, at any level. But intervention is broader than endorsement, and the most common compliance failures during primary season are accidental. They come from generosity — letting a candidate drop literature on a table, waiving a rental fee, inviting a “favorite” elected official to speak. Each of those carries real risk.

Here is what a charity can do during the months ahead, and the small adjustments that keep otherwise routine activities clean.

Hosting a candidate forum

Forums are permitted, and they are one of the most valuable services a public charity can provide during an election year. Three rules govern.

First, invite every candidate in the race. If only one or two show up, the forum is still compliant — what matters is the equal opportunity to participate, not who actually appears.

Second, design the questions around your charitable mission, not around the candidates’ personal qualifications or political positions outside your issue area. A housing nonprofit asks about housing. A youth services org asks about youth services. The forum is educational; it is not a referendum on the candidates’ fitness for office.

Third, no fundraising at the event, and no campaign literature on the tables. Candidates may speak about their views, but they may not solicit donations or distribute campaign materials inside your event. If a candidate’s staffer arrives with a stack of leaflets, that material does not go on your tables.

Renting space to a campaign

If your organization regularly rents conference space at a published rate, a campaign may rent that space at the same rate. The legal rule is fair-market value: charge what you would charge anyone else, document it, and process the payment through the usual channels. Discounts, waivers, and “we’ll just throw it in” arrangements are in-kind contributions, and in-kind contributions are prohibited.

If you do not regularly rent space commercially, the cleanest answer is to decline. Setting a rate just for this one campaign creates a paper trail problem at audit and invites questions from the next candidate who asks for the same favor.

WATCH FOR THIS
If your organization typically rents conference space commercially, providing that space to a campaign free-of-charge is an in-kind contribution. Charge fair market rate or don’t rent at all.

Inviting an elected official to keynote

A sitting governor, mayor, member of Congress, or state legislator may speak at your event in their official capacity, even if they are running for reelection. Three guardrails:

Brief them in writing, in advance, that they are speaking as the current officeholder, not as a candidate, and that no campaigning should happen from the podium.

Introduce them by their current office. “We’re honored to welcome Governor X.” Not “Governor X, who is running for reelection,” and not “candidate X.”

If they go off-script and ask the room to vote for them, the recording or transcript is your evidence that you did not invite that conduct. Send a follow-up note to the official’s office documenting the agreed scope of the appearance and your understanding that the campaigning was unsolicited.

Voter registration and get-out-the-vote

Nonpartisan voter registration drives are unambiguously permitted. So is nonpartisan GOTV. The word that governs both is nonpartisan. The line is crossed when a charity’s volunteer treats voters differently based on which candidate the voter mentions.

The training point for staff and volunteers running a registration table this season: every voter gets the same script, the same time, the same help finding their polling location, the same answer to questions about ID requirements. The voter who tells you they cannot wait to vote for Senator Smith and the voter who tells you they will never vote for Senator Smith both get exactly the same service.

Criticizing elected officials in primary season

Charities advocate. Charities criticize officials who fail to act on issues the charity cares about. None of that stops in an election year.

What needs to stop is changing the level of criticism in response to an official’s electoral status. If a charity has spent two years criticizing a state legislator for blocking a housing bill, the criticism may continue. If the criticism intensifies the week before the primary because the legislator is on the ballot — or softens because a friendly official is on the ballot — that shift is evidence of campaign intervention. The substance also has to stay tied to the issue. Criticism of a record on housing policy is fine. Criticism of personal characteristics or candidate fitness is not.

When in doubt, slow down

Most compliance failures happen because someone said yes quickly. The candidate who calls Friday afternoon asking to drop by the gala on Saturday. The campaign volunteer who shows up at the registration table with literature. The board member who suggests “we should really endorse her, she’s been so helpful.” Pause, write it down, and call counsel before you act. The penalties for getting this wrong are revocation of tax-exempt status and excise taxes against the organization and, in some cases, individual board members. The legal cost of a fifteen-minute call is far smaller than the cost of an audit.

WORK WITH US
Commonlight Legal LLP supports nonprofits and mission-driven organizations across New York, D.C., Massachusetts, and Connecticut with governance, compliance, and election-year guidance. Schedule an intro call with us at commonlight.legal/appointments, or reach Lauren directly at cal.com/lauren-koster or lauren@commonlight.legal.

Disclaimer: This post is general information only and is not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney–client relationship. Consult counsel for advice specific to your organization.