Episodes

Sept. 7, 2025

How to Deal with Decisionmakers Who Say There's No Money Right Now

There is a thing going on out there that we have to talk about. It's making me crazy. I'm pretty sure it's making you crazy too. And that's this business of all these money decisionmakers, whether they're foundations or elected officials or government agencies, you name it. They're all singing the …
Aug. 31, 2025

Why More Information Rarely Results in Greater Understanding

I hear from Nonprofit leaders all the time about how frustrating it is that they've explained their work to decisionmakers a million times and they still don't get it. And you respond by going out and gathering even more convincing data and information, thinking surely this will make them see the l…
Aug. 24, 2025

How to Cultivate the Personal Power You Need Right Now

Just about everywhere I go, folks are having some version of the conversation about how we're all responding to the crazy (stuff) that is going on in our world. How we’re responding both as citizens of this country and as Nonprofit leaders in particular. And the impact that's having on us personall…
Aug. 17, 2025

How to Apply Pressure to Decisionmakers, Without it Blowing Up in Your Face

We are in a time where more and more, for a lot of decisionmakers, pressure is a necessary component to our advocacy. At the same time, we're operating in an environment where some decisionmakers, including some very high-pro...
Aug. 10, 2025

How to Establish Yourself as an Expert in the Eyes of Decisionmakers

Have you ever been frustrated by a decisionmaker who doesn't acknowledge your expertise and therefore doesn't take your advice? Or have you ever hesitated to brand yourself as an expert? These may seem like two separate problems, but they're actually related. And if you've ever experienced either o…
Aug. 3, 2025

The Hidden Trap in Tailoring Your Messaging to Decisionmakers’ Concerns

It's time to talk about a hidden flaw in one of the most common messaging strategies that we're all using. And that, if we're not aware of it, can really come back and bite us. Here's how that winds up happening. You've worked hard on tailoring your messaging. You've done your research, and taken a…
July 27, 2025

Three Ways to Take Maximum Advantage of the Congressional Recess Right Now

Members of Congress are on their way home as we speak, for basically a month long recess, which is known in Congressional speak as a district work period. I want to make sure you have everything you need to take full advantag...
July 20, 2025

The Four Essential Elements at the Heart of High-Impact Advocacy Messaging

The stakes are really high with advocacy messaging these days, especially for nonprofits. Effective messaging is so critical to every aspect of engaging decisionmakers. At any point in the process, no matter where you are in ...
July 11, 2025

Three Areas of Personal Growth that Will Have the Biggest Impact on Your Advocacy Success

Our personal growth as an advocate and as a leader is probably the single most important ingredient for our advocacy success. And yet, it’s one of the things we most often overlook. We don't give enough time and attention to ...
July 6, 2025

The Fastest Way to Get Decisionmakers to Value, Respect, and Rely on Your Expertise

One of the biggest frustrations that I hear from Nonprofit leaders is that much too often for comfort, decisionmakers fail to recognize or value our expertise. And when that happens, they're not listening to us in the same wa...
June 28, 2025

Decisionmakers Do Not Care About Your Services! (and That's OK if You Know What To Do)

Here’s an uncomfortable truth: Money and policy decisionmakers do not care about your services. This uncomfortable truth is a source of frustration for so many Nonprofit leaders, and it doesn't have to be. But we have to und...
June 22, 2025

The Most Powerful Thing Nonprofit Leaders Can Do Right Now to Preserve Medicaid and SNAP

The potential for massive cuts to Medicaid and SNAP moved one step closer to reality when the Senate voted its version of the big ugly bill out of committee. The good news is there are still quite a few hurdles to clear befor...
June 13, 2025

The Shortest Distance Between Where You Are Now and the Advocacy Results You Want

I have a really important question I want to ask you. How satisfied are you, really, with the advocacy results that you're currently getting? Chances are, you're frustrated with at least one of the money or policy decision ma...
June 6, 2025

How to Successfully Build Advocacy into Every Team Member's Role

I was on the road working with a client last week. And the CEO there asked me the most awesome question that I was super excited to answer. The minute we had the conversation, I knew it was one that we needed to have on the p...
June 1, 2025

Two Surefire Things You Can Do to Fix Your Messaging on the Fly

When you're in a conversation with a decisionmaker and it's not going the way you want, they're not engaging, they're not leaning in, or they're not getting what you need them to get. You can tell there's some kind of disconn...
May 24, 2025

How Nonprofit Leaders Can Help Save Medicaid

There is nothing more timely than the issue of saving Medicaid. We are in a moment of both extreme threat but also extreme opportunity. I know it would be very easy to think that there’s nothing we can do. That massive cuts t...
May 17, 2025

Self Care in Times of Total Insanity

How do we all be okay when so much is not okay in the world? There's so much bad, scary, overwhelming stuff going on constantly that it’s really hard sometimes to just get out of bed in the morning. Nevermind show up as our best selves, as our best empowered nonprofit leaders fighting for what's ri…
May 9, 2025

The Most Underutilized Advocacy Tool You Can Use Right Now to Improve Your Results

If you’ve got great messaging and it’s still not causing decisionmakers to engage with you, chances are you’re dealing with one of the most common advocacy pitfalls that happens to a lot of nonprofit leaders: We worry so muc...
May 3, 2025

How To Stay Strong when Others Around You are Giving into Fear

There is a lot of fear in the air, and I think it's important that we as nonprofit leaders take a hard look at that and get clear about what we're going to do with it. The first thing is we have to acknowledge it. I've been p...
April 27, 2025

How To Deal with a Decisionmaker Who Can't or Won't Make a Decision

It's time to talk about one of the most frustrating things that can get in an advocate's way: when you've got a decisionmaker that, no matter what you do or say, no matter how hard you push them, it feels like they just will ...
April 19, 2025

Three Secrets to Building Influence with any Money or Policy Decisionmaker in Your World

There has never been a time when the influence of nonprofit leaders was more needed. In particular, we need to have influence with the money and policy decision makers that hold the power to help or harm the people we serve. ...
April 13, 2025

How to Successfully Advocate for Your Funding on Multiple Fronts at Once

We need to talk about an emerging reality that virtually all of my clients are telling me is their number one challenge right now. Everyone is already dealing with multiple threats to federal funding. But now there’s the addi...
April 5, 2025

How to Ensure You Have Maximum Impact when Your Members of Congress are Home in Their Districts

We’re about to enter a period of opportunity to have a lot of influence over our Members of Congress. They'll be home in their districts/states twice in the next seven weeks for “district work periods” to connect with their c...
March 21, 2025

How the Power of Community Building Can Help You Fight Back Against Attacks on Your Program and Your Funding

We all know how valuable community building is, but we often don't understand just how powerful it is. And right now it might just be that nonprofit leaders' superpower as community builders could be one of the keys to making...