Episodes

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 one, this episode is for you. I know so many nonprofit leaders who are otherwise totally confident, but if you ask them to declare themselves or present themselves as an expert on anything, the...

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 lot of good notes when you've been in conversation with a particular decisionmaker. And you've tailored the heck out of your messaging to appeal to their priorities and concerns and what the...

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 advantage of this significant opportunity, while you have them right there, easily accessible to you home in the district. And I know. I hear you. You could be forgiven for thinking that you don't want to see another member of Congress for as long as you live, given how they've bee...

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 your relationship with them, your messaging has to work. But we face a big problem. There's so much noise, there's so many reasons for decisionmakers not to pay attention to or engage with our messaging, that we can't afford to get it wrong. Today I’m focusing on the four ...

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 it. There's a lot of ‘doing’ in advocacy and that's quite naturally what we tend to focus on. But at the core of it all is your growth, your strength, your capacity as a leader and as an advocate. But how do we grow as a leader, as an engager of decisionmakers and as a pow...

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 way. They're less inclined to take our advice and to give real weight to our assessment of what needs to be done differently. And all of that makes our advocacy work so much harder. One of the questions I get most often is, what can I do to get decisionmakers to regard me as ...

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 understand it and learn how to work with it in order for it to be okay. You’ve probably had this experience. You're talking to a decision maker and you get the feeling that they really don't care about your services. It's because they don't. But that doesn't mean they don't ca...

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 before those terrible policies have a chance of becoming law. Which means there are that many more opportunities to defeat them. Nonprofit leaders have a critical role to play in defeating these proposals. We are definitely not alone in this work. But we do have some unique abil...

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 makers in your world. And there could be a lot of reasons for that frustration. But here's something you may not have considered. That frustration could be the biggest thing getting in the way of the results you want. In this week’s episode, we're diving into two powerful wa...

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 podcast as well, because it applies to absolutely every direct service nonprofit. I was on-site to help the client develop some advocacy strategies that were focused on specific desired results, involving particular decisionmaking bodies. But in the course of the conversatio...

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 disconnect happening, and that this is not going to get you what you wanted. Whether that was to just move the conversation forward and deepen the relationship, or whether there was something specific you came to ask for that day. This happens a lot. And right now, as we're all in...

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 to Medicaid are a done deal. The fact is nothing could be further from the truth. And the role that nonprofit leaders can play in turning the tide and saving Medicaid for the people we serve, and for everyone who depends on it, is tremendous right now. But here's the thing....

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 right, fighting for the people we serve, and to protect our communities. We can't do that without some help. So the conversation is increasingly turning to a search for information, a search for...

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 much about what we're going to tell a decision maker, and we don't spend nearly enough time thinking about what we want to ask them. Questions are incredibly powerful tools, and they can really work magic in a conversation with a decisionmaker. They can create engagement. T...

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 part of a number of conversations where the fear is in the air, but it's not being talked about directly. And I think that's a mistake, because we run the risk of letting that fear guide our decision making and our actions in ways that we may not even realize or intend. And ...

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 never commit to anything. They either can't or won't make a decision. It can leave an advocate just about tearing their hair out in frustration. It can turn into a huge time suck. You're trying all these different angles to try to figure out, how do I get through to this pe...

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. At the same time, a lot of things are happening that could leave a nonprofit leader feeling pretty vulnerable and powerless. Our challenge is to find a way to move like water and create that influence no matter what else is going on. One of the things I hear most frequentl...

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 additional reality that all the chaos and uncertainty at the federal level – from budget craziness to wildly fluctuating tariff policies – is destabilizing other funding sources. State and local government funding, foundation grants and corporate funding are all affected. As n...

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 constituents. You should expect to be seeing quite a bit of them in late April and then again in late May. These district work periods represent a significant opportunity for nonprofit leaders to engage substantially with your Members of Congress, and to drive home the absol...

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 sure that we are able to fight off the right wing attacks on our funding and on the work that we do and the people we serve. In this episode, we share: Understanding the strategic goals of the forces of division How to disrupt the forces of division through community bu...

This is a time when we need all hands on deck. There's so much need for nonprofits to advocate aggressively for the work that we do, and specifically for the government funding that supports our work. And nowhere is that more true than at the federal level. I’ve shared a lot of thoughts recently about the number of ways that federal funding for safety net services is under attack, and the importance of engaging members of Congress to get them to do the right thing. I'm also hearing from a lot ...

Nonprofit leaders have a lot going on in terms of advocacy we need to be doing with Congress. And I’m hearing from a lot of my clients and the folks in my coaching programs, saying “Just strip it down for me. What's the messaging we need to be using? Give me a framework so that I can keep this simple.” I totally understand the need for that, and I'm right here with you. We’ve got so much coming at us all the time that sometimes the best thing is to just keep it short and sweet and simple. So I’...

It can be really hard right now as a Nonprofit leader to know where to focus your attention, what to be spending your advocacy energy on and what's going to have the biggest impact. For the vast majority of direct service nonprofits, federal dollars make up at least some part of your total funding. And for any nonprofit in that situation, most of the critical action that's going to determine the long-term wellbeing of our organizations, our programs, our services, and the people we serve is hap...

The right wing's "waste, fraud, and abuse" propaganda is being used to justify massive and indiscriminate slashing of federal funding for anything and everything. That propaganda is hurting nearly every nonprofit in this country right now, and it's hurting every single community that is served by those nonprofits. The good news is, propaganda only succeeds when it's not being countered effectively. So we have to find ways to counter it. The problem is, all the normal messaging we use with polic...