Episodes

None of us has gotten where we are alone. And none of us are going to get where we're going alone. We always have others who are helping and supporting us, whether we realize and acknowledge it or not. Whether it's a formal arrangement or not. We all just had the wonderful experience of watching the Paris summer Olympics. If you've ever wanted clear convincing evidence of the power of coaching, all you have to do is look at and listen to these extraordinary athletes. Who will be the very first ...

The energy you bring to an encounter with a decisionmaker has a huge impact on your ability to engage and influence them. You can be as prepared as you want to be with all your facts and messaging. But if you don't bring an energy that engages, you're likely to be disappointed in the outcome. The problem most of us face is that our energetic frequency fluctuates throughout the day. And often we find ourselves in an energetic state that does not serve us. If something happens that pulls us into ...

Tell me if this sounds familiar. You have some key pieces of data that you know should speak to your decision maker. It's obvious to you that these data points basically scream, our stuff solves your problem, and it solves it in a big way with a big impact. But then you share it with the decision maker and they don't really see those connections. They don't see the significance. They don't connect it to their problems and concerns. And you're left wondering why they can't see the obvious. Maybe ...

One of the frustrations I often hear from nonprofit leaders is, yeah, we got a handful of great allies and champions, but we can't seem to grow the bench. We'd love to build even more of those powerfully influential relationships, but we simply haven't got the bandwidth. I'm already devoting 60% of my time to this, and I still have to run the organization, and there's only so much of me to go around. I hired a policy person or a contracting person, and between the two of us, we're able to get a...

One of the biggest challenges nonprofit leaders face is engaging decision makers around the information and data that we know make a compelling case for the policy or money decision we're asking for. But we know from experience that simply presenting that data and information and explaining why and how it supports our argument rarely leads to a decision maker leaning in and saying, tell me more. Much less having them say, you're right. This is a no brainer. One of the best techniques for transl...

On this 4th of July week, it’s a good time to pause and reflect. Democracy has always been messy, always imperfect, and always a work in progress. If we’re paying attention, we know that democracy is an ongoing project. What’s easy to overlook is that the success of that ongoing project requires the active participation of all of us. And when that participation wanes is when opportunities arise for those who would undermine democracy or bend it to their own self-interested purposes. We are in ...

Pilots can be a great strategy for setting the stage for sustainable funding. Many nonprofits have successfully leveraged a pilot project to unlock millions of dollars in funding and to achieve key policy changes that ensure those services are always available going forward. But too many pilot projects end with no discernible impact on funding or policy. And that's a shame because it doesn't have to be that way. The truth is if a nonprofit makes one or more key mistakes when setting up the pilo...

One of the most underappreciated and overlooked factors that go into successfully engaging decision makers is identity. Identity is so powerful. It shapes how we see the world, and ourselves. It shapes how we relate to the world. And in the context of advocacy, it shapes how the decisionmaker sees the issues and problems we're engaging them on. There can be an important difference between identity and role or title. Both matter, but we often assume they're the same, and wind up just speaking to...

As a nonprofit leader, you probably have a lot of experience with public policy that often fails to serve the best interests of the people you serve, and the work you do to help them thrive. And when the time comes that you decide you want to create better policy, you want to make sure that the new policy does what you really need it to do. But getting from your great policy idea to finished policy that actually does what you need it to, is not automatic. The devil is always in the details, and...

Almost every aspect of a nonprofit's work is touched by public policy in some way. And sometimes we come to the realization that the way to achieve a particular goal or to solve a particular problem is that we need a new or different public policy around that. But here's the thing. The landscape is littered with well-intentioned policy that did not succeed at doing what it was intended to do. Because the language was not crafted in such a way as to generate the desired result. Sometimes that's ...

As advocates and leaders, a big part of our job is to successfully engage both decisionmakers and members of our own teams to join us in pursuit of a goal. And when we’re at our most effective, we can feel that we’re operating from a place of strength and assuredness and confidence that others can feel and respond to. But sometimes events happen that can undercut all of that in an instant. We get pulled into reactive emotions, and suddenly we’re no longer operating from that place of assurednes...

Even when you've figured out the most effective messaging in the world, sharing that with the rest of your team and helping them to use it to produce the results you want can be a huge challenge. What definitely does not work is to simply provide all those talking points and say, here's everything in our messaging that works. Go do it. That's valuable information to have, but it is not enough. You may already have in your head all the details about when and where and how to most effectively dep...

Tell me if this sounds familiar. You've identified what you want from a decision maker and you're ready to make your case. You got your facts all lined up. Your logic flow is great. You’ve got your slide deck and your one-pager all set. Your infographics are brilliant. And then you lay it all out for the decision maker. And it falls flat. They don't buy what you're selling. They don't engage. Maybe they don't even fully pay attention to your whole pitch. And you're left wondering what the heck h...

If your nonprofit receives any sort of program-specific federal funding, you are likely subject to at least three levels of decision-making about that money and possibly more. If you don’t know exactly what the decision-making process looks like at all three levels – and how to influence it – you could be at risk of losing funding or having adverse decisions made about your funding without your knowledge or input. Here’s a case where knowledge really is power. In this episode, we reveal: The t...

The right wing is generating and amplifying a lot of fear-based, demonizing messaging that is driving polarization. And for many of the purveyors of this messaging, polarization is part of the point. It's one of the strategic objectives. It can be very tempting as a nonprofit leader to say that doesn't have anything to do with us. We're a nonpartisan organization, that's all political stuff and it doesn't affect us. But the fact is it does affect all of us in a number of significant ways. And if...

One of the most underrated and underappreciated tools in the toolkits of the most effective nonprofit leaders is vision. The truth is whether it's in nonprofit land or anywhere else, nothing big ever happens without a vision. Whether it's at the community level or worldwide, big ambitious things take vision in order to bring them about. And it also requires the ability to transform that vision into reality. Chances are you have a vision of how you want things to be. But if you want that vision ...

You probably already know that client voices can be a key part of influencing decision makers. But it's not automatic. How that messaging is structured has a huge impact on how effective it is and whether it helps cause decision-makers to take action. For your client voices to be as impactful as possible, that messaging has to be as strategic and targeted as all the rest of your advocacy messaging. In this episode, we reveal: Critical strategy questions to answer before you begin gathering cli...

Having a strong cadre of powerfully influential champions is a huge asset that can dramatically accelerate your advocacy success. And when you have a key decision maker themselves operating as your champion, that takes things to a whole other level of impact. Imagine how powerful the impact would be if you had an entire cadre of money and policy decision makers who are operating at champion level on your behalf. In this episode, we share: Powerful examples of nonprofits who have developed true...

Anyone who's been part of the coalition knows that it can be a complicated set of relationships. Some coalition experiences are fantastic. Others not so much. The best thing is when you and your coalition partners are fully aligned and everyone is pulling their weight and working together to get the results you've all agreed you want. The worst is when you get involved in a coalition and it becomes a huge headache without any of the results you wanted. To keep your coalition experiences in that ...

If you’ve ever said to yourself, “If only I had a paid advocacy person/team, everything would be great,” you’re in good company. But you might be surprised by the path you need to take to get there. It’s not as intuitive as it might seem, and there are some common mistakes that often block that path. In this episode, we share: The three things you must already have in order for paid advocacy staff to succeed What funders look for when deciding whether to invest in your advocacy work The bigg...

I frequently hear from nonprofit leaders that they feel overwhelmed by the amount of strategic relationships they're trying to build. And they get both frustrated and exhausted trying to move them all forward at once. And it just feels like an endless hamster wheel. It doesn't ever feel like there's an end in sight. You don't have to live there, and I want to help you get out of that. In this episode, we share: The first thing to get clear about with each of your competing advocacy priorities ...

Whenever you have the opportunity to meet with your US Representative and Senators in Washington DC, you want to make sure that you get the greatest possible impact for your efforts. A lot of time and expense goes into that trip, and too often folks come away disappointed in the results. There’s a handful of things that can make or break your visit with congressional offices. Let’s make sure you get them right, so you can get the results you’re looking for. In this episode, we share: The two t...

If I told you that up to 85% of your overall messaging may be undermining your goals for engaging key decisionmakers, you might be alarmed, or you might be skeptical. But many nonprofits are in this situation and don’t realize it. The good news is, there are some simple things you can do to identify and rework any counterproductive messaging, and ensure that all of your messaging and communications are supporting your effort to engage decisionmakers and get them to take action on your behalf. I...

To achieve your advocacy goals, you need decision makers to work with you to get that done. They're not going to do that if they don't know you, don't like you and don't trust you. So our number one job in strategic relationship building is to build that know, like and trust factor with decision makers. There's no way around the fundamental work of building a strategic relationship. But there are plenty of things you can do to reach a higher level of know, like and trust, faster and more effici...