How to Get Maximum Results from a Decisionmaker’s Visit to Your Program - Episode 31

You're listening to the nonprofit power podcast. In today's episode, we reveal How to get maximum results from a decision-makers visit to your program. So stay tuned. If you want to have real and powerful influence over the money and policy decisions that impact your organization and the people you serve, then you're in the right place. I'm Cath Patrick, and I've helped dozens of progressive non profit leaders take their organizations to new and higher levels of impact and success by building powerful influence with the decision makers that matter. It is possible to get a critical mass of the money and policy decision makers in your world to be as invested in your success as you are, to have them seeking you out as an equal partner, and to have them Bringing opportunities and resources to you. This podcast will help you do just that. Welcome to the nonprofit power podcast. Hey everybody. Calf Patrick here. Thank you so much for tuning into another episode of the nonprofit power podcast. I'm so glad you're here. for today's episode. If you've ever invited policymakers and other decision makers to visit your program. And then been disappointed that it didn't lead to any tangible results, it may be. that you're designed for those visits needs an upgrade. In this episode, we do a deep dive on how you can actually design a decision-makers visit to your program, to have a powerful impact on that decision maker. And move them closer to becoming a champion for your organization, or at least taking the actions you want them to take. Mhm. Hey there folks. Welcome to the nonprofit power podcast. I'm your host calf, Patrick. When you ask, how can I get a policymaker in particular or decision makers in general, to engage with my organization? One of the most common pieces of advice you'll get is that you should invite them to come and see your program. And this is great advice. As far as it goes. But you may be leaving a lot of potential impact on the table if you're not as intentional and strategic as you could be about designing that visit for maximum impact. When it comes to having a policy maker or other decision maker visit your program. Any visit is better than no visit, generally speaking. At a minimum, it puts a visual image in the decision makers or policy makers head. It makes your organization and its programs or services more concrete in their mind. And it allows them to interact with actual people who work for the organization who deliver the services and the clients who benefit from the services. That is all good. And those are excellent ingredients for a program visit. But what I often hear from nonprofit leaders is some version of. We had the decision-maker come to visit. They interacted with clients, they saw the operation. They even did a little volunteer work while they were there. And they were all impressed and said nice things about us. But when we go to engage them on policy details, they still don't truly get what we do. They still don't understand why the services we provide, the work that we do is so cutting edge or so valuable, or has a higher impact than many other approaches to similar work. They don't really get all that nuance. And as a result, they're not engaging and investing with us at the level we want. Almost always the reason for that underwhelming impact of the visit is that it wasn't designed as strategically as it could have been. So if you're going to go to the trouble of setting up a visit and getting a policymaker or other decision maker to come to your program and then take them on a tour and whatever else. You want to make sure that it moves you much closer to your strategic relationship building goals and, or the ultimate goals of whatever you want that policy maker or decision maker to be doing for you. If you want to get those high-impact results and get maximum mileage out of setting up a visit like that, there are some critical strategic elements that you're going to need to have in place. Start with your strategic relationship building goal for this decision maker. There's something that ultimately you want them to do for you, right? There's an action you want them to take. And you want to be clear on what that is. The entire purpose of this visit is going to be to move them closer to that goal and to move the relationship closer to that goal. It's pretty hard to do that if you're not clear on that goal. Once you've re grounded in the goal for the relationship overall, then identify your goals for this visit specifically. Remembering that relationship building happens over time. That a program visit is one very important and potentially powerful building block in that relationship building process. It's not going to do absolutely everything for you. Our goal here is to make it do as much as possible for you. So you want to identify specific goals for the visit. And sometimes the best way to do that is to look at where the decision maker is now relative to your work. And what needs to change. A critical question for you to ask yourself is what do you know about how the decision maker currently perceives your organization, its services, the problem you solve, the people you serve and the impact that you make. I promise you that they have something in their head about all of that. Usually, unless they've already gotten quite invested in your organization and your work, that picture in their head is probably wrong on multiple counts. Or at best it's fuzzy. So identify if there are any specific misconceptions that they have or any fuzziness that you know they have. If you're not sure, just assume they're fuzzy on all of it. And then take a good look at given what you want them ultimately to do, what your goal for the strategic relationship is. Ask yourself: what do they need to know slash understand slash believe about your organization, your services, the problem you solve. The impact of those services. The value of those services. The people you serve. And the change that your services creates in those people's lives. I know that's a lot. But you realize that it's all of a piece. It's all elements of one big picture that they need to clearly have in their head. One thing that we often forget is that most policy makers ,decision makers don't have the same level of understanding that we do of the problem that we solve. They may have a general sense of the problem. But unless they're deeply involved in this issue already, likely they don't know all the challenges and complexities the clients are facing. Nor do they necessarily understand the potential impact of solving or not solving the problem. So we have to start there. It's so easy to assume that everyone understands the problem the same way we do, but pretty much that's not so. So map out. What is the core problem? What happens, in terms of results for both the client and for society at large, when you solve that problem for real. And what happens when it goes unsolved? Or it gets addressed with a band-aid. And a lot of times the differentiation you're ultimately going to be creating is how your program is a more complete, more thorough, more impactful solution than some of the others that are floating around out there. There's lots of half measures all over the place. And public policy, unfortunately, is riddled with half measures because policy makers are always trying to solve a problem for the least effort and the least amount of money. And that often doesn't work out very well. That's a whole other rant slash episode, but it's an important reality to understand that there are lots and lots of half measures. So part of what you're doing is you're holding yourself up as a more thorough and more complete solution that therefore has much higher impact. But it starts with what is the core problem? In addition to that, you want to clearly show how what you do, how you solve this problem. Is unique and brings exceptional value. Your goal here is not for them to come away thinking, oh, isn't it nice. There's another nonprofit that does X. They're just like organizations, a, B and C that I visited last year. Great that they're all out there. That's not what you're after. This visit is your opportunity to show them and create an experience for them that highlights all aspects of how your unique take on solving the problem is highly impactful. So you're going to want to illustrate all the things that are unique or exceptionally high impact. And that's going to touch on the scope and the depth of your services. What do you do that does more or goes deeper than some other solutions? It's going to touch on the unique way in which you deliver those services. What's unique about how you approach the process. And part of that may be about the way you engage your clients around those services and support them on their journey. If the standard model out there in the world is kind of one size fits all, move them through, give them services a, B, C, and D, and send them on their way. And your approach is to say, we take an individualized approach. We're meeting people where they are. We're building a package of services that fits their unique needs. That's going to be a very important distinction to make. But ultimately you're going to tie it to why it creates a deeper, more significant impact. And then of course you want to illustrate what is unique or exceptional about the impact you have not only on the clients and the results that you get with them. But also the ripple effect that those results have in the larger community, whether it's a financial result or return on investment. Whether it's strengthening the fabric of the community. Whatever it is that your ripple effect is you want to be able to show that as well. So once you have clarity about all of that, Now you can design the decision-makers visit experience in such a way that it integrates and reveals to them, all the story elements that they need to know, understand or believe about all those elements. You want to provide an experience to anchor each piece that you want them to absorb. That means very likely you're going to start the experience by painting a picture that helps them reach a new level of understanding of the problem. We have to start with the problem. If they get to a new level of understanding of the problem, it increases their ability to appreciate your unique solution or approach and why it has the impact that it does. If they just see the problem in kind of vague terms of people are hungry, people are unhoused, people are unemployed or underemployed, people have chronic health conditions that never seem to improve. Whatever universe you're in, there's kind of the general public impression of the problem at hand. That you know is so much more complex. Now what we have to be careful about is that we don't get into lecture mode and explain, in 5,000 paragraphs, all the details of the problem and all the research behind it and this, that, and the other as if you were writing a paper. This is an engagement opportunity. Your goal the entire time with a program visit, is you want that decision maker actively engaged with absolutely everything they encounter. that includes the upfront framing of the problem. So the way you do that in a way that's engaging is you start with a really well-crafted story of either a particular client or more likely a composite client. Who represents several aspects of the problem and the services. You can assemble that in whatever way makes sense for you. for example, if you help people with a variety of chronic health conditions, That all tie back to access to good nutrition and nutritious food. You might say a typical client has at least one chronic health condition. Many have more than one. So very common scenario is a person with uncontrolled diabetes who also has hypertension. And then you describe a little bit about what that person's life is like when their conditions are uncontrolled. What's going on for them. What are they able to do? What are they not able to do? there. In and out of the emergency department on a regular basis. They miss a lot of days of work because they're too sick to work when their condition is flaring up. They are experiencing additional knock on health problems that are beginning to turn into a collection of chronic illnesses that is about to impair their ability to work or function at all. They're struggling too feed their kids nutritious food. whatever's going on in their world. If it's a workforce development environment, the general perception on the part of a policymaker might be that the problem is people don't have jobs. When in fact the problem is probably that people have jobs. They just don't have jobs that pay a living wage. and they're not in a job where they have a prayer of advancing to a living wage. If the decision maker thinks the problem is that a person just needs a job. And the real problem is the person needs to achieve economic self-sufficiency through a job, those are very different solution pictures. So first, the decision-maker has to understand what the problem really is. And then how the person is experiencing it. Again in a workforce development scenario, it might be that A typical clients working 20 to 40 hours a week. Many are working even more than that. They are earning minimum wage, or less if they're in a tipped occupation and there's not a tipped minimum. They're struggling to cover even their most basic expenses. Rent is this much, food is this much, Utilities are this much. And you add that up and it totals more than what they make in a month. And so clearly that's a problem. It's not that they're not working. It's not that they're not working hard. It's that they're working hard in a job that has no possibility of meeting their most basic expenses. And so our focus is to provide them with services that will allow them to make substantial progress to making a living wage to being able to pay for all of those expenses. And this is how we do that. but again, you have to have them clearly grasping the scope of the problem and the nature of the problem. So that they can then understand why, what you do matters so much. So you tell a story of a composite client in that way. You talk about what is happening in their life that they're not able to do. And you talk about the impact that it has in the larger community. back to the person with the multiple chronic conditions situation. their situation is creating lots and lots of extra healthcare expenses that wouldn't be there if their condition were well-controlled. The person who's working hard and making too little is largely dependent on additional public supports. And will be until such time as they're able to earn enough to pay for those expenses themselves. So then it's not just that their situation is bad for them. Their situation is bad for the whole community. And so when we're fixing it, we're fixing it with an eye to both outcomes. When you do this, you want to paint a very clear picture for the decision-maker. And then the next part of the picture that you're painting is how the client's life changes when they get your services. So you're using the client's story to illuminate the problem, demonstrate how your solution is designed to be maximally effective at solving the problem. And then you talk about what the client's life looks like after they get your services and how they are so much better off. And the community is better off. And you do that as much as possible with story. There will be a time and a place for data. But this initial story isn't necessarily it, unless they ask for data. Know you're always ready with data because that's the part you want to talk about. Cause you know that it is powerful. When you have very powerful impact data, you want to share it. But we want you to be as strategic as possible about when and how you share it. You want to share it in a context so that it really lands and sticks with the decision maker. So you start with this picture. And from that point, the rest of the visit experience will be built around a tour that will include different elements that reveal and reinforce your key points as you take them through the tour. Now something you I'm sure already know from experience and observation, is that the more multidimensional you can make that visit experience, the greater the impact it will have. You obviously want to use the fact of them being in your physical space to maximum advantage. Some ingredients that will support your ability to do that are to ensure that they have interactions with clients, staff, and volunteers if you have them. And you want each of those interactions to be reinforcing a piece of your message. And you not only can, but you should tee up specific clients, staff and volunteers to know that part of what they're doing is reinforcing a specific piece of the narrative. Now that doesn't mean you're going to like massively control access of the decision maker to who they get to talk to, but you're going to make sure that they talk to the people you've primed to deliver their piece. And remember when you're helping your folks prepare to do that, that again, we're doing this primarily through story. And through example and through showing. their job is not to stand up and give a little monologue at all. Their job is to engage. And so a volunteer might start with how rewarding it is to volunteer here. And the reason it's so rewarding is that the services have such a powerful impact. "I've volunteered in a lot of other places and you know, it was great and I felt good about the services, but here I know what a profound difference we make. Every single day, I see a client whose life has transformed. That's work that is really meaningful to me. That's how you have a volunteer add value, without sounding canned, or like they have a message they're supposed to deliver. You can prepare a client to share a couple of pieces of their story that are going to be particularly helpful to reinforce what you're focusing on. So you could say to the client, you know, it'll help if this decision maker can understand a little bit about what you were facing. To the extent you're comfortable sharing, what were some of the struggles you were facing before you came to us. And what difference the program has made in your life so far and what you see ahead as your future as a result of working with us. Something like that. And, you know, They're not going to have a long period to talk to this decision maker. This whole tour may go through in half an hour, max. unless they're having a really good time, sometimes they'll hang around longer, but a lot of times it's going to be, you know, half an hour, 45 minutes is probably what you're going to have to work with. And you want to make sure that they're getting a lot of different experiences while they're there. and similarly with staff, each of them should be prepared. first of all, every one of your staff should be prepared at all times to explain the impact of their aspect of the work. And should be able to connect it to the core problem. So that ideally assuming you've already done that training and they're ready to do that, shouldn't require a lot of priming. Their briefing will be more about here's what we know about this decision maker. Here's what we particularly need them to understand. If you get an opportunity to chat with them, be sure you bring that into the loop of the conversation. And that should be all the guidance that most staff need. So all those interactions are very valuable. And the more real, the, more genuine they are, the more they involve personal connection. As we're always talking about engagement happens between human beings. And so the more the decision-maker feels drawn in and is engaged with actual humans, the better that is. The more whatever is talked about between them is going to stick in their mind. you should definitely have some sort of hands-on activity or other sensory experience, and that'll depend in part on what your operations look like. If you use volunteers, they can work alongside the volunteers for a bit. If you're in healthcare, you can take them through exam rooms, dental suites, children's play areas, et cetera. And describe what goes on there and how it contributes to helping clients thrive. If you're in housing and you operate actual housing space, you can take them on a tour of that. In a perfect world. You might first take them on a tour of really crappy housing. And then take them on a tour of your stuff. That probably won't be possible. So the next best substitute would be to have a client describe and experience they had with some other housing setting that they were in, where it was bad. And they could talk about what was going on there, what their experience was, whether they felt safe. why they did or didn't feel safe, why they did or didn't feel like the space was healthy, whether it was too hot or too cold all the time. All the things that are often wrong with low-income housing. And then if you can take them on a tour of your space that is bright and clean and airy and safe and welcoming and cheerful and has community activity going on in it. That's pretty dramatic. That illustrates very powerfully how you are different. to the extent that you can, don't just always tell or show a thing. But also ask the decision maker to tell you what they notice. So using that same housing example. you might ask the decision maker, when you think of low-income housing, what do you think of? And see what they say. They probably will have a picture in their head that isn't super great. You can then ask, what impact would that probably have? You know, What do you imagine the impact is on people's ability to function. If they're living in those conditions, how does it impact a kid's ability to learn in school? How does it impact a parent's ability two work one or more jobs when they're worried about their kids' safety after school? how well can a child study if their apartment is freezing all the time, or if the stove never works and they're eating cold food all the time, because they can't cook properly. You're bringing the problem and the picture to life by engaging the decision makers imagination. you invite them to imagine that. And then show them your space. And then invite them to share what they're noticing there and the impression they have. How does it make them feel to be in that space? It is very important. we so often want to go left brain on everything. But emotional engagement is so important and so powerful. It drives most of our decision-making, all of us as humans. And so if we don't have an emotional connection to something, we're much less likely to be open to it, whatever it is. So if you ask them to share how the space makes them feel. How would they feel about living here? what kind of a vibe are they getting? However you want to ask the question. But invite them to share how they feel. When they do that, they will be engaging emotionally with your stuff. So. Let's talk about data. You're gonna want to have, I know you always do have your data at the ready. data is awesome. But the way we use data strategically is we use it sparingly. And we use it in context, when it's going to have the greatest possible impact. So we generally don't lead with data. There are times, but this visit isn't one of them. With a visit you want to share data at the point in the tour. That it's particularly relevant. And it underscores one of your messaging points. It can follow a client story. Let's go back to the workforce development example. So some data that's going to be really impactful with workforce development. Obviously there's going to be wage outcomes, but you want to frame that in terms of what it does for the person and their family. It's not just, we increase people's wage outcomes by 30% on average. Well, that's. that's. great, but the decision maker, can't anchor that data point to. to. anything. what you can do is you can say typically when a client comes to us, they're making x dollars an hour and on average when they leave us they're making two X, whatever the number is. The difference between where they start and where they end is the difference between having a job, but making so little, they have to live in their car. And then being able to have safe, stable housing. and consistent food on the table for themselves and their kids. You're. We're putting the data in the context of the story. In the, healthcare example serving someone who has multiple chronic conditions that have been poorly controlled up to this point, And Whether you're in the food or nutrition space, or whether you're in the healthcare space, wherever you're operating your solutions to the problem are probably coming from a somewhat different angle depending. But whatever your solutions are they have an impact And you want to be able to share the data about impact in the context of the story that you've already put in their head. There's two ways to do this. One, you can just tell them. But it's even better if you can ask them. So you can share when a typical client starts service with us, this is how many ER visits in a month or a quarter or a year that they typically have, whatever your data show. And then ask the decision maker. What do you think the cost of one ER, visit is these days? And let them give an answer. And then you tell them whatever the real number is. Now there. Invested in this conversation, their brain is engaged. They're thinking about the cost because they just had to come up with a number. And now you've Given them an accurate number. All of that is anchoring this data point in their brain in a way that simply telling it to them without context, wouldn't do. Okay, so you anchor that and then you say, and then once they get our services, That number is cut by half. Or whatever it is. So instead of $10,000. It costs $5,000, whatever your numbers say. They were unable to work. when they came to us their condition was so out of control, and their hospitalizations and ER visits were so frequent that they were really unable to work on any kind of consistent basis. Now they're able to work. All of this has ripple effects. So you use data around that to quantify and show the scope. The size of the impact. You have the qualitative difference, and then you have the data that shows how you quantify that and how significant it is. And you can cast that in all the terms that are available to you. It's outcomes for the client. It's also outcomes for society at large. It's reduced costs in the healthcare system. reduce costs in public assistance, wherever the costs are. Any service that a nonprofit provides that allows a person two move substantially closer to thriving on a consistent basis is going to have a cost savings impact for society. By definition. If they're able to take care of themselves and their family more effectively and more consistently because they have in place what they need in order to thrive and succeed. Then those are supports that society then doesn't have to pay for on an ongoing basis. It is so much more cost effective to fix the problem at its cause then to keep slapping band-aids on it over and over and over again. So those are all kinds of ways you use data, but the best data is the data that's a surprise. Like that is different than what they might expect. whatever you can do with data to cause them to think and engage, to ask them what they think something might cost. So data are great, but you always want to be connecting them back to the story. And you want to be showing how a slightly larger investment can yield dramatically better results. So, for example, if your services cost a dollar more Than the half measure. But if that extra dollar yields $3 in greater results, then that's a win every time. And don't be afraid to tell the decision maker what something means. Connect the dots for them to whatever important points you want to make sure they internalize. the connection between the data and the outcome and all of that are clear in your head, but it's probably not in the decision makers head. So if you want something in the decision makers had, you have to put it there. Your chances of doing that and of them retaining it, go up the more you can engage all of their senses during this visit. Again, this is a rare opportunity to have them in your physical space. Use it for all it's worth. So, what can they see that will drive home your message points? What can they hear? And from whom. What can they touch or do or experience. that includes interacting with people, but If there's something physical they can do that is part of the service process, have them do it. But explain to them what the impact is. Don't assume they'll know. and then always, what emotions are they experiencing? And remember that surprise is an emotion and is very effective at creating retention. So anything that you can do to surprise them a little bit with information, with perspective, give them a new perspective on the problem. Anything that shifts their perspective is a win for you. So when you can show them onsite your exceptional ingredients of a solution and they can see them in 3d. It goes a long way toward helping them understand two things. One, they're going to understand what it is about the way you do your work that sets you apart. It makes you different from others. And two, it helps them understand how that unique approach leads to much higher impact results. When you get those two concepts sticking in their head then you're starting to get real traction. Now. I know this feels like a lot. And the first time you put all this together, it will feel laborious to be sure. And you'll probably build this over time. But once you've put together these basic elements. After that you're just refining. You'll tweak a little for different types of decision-makers or different individual decision makers based on what you know about them and where you are in your relationship building with them. You might have a decision maker come to visit where your goal for the relationship is to reduce their opposition to something. you might invite a decision maker to come to your program to give them a new perspective on a misconception they have that is causing them to oppose something that you want. And so you might build the whole experience around that. No matter how you structure this, it's super important that you start with your relationship building goal with this specific decision maker as your beginning point. But all those other things you've designed. the types of experiences, the ways you structure them. Once you have developed the habit and the mindset of being intentional and strategic about each piece of the experience they go through, you can tweak the particulars to fit the relationship building objectives and the particular decision maker involved. So. Really a big project at the beginning. But after that, you're just tweaking and refining. And you'll know you're succeeding. When you start to hear your messaging coming out of the decision-makers mouth. And they're saying it with passion. And I promise you. That's super strategic intentionally designed program visits will help you get there. You just have to apply the principles we talked about here. Thanks for listening and I'll see you in the next episode.