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 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 conversation, the CEO said to me, “I'm so seeing the value of this work and how much impact it can have when we have a focused team working on a specific advocacy goal. It makes me think, what can we do to train every member of our staff to include advocacy as part of their jobs? Because I'm realizing it's just like we tell them that fundraising is part of everybody's job. It's everybody's job to build financial support for the organization in their personal circles or wherever they travel. I want that for advocacy as well. How do you do that?”
That’s exactly the right question to ask. What I shared with her was, there are three core skills every staff member is going to need, and you’re going to have to train them. And I can tell you how.
In this episode, we share:
- How one nonprofit staff member turned a chance encounter with a decisionmaker into a big win
- The three core skills your team members need in order to be effective at basic advocacy
- The most valuable advocacy skill you can teach your team, that will serve them everywhere in their life
- How to create an organizational culture that will support advocacy work by all
- The most common organizational culture elements that can inadvertently undermine your efforts, and how to solve them
- The natural and intuitive messaging and engagement approach that will be easy for every team member to learn and use effectively
Help spread the word! If you found value in this episode, I’d be grateful if you would leave a review on iTunes or wherever you listen. Your reviews help other nonprofit leaders find the podcast. Thanks!!
WEBVTT
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You're listening to the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
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In today's episode, we share how to successfully build advocacy into every team member's role.
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So stay tuned.
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If you wanna 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.
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I.
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I'm Kath Patrick, and I've helped dozens of progressive Nonprofit leaders take their organizations to new and higher levels of impact and success by building powerful influence with the decision makers that matter.
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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.
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Bringing opportunities and resources to you.
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This podcast will help you do just that.
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Welcome to the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
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Hey there folks.
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Welcome to another episode of the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
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I'm your host, Kath Patrick.
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I'm so glad you're here for today's episode.
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I was on the road working with a client last week.
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And the CEO there asked me the most awesome question that I was super excited to answer.
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And the minute we had the conversation, I knew that it was one that we needed to have here as well, because it applies to absolutely every direct service Nonprofit.
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I was there to help them with a couple of advocacy strategies that were focused on specific desired results that involved particular decision making bodies.
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And so that's what we were focusing our work on.
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But in the course of the conversation, the CEO posed a question to me and said, I'm so seeing the value of this work and how much impact it can have when we have a team working on a particular desired advocacy outcome.
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It makes me think, what can we do to train every member of our staff to include advocacy as part of their jobs?
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Because as I'm thinking about this, I'm realizing it's just like we tell them that fundraising is part of everybody's job.
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Not that it's everybody's job to go out and write grants, but that it's everybody's job to build financial support for the organization in their personal circles or wherever they travel.
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That that's just part of what they're doing.
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She said, I want that for advocacy as well.
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How do you do that?
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And I gotta say, I was super excited to get that question.
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What I said to her was, first of all, there are three core skills they're gonna need and that you're gonna have to teach them.
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And those core skills are opportunity scanning and recognition, messaging and engagement.
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That's a complete basic skillset that if you wanted somebody to be able to do fundamental, basic advocacy.
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Those are the skills they gotta have.
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But the cool thing is that you can start with just one of them.
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For some members of the organization, they're not normally as part of their job going out and interacting with decision makers or folks who are influential with those decision makers.
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But there's still a core skill that everyone should have.
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And I would argue that this is a core skill in life because it applies to our own worlds as well as to our work world.
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And that's the opportunity scanning and recognition.
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Because here's the thing, we know about this from brain science, that our reticular activating system, its job is to automate.
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It automates a lot of things, and one of the things it does really well is it screens information in and it screens information out.
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Because the reality is we all have so much input coming at us all the time from every possible source that we can't pay attention at all to most of it.
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And then stuff that we do notice, we may notice and dismiss or notice and take in.
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The reticular activating system is doing 95% of that work for us.
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We think it's our conscious thinking brain that's doing that.
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It's actually not.
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It's being automated, and that's by design.
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It's to keep us healthy and safe in the world.
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And so what happens is that you've got all these inputs coming at you and your reticular activating system is in the background sorting.
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It's a sorting hat for your brain, and it's saying, relevant, relevant, irrelevant, irrelevant, irrelevant.
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And most of it, it is regarding it is saying irrelevant, ignore.
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And you literally don't even see it.
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You don't notice it because your subconscious has filtered it out for you.
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To allow you to take in the stuff that you have told your reticular activating system is important.
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Here's why I just gave you that long-winded explanation of how noticing stuff works.
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If we wanna notice something new that we have previously been dismissing as irrelevant, we have to train our brains to do that.
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We can't just say to a staff member, I want you to start paying attention to opportunities for the organization and start noticing them and telling us about them.
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That is massively insufficient information for them to act on, but it's also just not that simple.
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So in a little bit, I'm gonna talk about how you actually train your staff in a way that's gonna work and is gonna make everybody happy and not drive people crazy.
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And that's gonna get you the results that you want.
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But just to say that opportunity scanning and recognition is a huge skillset.
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And for everyone who becomes skilled at it, for everyone who develops that skill and is regularly training their brain for what it wants it to bring to them.
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That's life changing.
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Cause it's not just about scanning for advocacy or funding opportunities for the job.
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This is about everything in life.
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Absolutely everything in life.
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There are opportunities all the time everywhere happening constantly.
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And most people miss most of them because they don't even see'em.
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Their opportunity scanning radar has been severely constricted by what their conscious thinking brain has told the RAS is possible, is desirable, is of interest.
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And so the RAS gets to work and says, yes, boss, I will screen out anything that does not fit the criteria you have told me is stuff that's important.
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Master this skill and change your life.
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Now, I'm not gonna teach you how to completely master that skill in this episode, but I'll give you enough to start.
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And what's amazing is that it's not that complicated and you can start getting results very quickly.
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So first skill: opportunity scanning and recognition.
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Next level skill is messaging.
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Being able to speak with a decision maker in a way that is going to resonate for them and get their attention and make things make sense to them.
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That again, is a lot simpler than we often make it out to be.
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And then the third thing is engagement.
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So first of all, messaging is part of engagement.
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And we talk about that all the time on the podcast, how your messaging has to resonate for the decision maker or there's no hope of them engaging with it.
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But engagement isn't just about your messaging, it's also about your energy.
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The energy you bring, the way you speak, and that's another skillset.
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So depending on the individual staff person's role and the degree to which they're encountering folks out there in the world a lot or a little, and how likely they are to be in contact with decision makers.
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Can lead you to decide how much training you're gonna devote on which of those skill sets for any given staff member.
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But here's the thing to realize.
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Any member of your staff could find themselves standing next to a key decision maker, at any point.
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The less connected they are to your advocacy and external relationship management function, the more likely it is that that's not gonna happen during their working hours.
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It's gonna happen during the rest of their life.
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I had a client in Indiana where basically basketball is a religion.
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So a staff member was at a basketball game for one of the college teams that was a very big deal in the state.
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They were cheering away and the person next to them was cheering away and they were all into the game.
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And at halftime, they just got to chatting, right?
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The person sitting next to you, chitty chat, what do you do?
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Where do you work, blah, blah, blah.
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Well, the staff person discovers this is a major decision maker who holds tremendous power over funding decisions that affect the organization.
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And the staff person was quick enough on their feet to realize, oh my gosh, this is an incredible opportunity.
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So here's what they did.
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They hadn't been prepared to deliver specific messaging around the particular ask that was in front of that decision maker.
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They actually didn't even know what the ask was.
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They just knew this is a person who's a big deal and they have a lot of say-so in our funding.
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So what they did, and this was brilliant, was to talk absolutely from the heart about how amazing it was to work at this organization.
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And how blessed they felt to be able to do that Incredibly impactful work, where we help people every single day and this is the kind of impact we make.
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And it's just amazing to watch the transformations.
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And then she told a little story about one of those transformations.
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And she did all of this in the span of a couple of minutes.
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But she was doing it from the heart, and it wasn't as an official spokesperson for the organization.
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She wasn't authorized to be that.
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But she recognized the opportunity to influence this person to think well of the organization, to value its work and to connect on an emotional and personal level to that work and its impact on people in the community.
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And she did it brilliantly.
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She did it so brilliantly that the decision maker called the CEO a couple of days later and said, I just had the most amazing conversation with Suzy Q from your staff at the basketball game.
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And I'd like to talk with you.
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We should talk about getting more support for your organization.
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You just never know.
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People are out in the world.
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They're interacting with folks all the time.
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And the thing that's important to understand is that, in a defined hierarchical interaction structure, like going to meet with a legislator or going to meet with a major funder.
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In the regular work of the organization, there's a small subset of your team that's tasked with doing the bulk of the interaction and engagement and messaging with those key decision makers around money and policy.
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That's understood.
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So this is not suggesting that we're asking now a far wider range of staff to suddenly start doing that, too.
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That's not their job.
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We're just asking them to be alert and aware that it's very likely that, as they're going about their outside-of-work daily life, they might very well bump into either a decision maker, or a piece of information that is valuable to the ongoing advocacy work of the organization.
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And that both of those represent opportunities.
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Now, the information that you might encounter could just be maybe you're at a neighborhood group meeting or something.
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And somebody mentions, oh, I heard so and so is really upset about such and such.
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And that person recognizes, oh, so and so is a decision maker we care about.
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The fact that they're upset about something is relevant.
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I'm gonna take that information back to our shop and tell the advocacy folks about that.
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Or conversely, so and so is really excited about such and such happening.
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Great.
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That's information.
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We not only have to train the reticular activating system, but we also have to train our conscious brain to not talk us out of relevance or significance.
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'Cause here's what happens a lot, and we all do this in all kinds of contexts.
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But staff who are not traditionally assigned responsibility for advocacy, when they are somewhere in an environment where they observe a tidbit of information or a piece of insight that they think, wow, that probably really matters.
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There are a lot of things that can cause that person to talk themselves out of that being actually significant enough to go tap a higher up, to tap an advocacy team member, whoever it is, on the shoulder.
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And say, Hey, I learned something that I thought might be of interest and relevant to your work.
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Because what if it's not?
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Now I'll be embarrassed.
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Now I bothered them for no reason.
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There's all kind of stuff in our head that gets in the way of us sharing potentially really valuable intel.
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Because we're busy talking ourselves out of it being significant enough to bother anyone with.
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Happens all the time, and we have to understand that and address it if we want people to actually be able to do the thing we're gonna be asking them to do.
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With messaging.
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I just gave an example of someone who delivered messaging that was simply from the heart.
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That's really all they need to do.
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They're not supposed to stuff their head with talking points.
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That's not the point.
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There's essential pieces of messaging that they should understand are impactful generically, and as long as they stick to that, they will be fine.
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Similarly with engagement, if they are speaking from the heart and speaking passionately about the thing that they do or the place that they work, engagement will take care of itself.
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As long as they know to listen as well as talk, and to ask questions in addition to sharing information.
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To be successful at broad advocacy when it's not the primary part of your job, it's just something ancillary that now you're asking your team to also pay attention to and do.
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It's not a super heavy lift.
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It's definitely a mindset change.
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And that mindset change has to happen for all your team members, but it also has to happen at the leadership level.
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So that's where we get into, first of all, organizational culture.
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And we all know that, whether we have intentionally created one or not, every organization has an organizational culture.
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Generally speaking, the ones that have an intentionally created culture are a lot happier places to work than the ones that have just sort of allowed the culture to happen.
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Often those organically generated organizational cultures have a lot of dysfunction in them.
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So first of all, here's a piece of intentionality you want to interject into your organizational culture.
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And it won't happen overnight.
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Essentially you want to create as part of your organizational culture, the expectation and understanding that advocacy is part of everyone's job.
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And the understanding that that's going to look different for different team members, based on the other responsibilities they have in the place.
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A caseworker's job is very different from a chief development officer's job, or a policy and advocacy director's job.
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Or a director of strategic partnerships.
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Those are high level jobs that are expected to be doing a lot, and most of their work is advocacy.
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Folks who are doing other work as their primary focus, advocacy is going to be a smaller piece.
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So the expectations are different.
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That has to be part of the broad understanding, too.
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It's not, we expect you now to just like add some ginormous responsibility to your job with no relief in all the other places.
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It's not that.
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It's as much an expectation around a mindset and a way of being and a way of looking at the world.
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And a way of engaging with people outside the organization as it is anything else.
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It's really fundamentally that.
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Now organizational culture can also bite you in the behind on this.
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Because it's very common in most organizations to have there be a very clearly defined set of rules about who can speak for the organization under what circumstances.
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And generally speaking, that's a good rule.
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You want to have a reasonable degree of control over your external messaging.
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You spend a lot of time developing very carefully your targeted messaging.
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You wanna make sure that that's being echoed in all the places it needs to be.
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And that if, for example, your program director is engaging with a decision maker one week, and then the CEO is engaging with them the next week and the development or the policy director is engaging with them another week, that messaging better be consistent across all three of them.
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And I presume that if you're doing good coherent message development, that that's not a problem.
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That that's happening already.
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But it's not reasonable to expect that everyone in the place is gonna be deeply versed in all the nuances of messaging and how it's targeted to different decision makers and all of that.
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That's not reasonable so we won't expect that.
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But we also then have to understand that, yeah, we wanna make sure when we're doing direct deliberate engagement with these decision makers, we want consistent messaging.
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That's fine.
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But there can be a very pervasive message within the organization.
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That all that translates to nobody but the anointed few are allowed to talk to outsiders about the organization in any sort of official capacity.
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And if that's the culture, which it probably is for good reasons, that immediately sends a canceling message to everyone else in the place.
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That well, okay, you say you want me to do this, but I, no.
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I'll get my hand slapped if I go talking to a decision maker.
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So we've gotta reset that and clarify it and be more nuanced with it.
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And we gotta trust folks a little bit.
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And that means you gotta loosen the iron grip a little bit.
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And I know that can be really hard, especially if you're a person who likes control and likes to manage stuff and make sure you don't have bad outcomes anywhere.
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You gotta lighten up on that a little bit, or you can't ask this of people.
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Because the worst thing you can do, as you know, for morale is to say, I expect you to do this.
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And then turn around and with unspoken messaging say, but I don't trust you to do it, so I'm not really gonna let you.
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And furthermore, if you do it the least bit wrong I'm gonna smack you down hard, and you're gonna be in trouble.
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As long as that's the underlying unspoken messaging, nobody's gonna stick their neck out one bit on this.
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Nobody's gonna even try.
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It's not worth it.
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There's no upside, there's plenty of downside.
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If I don't do it, I'll just say, oh gosh, I didn't notice any opportunities.
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But if I do notice an opportunity and I go talk to somebody and then I get yelled at because I talked to them.
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I certainly won't do it twice.
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But most people will not even make the effort.
00:20:17.955 --> 00:20:19.635
Most people will just be like, yeah, yeah, whatever.
00:20:19.875 --> 00:20:23.230
You know, thanks for sharing, but I'll be ignoring that directive.
00:20:23.941 --> 00:20:32.143
So just be aware that you can very easily undercut this desired outcome by your unspoken rules and culture.
00:20:33.143 --> 00:20:37.357
The second major piece is that these are skills, so they have to be taught.
00:20:37.857 --> 00:20:42.178
It doesn't work to tell someone to do a new thing and not teach them how to do it.
00:20:42.678 --> 00:20:56.125
And because what we know about the function of the reticular activating system, that for people to notice a new set of things that they have heretofore been ignoring as not relevant input.
00:20:56.512 --> 00:20:59.073
We've got to retrain their brains a little bit.
00:20:59.252 --> 00:21:12.507
And we do that by engaging their conscious thinking brain and getting them involved and interested in understanding what kinds of opportunities there are out there that we are talking about when we say this, and what it is we want them to be noticing.
00:21:13.393 --> 00:21:18.906
There are tons of ways to do this, but let me say this about teaching skills in general.
00:21:19.210 --> 00:21:23.644
There's a way to do it that's effective and there are about a hundred ways to do it that's not.
00:21:24.144 --> 00:21:26.005
So let's pick the one that's effective.
00:21:26.795 --> 00:21:28.115
And this is work.
00:21:28.494 --> 00:21:29.605
I will not lie to you.
00:21:29.605 --> 00:21:30.894
This is a little bit of work.
00:21:30.894 --> 00:21:36.005
It's not a ton, but it's a little, and there has to be intentionality and there has to be follow through.
00:21:36.817 --> 00:21:46.596
To learn any new skill, it's gotta be taught in a way that the learning is manageable and incremental, with plenty of opportunity to practice.
00:21:47.096 --> 00:21:50.934
And to practice with a bit of a safety net, not just gonna throw'em in the deep end.
00:21:51.657 --> 00:22:00.463
And to then get helpful and constructive feedback each time they practice the skill that will help them then increase their skill level.
00:22:00.713 --> 00:22:01.973
You've gotta build that in.
00:22:02.034 --> 00:22:05.034
You can't just say to people, okay, this is part of your job now.
00:22:05.034 --> 00:22:16.083
And expect them to A, know what you mean, B, be invested in it, C, know how to do it, and D, actually go do it.
00:22:16.653 --> 00:22:19.728
If you want all those things to happen, you've gotta teach.
00:22:20.152 --> 00:22:21.743
And you've gotta support the learning.
00:22:22.784 --> 00:22:29.222
A really good place to start is with messaging, and engagement as a side piece to that.
00:22:29.722 --> 00:22:34.576
Because this is the most natural of the things that you're gonna be asking of them.
00:22:35.259 --> 00:22:50.579
With messaging, if there are one or two major points about the work of the organization and its impact or its value that you want every decision maker to hear from as many places as possible, then you can include those one or two points.
00:22:51.364 --> 00:22:56.463
Beyond that, you want them to focus on impact and value from their perspective.
00:22:57.175 --> 00:22:58.705
We provide these amazing services.
00:22:58.705 --> 00:23:00.385
This is how we help people.
00:23:00.385 --> 00:23:08.489
I see it with my own eyes every day, how it absolutely not only transforms the individual's life, but it changes their family's experience.
00:23:08.788 --> 00:23:11.939
It changes their ability to give back into the community.
00:23:12.415 --> 00:23:14.276
They become more productive.
00:23:14.326 --> 00:23:16.036
They are able to thrive.
00:23:16.226 --> 00:23:19.721
And when they thrive, the multiplier effect is amazing.
00:23:20.652 --> 00:23:27.407
It's best to do it in story form, to give an example that's particularly compelling and to describe the impact and the value.
00:23:28.411 --> 00:23:36.807
Most of the messaging is gonna be first person reporting on the impact and the value that it has from what they see every day by working there.
00:23:37.307 --> 00:23:41.938
And to have one or two particularly illustrative stories in their head that resonate for them.
00:23:42.438 --> 00:23:44.627
That's really what they need to be able to do with messaging.
00:23:45.574 --> 00:23:50.644
So we start with wherever people are and we give them opportunities to incrementally build skills.
00:23:51.530 --> 00:24:04.114
The first exercise could be to think about, when you think about all the people that this organization has worked with, all the stories you've either experienced personally or that you've heard about, what are one or two that just really speak to you?
00:24:04.114 --> 00:24:11.003
Just really touch your heart that show the impact we have and the value of that impact.
00:24:11.692 --> 00:24:18.382
Give that guidance and ask everybody to come up with, in their own words, a couple of stories about that.
00:24:19.261 --> 00:24:26.758
And then ask them to share that with the rest of the team or with whoever's training them, however you wanna do that.
00:24:27.355 --> 00:24:35.979
If this is something you could do simultaneously in a room full of people, what's really awesome about it is that people get excited about hearing the stories that each one has picked.
00:24:36.249 --> 00:24:38.138
They won't all pick the same two stories.
00:24:38.679 --> 00:24:42.152
And so it's a huge morale builder.
00:24:42.527 --> 00:24:44.057
It's a spirit lifter.
00:24:44.386 --> 00:24:52.366
It reminds everyone just how amazing the work is that you do, and how powerfully impactful it is, how valuable it is in the world.
00:24:52.457 --> 00:24:55.067
And it makes them feel really good about where they work.
00:24:55.517 --> 00:24:58.457
So you're accomplishing a lot with an exercise like that.
00:24:58.666 --> 00:25:07.561
But you're also giving people an opportunity to assemble for themselves their thoughts about what are a couple of stories that really illustrate that for them.
00:25:08.063 --> 00:25:09.885
And then they get practice talking about it.
00:25:10.385 --> 00:25:11.286
Super simple.
00:25:11.786 --> 00:25:14.276
And they may, I've seen this happen.
00:25:14.776 --> 00:25:21.195
Somebody might have a story that another one forgot about or didn't know about, and they're like, oh, that's such a great story.
00:25:21.195 --> 00:25:22.155
I'm taking that story.
00:25:22.336 --> 00:25:23.355
That's fine.
00:25:23.355 --> 00:25:24.915
Nobody owns the stories.
00:25:24.915 --> 00:25:26.086
It's not like, well, you can't have that one.
00:25:26.086 --> 00:25:26.596
That's mine.
00:25:26.596 --> 00:25:27.556
I'm gonna tell that story.
00:25:27.766 --> 00:25:28.185
It's okay.
00:25:28.980 --> 00:25:35.911
It's okay and in fact, desirable if a decision maker hears the same story from more than one source.
00:25:36.451 --> 00:25:46.691
Because we labor under the illusion, we humans, that if we tell someone something once that they paid riveting attention to every word we said, and they retained it all.
00:25:47.067 --> 00:25:51.818
All we had to do was say at one time and they have it now, and it's brilliant and it's wonderful.
00:25:52.598 --> 00:25:56.278
Gosh, I wish that was the way the world worked, but we all know that it's not.
00:25:56.818 --> 00:26:05.104
And so if the decision maker were to hear the exact same story from five different people at your organization, that would actually be a win.
00:26:05.548 --> 00:26:09.028
Because on the fourth or fifth repetition, it might actually stick.
00:26:09.571 --> 00:26:15.119
What's gonna stick, even with one telling, is not the details of the story.
00:26:15.465 --> 00:26:21.509
Unless some aspect of those details particularly resonates for that decision maker, which could happen.
00:26:21.509 --> 00:26:23.699
But you can't know that ahead of time necessarily.
00:26:24.199 --> 00:26:28.969
Especially if it's a chance encounter and it's not your job to know everything about that decision maker.
00:26:29.058 --> 00:26:30.048
You don't worry about that.
00:26:30.078 --> 00:26:31.654
You just tell the story from the heart.
00:26:32.154 --> 00:26:38.365
And what they will hear, what they will experience from that, is the heart part.
00:26:38.939 --> 00:26:49.826
They will hear in the sound of the person's voice, and they will feel their energy that happens when they are speaking about something they care deeply about that has affected them personally.
00:26:49.946 --> 00:26:55.318
That has touched their emotions and that they want to share because they believe in it so much.
00:26:55.965 --> 00:27:02.291
That carries with it a very compelling and engaging energy that you just can't fake.
00:27:02.791 --> 00:27:13.479
And so that's what's gonna stick for that decision maker is, wow, here's this caseworker who works there, who is so passionate about this work and the impact.
00:27:14.094 --> 00:27:15.638
That's something to pay attention to.
00:27:15.788 --> 00:27:16.449
That's amazing.
00:27:16.719 --> 00:27:17.919
I don't run into that very often.
00:27:18.878 --> 00:27:22.884
So the messaging and engagement part you can really teach together.
00:27:23.310 --> 00:27:27.931
And it's the most intuitive and natural for an individual to do.
00:27:28.911 --> 00:27:33.333
The harder part is teaching opportunity scanning and recognition.
00:27:33.877 --> 00:27:38.107
That's one where it's gonna probably have to be quite incremental in the support.
00:27:39.267 --> 00:27:47.596
A great place to start is first of all, you lay out for them what you're talking about when you're saying what kinds of opportunities you want them to be looking for.
00:27:48.060 --> 00:27:50.371
Mostly it's gonna be information.
00:27:50.914 --> 00:27:57.541
They hear about something that a decision maker said or did that is relevant to the work that you do.
00:27:58.041 --> 00:28:06.866
Or is relevant to their attitude about funding the kind of work you do or is relevant to policies that affect the people you serve.
00:28:07.116 --> 00:28:10.057
Whatever is on your radar, that you want on their radar.
00:28:10.557 --> 00:28:22.851
And if you think about it as a CEO or a development manager or a policy manager or program director, if you're thinking about what you scan for, what kinds of things you're looking for all the time.
00:28:22.851 --> 00:28:25.101
What do you always have your antenna out for?
00:28:25.601 --> 00:28:30.181
Think about that, and think about how you would characterize that to explain it to someone else.
00:28:31.020 --> 00:28:35.221
And then get together and talk about, these are the kinds of things we're talking about.
00:28:36.124 --> 00:28:39.633
The first part is just give them a chance to practice scanning.
00:28:40.313 --> 00:28:41.932
it's a real simple assignment.
00:28:42.401 --> 00:28:55.414
For the next week, just as you're going about your life, I want you to be looking for and noticing anything you see that's connected to our organization, our work, the people we serve.
00:28:55.914 --> 00:28:59.595
And no matter how small, no matter how large, just notice it and jot it down.
00:29:00.095 --> 00:29:03.205
And at the end of the week, come and tell us about it.
00:29:03.813 --> 00:29:05.073
Don't overanalyze it.
00:29:05.500 --> 00:29:10.809
If it's connected to any of these things, write it down, bring it in, we'll talk about it.
00:29:11.309 --> 00:29:12.990
And then people bring in their stuff.
00:29:13.049 --> 00:29:17.369
And I love doing this as a group because then people get to hear about other people's stuff too.
00:29:17.880 --> 00:29:20.220
And so it's just more feedback and more information.
00:29:20.901 --> 00:29:24.041
So you get people's responses, whatever they've brought back.
00:29:24.541 --> 00:29:28.942
And then you can say, what about this struck you as significant?
00:29:29.486 --> 00:29:31.195
Why might it matter to us?
00:29:31.695 --> 00:29:33.105
And then listen to what they have to say.
00:29:33.554 --> 00:29:36.704
Then you can provide feedback to say, you're right on.
00:29:37.079 --> 00:29:38.339
That's exactly right.
00:29:38.390 --> 00:29:41.029
That is an opportunity, and for the reasons that you said.
00:29:41.089 --> 00:29:41.599
Awesome.
00:29:42.079 --> 00:29:46.160
Somebody else might have something that is an opportunity, but they've mis analyzed it.
00:29:46.849 --> 00:29:49.130
And so you can say, well, that's a fantastic opportunity.
00:29:49.130 --> 00:29:49.849
You nailed it.
00:29:50.359 --> 00:29:55.733
And let me share with you some additional reasons why that's so significant for us.
00:29:56.233 --> 00:29:56.923
And you give'em that.
00:29:57.403 --> 00:29:59.923
And then the person who brings something in that's, eh.
00:30:00.423 --> 00:30:06.159
It is tangentially related, but not necessarily an opportunity and not necessarily valuable Intel.
00:30:06.659 --> 00:30:09.375
You can say, okay, so that's related.
00:30:09.799 --> 00:30:11.119
How might that matter to us?
00:30:11.873 --> 00:30:17.817
And the answer is basically, it might matter to us, but right now there's no clear indicator of how.
00:30:18.317 --> 00:30:20.057
So that's the kind of thing you just file away.
00:30:20.551 --> 00:30:22.201
Maybe it'll be relevant later, maybe it won't.
00:30:23.126 --> 00:30:32.554
The bottom line here is incremental opportunities for practice and feedback that helps them refine their understanding and get a little bit better each time.
00:30:32.884 --> 00:30:39.579
And you might go through two or three rounds of this before everybody is starting to get, oh, okay.
00:30:39.579 --> 00:30:41.099
This is kind of what we're looking for.
00:30:41.609 --> 00:30:43.049
You're creating new habits here.
00:30:43.049 --> 00:30:46.049
So the more repetition they get on it, the better.
00:30:46.650 --> 00:30:58.886
What we know is that retraining the reticular activating system takes about two to two and a half months of training the brain to filter in a new thing or to filter out a thing.
00:30:59.777 --> 00:31:06.711
I would keep this going for at least a couple of months so that you have built the habit and you're giving people decent feedback.
00:31:07.132 --> 00:31:10.132
You know, you balance that with how much time you have to work on this.
00:31:10.132 --> 00:31:15.811
I understand that, but people need to practice it You can't just have'em practice it once and say, okay, great.
00:31:15.811 --> 00:31:16.321
They got it.
00:31:16.321 --> 00:31:17.311
They did a good job.
00:31:17.521 --> 00:31:25.626
Unless everybody completely aced it on the first try, in which case they're already doing the right filtering in.
00:31:26.241 --> 00:31:27.741
And you don't have to train'em on it.
00:31:27.771 --> 00:31:36.074
What you now have to do is give them permission to get out there and interact when the opportunity arises, and to encourage them to do that.
00:31:37.003 --> 00:31:41.894
And to be sure that when they notice those things, that they are bringing them to you.
00:31:42.384 --> 00:31:49.037
So you have a rule that says, for example, every Friday or every Monday, whatever.
00:31:49.506 --> 00:31:54.684
Send me anything you noticed that you think we should be paying attention to from this past week.
00:31:55.155 --> 00:31:59.872
And if there isn't anything, send me an email saying there wasn't anything so that I know you didn't just forget.
00:32:00.372 --> 00:32:02.071
Don't make me come find you to ask you.
00:32:02.909 --> 00:32:15.200
The corollary to that is if something comes across your radar on a Tuesday and the official time to tell you isn't until Friday or the next Monday, and the thing is urgent, you tell me now.
00:32:16.160 --> 00:32:16.759
Don't wait.
00:32:17.430 --> 00:32:19.440
And then tell them how you want them to tell you.
00:32:19.500 --> 00:32:28.412
Whether you have an internal messaging app, or whether you want them to text you or email you with a specific subject line, whatever system you like.
00:32:28.551 --> 00:32:30.377
It doesn't matter as long as it works for you.
00:32:30.877 --> 00:32:33.968
But tell them what to do with stuff that is time sensitive.
00:32:34.468 --> 00:32:39.500
Or they'll leave it sitting there until the next appointed time to tell you, by which time it might be too late.
00:32:40.336 --> 00:32:52.727
This is all a process of training, but that will give you a really good start on training your entire staff to see advocacy as part of their responsibility and to empower them to actually do something about it.
00:32:53.405 --> 00:32:55.384
And get them excited about doing it.
00:32:56.202 --> 00:33:01.393
And I know you know this, but the more positive feedback you can give about, that was really helpful.
00:33:01.393 --> 00:33:01.873
Thank you.
00:33:01.932 --> 00:33:03.732
And this is what I did with it.
00:33:04.393 --> 00:33:11.212
If people bring you good intel that is actionable, and you then go use it, let them know how you used it.
00:33:11.862 --> 00:33:13.751
Don't just have it be one way.
00:33:13.751 --> 00:33:18.311
Here, I'm giving you all this stuff and then it goes off somewhere and the important people do stuff with it.
00:33:18.311 --> 00:33:18.852
I don't know.
00:33:19.061 --> 00:33:20.471
I don't know if anything ever came of that.
00:33:21.210 --> 00:33:22.289
Don't let that happen.
00:33:22.721 --> 00:33:25.298
Come back to folks and say, that was awesome.
00:33:25.448 --> 00:33:27.488
Thank you so much for letting me know that.
00:33:27.587 --> 00:33:29.688
Here's what we were able to do with it.
00:33:30.238 --> 00:33:32.008
And this is how it made a big difference.
00:33:32.508 --> 00:33:35.347
Or this is how it moved our strategy forward, or whatever it is.
00:33:35.847 --> 00:33:53.365
If you give them this initial opportunity and training and positive feedback, that really tells them how their efforts have helped, you just might find that a couple of folks start wanting to level up their skills even more in the advocacy arena, and that's a win for everyone.
00:33:54.200 --> 00:33:59.970
Even if you don't get that, you're gonna get an entire staff that now sees advocacy as part of their role.
00:34:00.521 --> 00:34:10.090
And that is a fabulous organizational culture to have'cause it brings vastly more opportunity into the organization than you can do with the staff you have officially doing that now.
00:34:10.862 --> 00:34:15.782
Thanks for listening, and I'll see you in the next episode right here on the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
00:00:00.050 --> 00:00:02.750
You're listening to the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
00:00:03.020 --> 00:00:09.740
In today's episode, we share how to successfully build advocacy into every team member's role.
00:00:10.099 --> 00:00:11.419
So stay tuned.
00:00:17.734 --> 00:00:26.855
If you wanna 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.
00:00:26.855 --> 00:00:26.885
I.
00:00:27.245 --> 00:00:40.265
I'm Kath Patrick, and I've helped dozens of progressive Nonprofit leaders take their organizations to new and higher levels of impact and success by building powerful influence with the decision makers that matter.
00:00:40.895 --> 00:00:53.435
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.
00:00:53.494 --> 00:00:56.284
Bringing opportunities and resources to you.
00:00:56.884 --> 00:00:58.984
This podcast will help you do just that.
00:00:59.494 --> 00:01:02.494
Welcome to the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
00:01:08.134 --> 00:01:08.823
Hey there folks.
00:01:08.823 --> 00:01:11.793
Welcome to another episode of the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
00:01:12.004 --> 00:01:13.293
I'm your host, Kath Patrick.
00:01:13.623 --> 00:01:15.629
I'm so glad you're here for today's episode.
00:01:16.484 --> 00:01:18.795
I was on the road working with a client last week.
00:01:19.206 --> 00:01:25.617
And the CEO there asked me the most awesome question that I was super excited to answer.
00:01:25.947 --> 00:01:35.168
And the minute we had the conversation, I knew that it was one that we needed to have here as well, because it applies to absolutely every direct service Nonprofit.
00:01:36.031 --> 00:01:45.468
I was there to help them with a couple of advocacy strategies that were focused on specific desired results that involved particular decision making bodies.
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And so that's what we were focusing our work on.
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But in the course of the conversation, the CEO posed a question to me and said, I'm so seeing the value of this work and how much impact it can have when we have a team working on a particular desired advocacy outcome.
00:02:04.629 --> 00:02:13.437
It makes me think, what can we do to train every member of our staff to include advocacy as part of their jobs?
00:02:13.826 --> 00:02:21.320
Because as I'm thinking about this, I'm realizing it's just like we tell them that fundraising is part of everybody's job.
00:02:21.591 --> 00:02:31.850
Not that it's everybody's job to go out and write grants, but that it's everybody's job to build financial support for the organization in their personal circles or wherever they travel.
00:02:31.850 --> 00:02:34.899
That that's just part of what they're doing.
00:02:35.534 --> 00:02:39.120
She said, I want that for advocacy as well.
00:02:39.449 --> 00:02:41.039
How do you do that?
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And I gotta say, I was super excited to get that question.
00:02:46.245 --> 00:02:53.985
What I said to her was, first of all, there are three core skills they're gonna need and that you're gonna have to teach them.
00:02:54.485 --> 00:03:02.265
And those core skills are opportunity scanning and recognition, messaging and engagement.
00:03:03.265 --> 00:03:10.450
That's a complete basic skillset that if you wanted somebody to be able to do fundamental, basic advocacy.
00:03:10.950 --> 00:03:12.360
Those are the skills they gotta have.
00:03:12.860 --> 00:03:16.450
But the cool thing is that you can start with just one of them.
00:03:17.151 --> 00:03:27.914
For some members of the organization, they're not normally as part of their job going out and interacting with decision makers or folks who are influential with those decision makers.
00:03:28.414 --> 00:03:33.308
But there's still a core skill that everyone should have.
00:03:33.878 --> 00:03:41.903
And I would argue that this is a core skill in life because it applies to our own worlds as well as to our work world.
00:03:42.403 --> 00:03:45.104
And that's the opportunity scanning and recognition.
00:03:45.604 --> 00:03:55.052
Because here's the thing, we know about this from brain science, that our reticular activating system, its job is to automate.
00:03:55.537 --> 00:04:03.287
It automates a lot of things, and one of the things it does really well is it screens information in and it screens information out.
00:04:03.787 --> 00:04:15.276
Because the reality is we all have so much input coming at us all the time from every possible source that we can't pay attention at all to most of it.
00:04:15.576 --> 00:04:23.879
And then stuff that we do notice, we may notice and dismiss or notice and take in.
00:04:24.608 --> 00:04:29.949
The reticular activating system is doing 95% of that work for us.
00:04:30.069 --> 00:04:32.769
We think it's our conscious thinking brain that's doing that.
00:04:32.769 --> 00:04:33.788
It's actually not.
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It's being automated, and that's by design.
00:04:37.319 --> 00:04:39.468
It's to keep us healthy and safe in the world.
00:04:39.678 --> 00:04:49.041
And so what happens is that you've got all these inputs coming at you and your reticular activating system is in the background sorting.
00:04:49.401 --> 00:04:56.083
It's a sorting hat for your brain, and it's saying, relevant, relevant, irrelevant, irrelevant, irrelevant.
00:04:56.083 --> 00:05:00.192
And most of it, it is regarding it is saying irrelevant, ignore.
00:05:01.093 --> 00:05:02.593
And you literally don't even see it.
00:05:03.130 --> 00:05:07.480
You don't notice it because your subconscious has filtered it out for you.
00:05:07.980 --> 00:05:14.279
To allow you to take in the stuff that you have told your reticular activating system is important.
00:05:15.141 --> 00:05:21.701
Here's why I just gave you that long-winded explanation of how noticing stuff works.
00:05:22.201 --> 00:05:30.661
If we wanna notice something new that we have previously been dismissing as irrelevant, we have to train our brains to do that.
00:05:31.161 --> 00:05:40.375
We can't just say to a staff member, I want you to start paying attention to opportunities for the organization and start noticing them and telling us about them.
00:05:40.875 --> 00:05:47.355
That is massively insufficient information for them to act on, but it's also just not that simple.
00:05:47.855 --> 00:05:56.052
So in a little bit, I'm gonna talk about how you actually train your staff in a way that's gonna work and is gonna make everybody happy and not drive people crazy.
00:05:56.100 --> 00:05:58.411
And that's gonna get you the results that you want.
00:05:59.201 --> 00:06:04.788
But just to say that opportunity scanning and recognition is a huge skillset.
00:06:05.350 --> 00:06:15.651
And for everyone who becomes skilled at it, for everyone who develops that skill and is regularly training their brain for what it wants it to bring to them.
00:06:16.151 --> 00:06:16.896
That's life changing.
00:06:17.755 --> 00:06:23.500
Cause it's not just about scanning for advocacy or funding opportunities for the job.
00:06:24.098 --> 00:06:25.658
This is about everything in life.
00:06:26.252 --> 00:06:27.992
Absolutely everything in life.
00:06:28.492 --> 00:06:32.451
There are opportunities all the time everywhere happening constantly.
00:06:33.172 --> 00:06:37.601
And most people miss most of them because they don't even see'em.
00:06:38.072 --> 00:06:51.869
Their opportunity scanning radar has been severely constricted by what their conscious thinking brain has told the RAS is possible, is desirable, is of interest.
00:06:52.369 --> 00:07:00.577
And so the RAS gets to work and says, yes, boss, I will screen out anything that does not fit the criteria you have told me is stuff that's important.
00:07:01.077 --> 00:07:03.653
Master this skill and change your life.
00:07:04.495 --> 00:07:10.045
Now, I'm not gonna teach you how to completely master that skill in this episode, but I'll give you enough to start.
00:07:10.682 --> 00:07:15.973
And what's amazing is that it's not that complicated and you can start getting results very quickly.
00:07:16.918 --> 00:07:20.158
So first skill: opportunity scanning and recognition.
00:07:20.658 --> 00:07:22.427
Next level skill is messaging.
00:07:22.958 --> 00:07:33.894
Being able to speak with a decision maker in a way that is going to resonate for them and get their attention and make things make sense to them.
00:07:34.394 --> 00:07:38.413
That again, is a lot simpler than we often make it out to be.
00:07:39.197 --> 00:07:42.060
And then the third thing is engagement.
00:07:42.560 --> 00:07:44.781
So first of all, messaging is part of engagement.
00:07:45.281 --> 00:07:53.050
And we talk about that all the time on the podcast, how your messaging has to resonate for the decision maker or there's no hope of them engaging with it.
00:07:53.550 --> 00:07:58.937
But engagement isn't just about your messaging, it's also about your energy.
00:07:59.403 --> 00:08:05.314
The energy you bring, the way you speak, and that's another skillset.
00:08:05.990 --> 00:08:19.069
So depending on the individual staff person's role and the degree to which they're encountering folks out there in the world a lot or a little, and how likely they are to be in contact with decision makers.
00:08:19.569 --> 00:08:25.855
Can lead you to decide how much training you're gonna devote on which of those skill sets for any given staff member.
00:08:26.634 --> 00:08:28.264
But here's the thing to realize.
00:08:28.805 --> 00:08:35.879
Any member of your staff could find themselves standing next to a key decision maker, at any point.
00:08:36.379 --> 00:08:46.999
The less connected they are to your advocacy and external relationship management function, the more likely it is that that's not gonna happen during their working hours.
00:08:47.028 --> 00:08:49.578
It's gonna happen during the rest of their life.
00:08:50.359 --> 00:08:54.708
I had a client in Indiana where basically basketball is a religion.
00:08:55.080 --> 00:09:01.188
So a staff member was at a basketball game for one of the college teams that was a very big deal in the state.
00:09:01.538 --> 00:09:06.782
They were cheering away and the person next to them was cheering away and they were all into the game.
00:09:07.253 --> 00:09:10.277
And at halftime, they just got to chatting, right?
00:09:10.307 --> 00:09:12.807
The person sitting next to you, chitty chat, what do you do?
00:09:12.807 --> 00:09:13.976
Where do you work, blah, blah, blah.
00:09:14.514 --> 00:09:23.503
Well, the staff person discovers this is a major decision maker who holds tremendous power over funding decisions that affect the organization.
00:09:24.003 --> 00:09:30.403
And the staff person was quick enough on their feet to realize, oh my gosh, this is an incredible opportunity.
00:09:31.014 --> 00:09:32.095
So here's what they did.
00:09:32.719 --> 00:09:40.094
They hadn't been prepared to deliver specific messaging around the particular ask that was in front of that decision maker.
00:09:40.094 --> 00:09:42.134
They actually didn't even know what the ask was.
00:09:42.466 --> 00:09:47.193
They just knew this is a person who's a big deal and they have a lot of say-so in our funding.
00:09:47.884 --> 00:09:57.745
So what they did, and this was brilliant, was to talk absolutely from the heart about how amazing it was to work at this organization.
00:09:58.205 --> 00:10:07.028
And how blessed they felt to be able to do that Incredibly impactful work, where we help people every single day and this is the kind of impact we make.
00:10:07.208 --> 00:10:10.058
And it's just amazing to watch the transformations.
00:10:10.298 --> 00:10:12.818
And then she told a little story about one of those transformations.
00:10:12.849 --> 00:10:15.578
And she did all of this in the span of a couple of minutes.
00:10:16.078 --> 00:10:22.769
But she was doing it from the heart, and it wasn't as an official spokesperson for the organization.
00:10:22.769 --> 00:10:24.328
She wasn't authorized to be that.
00:10:25.000 --> 00:10:41.515
But she recognized the opportunity to influence this person to think well of the organization, to value its work and to connect on an emotional and personal level to that work and its impact on people in the community.
00:10:42.234 --> 00:10:43.703
And she did it brilliantly.
00:10:43.823 --> 00:10:54.667
She did it so brilliantly that the decision maker called the CEO a couple of days later and said, I just had the most amazing conversation with Suzy Q from your staff at the basketball game.
00:10:55.092 --> 00:10:56.888
And I'd like to talk with you.
00:10:56.918 --> 00:10:59.707
We should talk about getting more support for your organization.
00:11:00.640 --> 00:11:01.811
You just never know.
00:11:02.020 --> 00:11:03.551
People are out in the world.
00:11:03.551 --> 00:11:05.174
They're interacting with folks all the time.
00:11:05.711 --> 00:11:19.171
And the thing that's important to understand is that, in a defined hierarchical interaction structure, like going to meet with a legislator or going to meet with a major funder.
00:11:19.928 --> 00:11:31.523
In the regular work of the organization, there's a small subset of your team that's tasked with doing the bulk of the interaction and engagement and messaging with those key decision makers around money and policy.
00:11:31.763 --> 00:11:32.572
That's understood.
00:11:33.173 --> 00:11:40.503
So this is not suggesting that we're asking now a far wider range of staff to suddenly start doing that, too.
00:11:40.863 --> 00:11:42.062
That's not their job.
00:11:42.062 --> 00:12:02.642
We're just asking them to be alert and aware that it's very likely that, as they're going about their outside-of-work daily life, they might very well bump into either a decision maker, or a piece of information that is valuable to the ongoing advocacy work of the organization.
00:12:03.182 --> 00:12:05.581
And that both of those represent opportunities.
00:12:06.542 --> 00:12:13.538
Now, the information that you might encounter could just be maybe you're at a neighborhood group meeting or something.
00:12:13.538 --> 00:12:19.941
And somebody mentions, oh, I heard so and so is really upset about such and such.
00:12:19.951 --> 00:12:23.821
And that person recognizes, oh, so and so is a decision maker we care about.
00:12:24.091 --> 00:12:27.480
The fact that they're upset about something is relevant.
00:12:28.110 --> 00:12:33.061
I'm gonna take that information back to our shop and tell the advocacy folks about that.
00:12:33.561 --> 00:12:38.061
Or conversely, so and so is really excited about such and such happening.
00:12:38.561 --> 00:12:39.160
Great.
00:12:39.461 --> 00:12:40.600
That's information.
00:12:41.738 --> 00:12:53.616
We not only have to train the reticular activating system, but we also have to train our conscious brain to not talk us out of relevance or significance.
00:12:54.157 --> 00:12:58.746
'Cause here's what happens a lot, and we all do this in all kinds of contexts.
00:12:58.956 --> 00:13:13.630
But staff who are not traditionally assigned responsibility for advocacy, when they are somewhere in an environment where they observe a tidbit of information or a piece of insight that they think, wow, that probably really matters.
00:13:14.130 --> 00:13:28.383
There are a lot of things that can cause that person to talk themselves out of that being actually significant enough to go tap a higher up, to tap an advocacy team member, whoever it is, on the shoulder.
00:13:28.383 --> 00:13:33.393
And say, Hey, I learned something that I thought might be of interest and relevant to your work.
00:13:33.893 --> 00:13:35.663
Because what if it's not?
00:13:35.783 --> 00:13:37.072
Now I'll be embarrassed.
00:13:37.253 --> 00:13:39.592
Now I bothered them for no reason.
00:13:40.432 --> 00:13:47.979
There's all kind of stuff in our head that gets in the way of us sharing potentially really valuable intel.
00:13:48.129 --> 00:13:52.778
Because we're busy talking ourselves out of it being significant enough to bother anyone with.
00:13:53.278 --> 00:14:04.066
Happens all the time, and we have to understand that and address it if we want people to actually be able to do the thing we're gonna be asking them to do.
00:14:04.993 --> 00:14:06.013
With messaging.
00:14:06.013 --> 00:14:10.842
I just gave an example of someone who delivered messaging that was simply from the heart.
00:14:11.273 --> 00:14:12.952
That's really all they need to do.
00:14:13.052 --> 00:14:15.633
They're not supposed to stuff their head with talking points.
00:14:15.722 --> 00:14:16.773
That's not the point.
00:14:17.342 --> 00:14:26.926
There's essential pieces of messaging that they should understand are impactful generically, and as long as they stick to that, they will be fine.
00:14:27.706 --> 00:14:37.197
Similarly with engagement, if they are speaking from the heart and speaking passionately about the thing that they do or the place that they work, engagement will take care of itself.
00:14:37.895 --> 00:14:45.947
As long as they know to listen as well as talk, and to ask questions in addition to sharing information.
00:14:46.774 --> 00:14:58.003
To be successful at broad advocacy when it's not the primary part of your job, it's just something ancillary that now you're asking your team to also pay attention to and do.
00:14:58.503 --> 00:15:00.273
It's not a super heavy lift.
00:15:00.898 --> 00:15:03.177
It's definitely a mindset change.
00:15:03.677 --> 00:15:10.035
And that mindset change has to happen for all your team members, but it also has to happen at the leadership level.
00:15:11.035 --> 00:15:14.850
So that's where we get into, first of all, organizational culture.
00:15:15.350 --> 00:15:23.780
And we all know that, whether we have intentionally created one or not, every organization has an organizational culture.
00:15:24.464 --> 00:15:32.833
Generally speaking, the ones that have an intentionally created culture are a lot happier places to work than the ones that have just sort of allowed the culture to happen.
00:15:33.520 --> 00:15:38.690
Often those organically generated organizational cultures have a lot of dysfunction in them.
00:15:39.470 --> 00:15:45.870
So first of all, here's a piece of intentionality you want to interject into your organizational culture.
00:15:46.259 --> 00:15:48.046
And it won't happen overnight.
00:15:48.580 --> 00:15:57.009
Essentially you want to create as part of your organizational culture, the expectation and understanding that advocacy is part of everyone's job.
00:15:57.731 --> 00:16:07.232
And the understanding that that's going to look different for different team members, based on the other responsibilities they have in the place.
00:16:07.725 --> 00:16:15.618
A caseworker's job is very different from a chief development officer's job, or a policy and advocacy director's job.
00:16:16.062 --> 00:16:17.971
Or a director of strategic partnerships.
00:16:18.631 --> 00:16:24.601
Those are high level jobs that are expected to be doing a lot, and most of their work is advocacy.
00:16:25.101 --> 00:16:31.631
Folks who are doing other work as their primary focus, advocacy is going to be a smaller piece.
00:16:31.881 --> 00:16:34.011
So the expectations are different.
00:16:34.644 --> 00:16:36.504
That has to be part of the broad understanding, too.
00:16:36.813 --> 00:16:44.481
It's not, we expect you now to just like add some ginormous responsibility to your job with no relief in all the other places.
00:16:44.932 --> 00:16:45.682
It's not that.
00:16:46.182 --> 00:16:52.474
It's as much an expectation around a mindset and a way of being and a way of looking at the world.
00:16:52.974 --> 00:16:58.573
And a way of engaging with people outside the organization as it is anything else.
00:16:58.943 --> 00:17:00.097
It's really fundamentally that.
00:17:00.932 --> 00:17:05.689
Now organizational culture can also bite you in the behind on this.
00:17:06.259 --> 00:17:17.528
Because it's very common in most organizations to have there be a very clearly defined set of rules about who can speak for the organization under what circumstances.
00:17:18.028 --> 00:17:20.337
And generally speaking, that's a good rule.
00:17:20.577 --> 00:17:25.198
You want to have a reasonable degree of control over your external messaging.
00:17:25.587 --> 00:17:30.825
You spend a lot of time developing very carefully your targeted messaging.
00:17:30.825 --> 00:17:34.624
You wanna make sure that that's being echoed in all the places it needs to be.
00:17:35.209 --> 00:17:52.648
And that if, for example, your program director is engaging with a decision maker one week, and then the CEO is engaging with them the next week and the development or the policy director is engaging with them another week, that messaging better be consistent across all three of them.
00:17:53.473 --> 00:17:58.317
And I presume that if you're doing good coherent message development, that that's not a problem.
00:17:58.563 --> 00:17:59.942
That that's happening already.
00:18:00.579 --> 00:18:13.048
But it's not reasonable to expect that everyone in the place is gonna be deeply versed in all the nuances of messaging and how it's targeted to different decision makers and all of that.
00:18:13.347 --> 00:18:16.167
That's not reasonable so we won't expect that.
00:18:17.127 --> 00:18:25.700
But we also then have to understand that, yeah, we wanna make sure when we're doing direct deliberate engagement with these decision makers, we want consistent messaging.
00:18:25.750 --> 00:18:26.289
That's fine.
00:18:26.936 --> 00:18:31.884
But there can be a very pervasive message within the organization.
00:18:32.384 --> 00:18:42.734
That all that translates to nobody but the anointed few are allowed to talk to outsiders about the organization in any sort of official capacity.
00:18:43.234 --> 00:18:55.192
And if that's the culture, which it probably is for good reasons, that immediately sends a canceling message to everyone else in the place.
00:18:55.372 --> 00:19:00.771
That well, okay, you say you want me to do this, but I, no.
00:19:01.132 --> 00:19:04.035
I'll get my hand slapped if I go talking to a decision maker.
00:19:04.535 --> 00:19:10.896
So we've gotta reset that and clarify it and be more nuanced with it.
00:19:11.777 --> 00:19:14.311
And we gotta trust folks a little bit.
00:19:14.811 --> 00:19:18.321
And that means you gotta loosen the iron grip a little bit.
00:19:18.951 --> 00:19:28.548
And I know that can be really hard, especially if you're a person who likes control and likes to manage stuff and make sure you don't have bad outcomes anywhere.
00:19:28.909 --> 00:19:33.222
You gotta lighten up on that a little bit, or you can't ask this of people.
00:19:33.913 --> 00:19:41.641
Because the worst thing you can do, as you know, for morale is to say, I expect you to do this.
00:19:42.025 --> 00:19:47.430
And then turn around and with unspoken messaging say, but I don't trust you to do it, so I'm not really gonna let you.
00:19:47.930 --> 00:19:52.721
And furthermore, if you do it the least bit wrong I'm gonna smack you down hard, and you're gonna be in trouble.
00:19:53.221 --> 00:20:00.346
As long as that's the underlying unspoken messaging, nobody's gonna stick their neck out one bit on this.
00:20:00.557 --> 00:20:01.606
Nobody's gonna even try.
00:20:02.007 --> 00:20:02.666
It's not worth it.
00:20:03.207 --> 00:20:05.247
There's no upside, there's plenty of downside.
00:20:05.747 --> 00:20:08.507
If I don't do it, I'll just say, oh gosh, I didn't notice any opportunities.
00:20:08.951 --> 00:20:14.035
But if I do notice an opportunity and I go talk to somebody and then I get yelled at because I talked to them.
00:20:14.144 --> 00:20:15.566
I certainly won't do it twice.
00:20:16.066 --> 00:20:17.925
But most people will not even make the effort.
00:20:17.955 --> 00:20:19.635
Most people will just be like, yeah, yeah, whatever.
00:20:19.875 --> 00:20:23.230
You know, thanks for sharing, but I'll be ignoring that directive.
00:20:23.941 --> 00:20:32.143
So just be aware that you can very easily undercut this desired outcome by your unspoken rules and culture.
00:20:33.143 --> 00:20:37.357
The second major piece is that these are skills, so they have to be taught.
00:20:37.857 --> 00:20:42.178
It doesn't work to tell someone to do a new thing and not teach them how to do it.
00:20:42.678 --> 00:20:56.125
And because what we know about the function of the reticular activating system, that for people to notice a new set of things that they have heretofore been ignoring as not relevant input.
00:20:56.512 --> 00:20:59.073
We've got to retrain their brains a little bit.
00:20:59.252 --> 00:21:12.507
And we do that by engaging their conscious thinking brain and getting them involved and interested in understanding what kinds of opportunities there are out there that we are talking about when we say this, and what it is we want them to be noticing.
00:21:13.393 --> 00:21:18.906
There are tons of ways to do this, but let me say this about teaching skills in general.
00:21:19.210 --> 00:21:23.644
There's a way to do it that's effective and there are about a hundred ways to do it that's not.
00:21:24.144 --> 00:21:26.005
So let's pick the one that's effective.
00:21:26.795 --> 00:21:28.115
And this is work.
00:21:28.494 --> 00:21:29.605
I will not lie to you.
00:21:29.605 --> 00:21:30.894
This is a little bit of work.
00:21:30.894 --> 00:21:36.005
It's not a ton, but it's a little, and there has to be intentionality and there has to be follow through.
00:21:36.817 --> 00:21:46.596
To learn any new skill, it's gotta be taught in a way that the learning is manageable and incremental, with plenty of opportunity to practice.
00:21:47.096 --> 00:21:50.934
And to practice with a bit of a safety net, not just gonna throw'em in the deep end.
00:21:51.657 --> 00:22:00.463
And to then get helpful and constructive feedback each time they practice the skill that will help them then increase their skill level.
00:22:00.713 --> 00:22:01.973
You've gotta build that in.
00:22:02.034 --> 00:22:05.034
You can't just say to people, okay, this is part of your job now.
00:22:05.034 --> 00:22:16.083
And expect them to A, know what you mean, B, be invested in it, C, know how to do it, and D, actually go do it.
00:22:16.653 --> 00:22:19.728
If you want all those things to happen, you've gotta teach.
00:22:20.152 --> 00:22:21.743
And you've gotta support the learning.
00:22:22.784 --> 00:22:29.222
A really good place to start is with messaging, and engagement as a side piece to that.
00:22:29.722 --> 00:22:34.576
Because this is the most natural of the things that you're gonna be asking of them.
00:22:35.259 --> 00:22:50.579
With messaging, if there are one or two major points about the work of the organization and its impact or its value that you want every decision maker to hear from as many places as possible, then you can include those one or two points.
00:22:51.364 --> 00:22:56.463
Beyond that, you want them to focus on impact and value from their perspective.
00:22:57.175 --> 00:22:58.705
We provide these amazing services.
00:22:58.705 --> 00:23:00.385
This is how we help people.
00:23:00.385 --> 00:23:08.489
I see it with my own eyes every day, how it absolutely not only transforms the individual's life, but it changes their family's experience.
00:23:08.788 --> 00:23:11.939
It changes their ability to give back into the community.
00:23:12.415 --> 00:23:14.276
They become more productive.
00:23:14.326 --> 00:23:16.036
They are able to thrive.
00:23:16.226 --> 00:23:19.721
And when they thrive, the multiplier effect is amazing.
00:23:20.652 --> 00:23:27.407
It's best to do it in story form, to give an example that's particularly compelling and to describe the impact and the value.
00:23:28.411 --> 00:23:36.807
Most of the messaging is gonna be first person reporting on the impact and the value that it has from what they see every day by working there.
00:23:37.307 --> 00:23:41.938
And to have one or two particularly illustrative stories in their head that resonate for them.
00:23:42.438 --> 00:23:44.627
That's really what they need to be able to do with messaging.
00:23:45.574 --> 00:23:50.644
So we start with wherever people are and we give them opportunities to incrementally build skills.
00:23:51.530 --> 00:24:04.114
The first exercise could be to think about, when you think about all the people that this organization has worked with, all the stories you've either experienced personally or that you've heard about, what are one or two that just really speak to you?
00:24:04.114 --> 00:24:11.003
Just really touch your heart that show the impact we have and the value of that impact.
00:24:11.692 --> 00:24:18.382
Give that guidance and ask everybody to come up with, in their own words, a couple of stories about that.
00:24:19.261 --> 00:24:26.758
And then ask them to share that with the rest of the team or with whoever's training them, however you wanna do that.
00:24:27.355 --> 00:24:35.979
If this is something you could do simultaneously in a room full of people, what's really awesome about it is that people get excited about hearing the stories that each one has picked.
00:24:36.249 --> 00:24:38.138
They won't all pick the same two stories.
00:24:38.679 --> 00:24:42.152
And so it's a huge morale builder.
00:24:42.527 --> 00:24:44.057
It's a spirit lifter.
00:24:44.386 --> 00:24:52.366
It reminds everyone just how amazing the work is that you do, and how powerfully impactful it is, how valuable it is in the world.
00:24:52.457 --> 00:24:55.067
And it makes them feel really good about where they work.
00:24:55.517 --> 00:24:58.457
So you're accomplishing a lot with an exercise like that.
00:24:58.666 --> 00:25:07.561
But you're also giving people an opportunity to assemble for themselves their thoughts about what are a couple of stories that really illustrate that for them.
00:25:08.063 --> 00:25:09.885
And then they get practice talking about it.
00:25:10.385 --> 00:25:11.286
Super simple.
00:25:11.786 --> 00:25:14.276
And they may, I've seen this happen.
00:25:14.776 --> 00:25:21.195
Somebody might have a story that another one forgot about or didn't know about, and they're like, oh, that's such a great story.
00:25:21.195 --> 00:25:22.155
I'm taking that story.
00:25:22.336 --> 00:25:23.355
That's fine.
00:25:23.355 --> 00:25:24.915
Nobody owns the stories.
00:25:24.915 --> 00:25:26.086
It's not like, well, you can't have that one.
00:25:26.086 --> 00:25:26.596
That's mine.
00:25:26.596 --> 00:25:27.556
I'm gonna tell that story.
00:25:27.766 --> 00:25:28.185
It's okay.
00:25:28.980 --> 00:25:35.911
It's okay and in fact, desirable if a decision maker hears the same story from more than one source.
00:25:36.451 --> 00:25:46.691
Because we labor under the illusion, we humans, that if we tell someone something once that they paid riveting attention to every word we said, and they retained it all.
00:25:47.067 --> 00:25:51.818
All we had to do was say at one time and they have it now, and it's brilliant and it's wonderful.
00:25:52.598 --> 00:25:56.278
Gosh, I wish that was the way the world worked, but we all know that it's not.
00:25:56.818 --> 00:26:05.104
And so if the decision maker were to hear the exact same story from five different people at your organization, that would actually be a win.
00:26:05.548 --> 00:26:09.028
Because on the fourth or fifth repetition, it might actually stick.
00:26:09.571 --> 00:26:15.119
What's gonna stick, even with one telling, is not the details of the story.
00:26:15.465 --> 00:26:21.509
Unless some aspect of those details particularly resonates for that decision maker, which could happen.
00:26:21.509 --> 00:26:23.699
But you can't know that ahead of time necessarily.
00:26:24.199 --> 00:26:28.969
Especially if it's a chance encounter and it's not your job to know everything about that decision maker.
00:26:29.058 --> 00:26:30.048
You don't worry about that.
00:26:30.078 --> 00:26:31.654
You just tell the story from the heart.
00:26:32.154 --> 00:26:38.365
And what they will hear, what they will experience from that, is the heart part.
00:26:38.939 --> 00:26:49.826
They will hear in the sound of the person's voice, and they will feel their energy that happens when they are speaking about something they care deeply about that has affected them personally.
00:26:49.946 --> 00:26:55.318
That has touched their emotions and that they want to share because they believe in it so much.
00:26:55.965 --> 00:27:02.291
That carries with it a very compelling and engaging energy that you just can't fake.
00:27:02.791 --> 00:27:13.479
And so that's what's gonna stick for that decision maker is, wow, here's this caseworker who works there, who is so passionate about this work and the impact.
00:27:14.094 --> 00:27:15.638
That's something to pay attention to.
00:27:15.788 --> 00:27:16.449
That's amazing.
00:27:16.719 --> 00:27:17.919
I don't run into that very often.
00:27:18.878 --> 00:27:22.884
So the messaging and engagement part you can really teach together.
00:27:23.310 --> 00:27:27.931
And it's the most intuitive and natural for an individual to do.
00:27:28.911 --> 00:27:33.333
The harder part is teaching opportunity scanning and recognition.
00:27:33.877 --> 00:27:38.107
That's one where it's gonna probably have to be quite incremental in the support.
00:27:39.267 --> 00:27:47.596
A great place to start is first of all, you lay out for them what you're talking about when you're saying what kinds of opportunities you want them to be looking for.
00:27:48.060 --> 00:27:50.371
Mostly it's gonna be information.
00:27:50.914 --> 00:27:57.541
They hear about something that a decision maker said or did that is relevant to the work that you do.
00:27:58.041 --> 00:28:06.866
Or is relevant to their attitude about funding the kind of work you do or is relevant to policies that affect the people you serve.
00:28:07.116 --> 00:28:10.057
Whatever is on your radar, that you want on their radar.
00:28:10.557 --> 00:28:22.851
And if you think about it as a CEO or a development manager or a policy manager or program director, if you're thinking about what you scan for, what kinds of things you're looking for all the time.
00:28:22.851 --> 00:28:25.101
What do you always have your antenna out for?
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Think about that, and think about how you would characterize that to explain it to someone else.
00:28:31.020 --> 00:28:35.221
And then get together and talk about, these are the kinds of things we're talking about.
00:28:36.124 --> 00:28:39.633
The first part is just give them a chance to practice scanning.
00:28:40.313 --> 00:28:41.932
it's a real simple assignment.
00:28:42.401 --> 00:28:55.414
For the next week, just as you're going about your life, I want you to be looking for and noticing anything you see that's connected to our organization, our work, the people we serve.
00:28:55.914 --> 00:28:59.595
And no matter how small, no matter how large, just notice it and jot it down.
00:29:00.095 --> 00:29:03.205
And at the end of the week, come and tell us about it.
00:29:03.813 --> 00:29:05.073
Don't overanalyze it.
00:29:05.500 --> 00:29:10.809
If it's connected to any of these things, write it down, bring it in, we'll talk about it.
00:29:11.309 --> 00:29:12.990
And then people bring in their stuff.
00:29:13.049 --> 00:29:17.369
And I love doing this as a group because then people get to hear about other people's stuff too.
00:29:17.880 --> 00:29:20.220
And so it's just more feedback and more information.
00:29:20.901 --> 00:29:24.041
So you get people's responses, whatever they've brought back.
00:29:24.541 --> 00:29:28.942
And then you can say, what about this struck you as significant?
00:29:29.486 --> 00:29:31.195
Why might it matter to us?
00:29:31.695 --> 00:29:33.105
And then listen to what they have to say.
00:29:33.554 --> 00:29:36.704
Then you can provide feedback to say, you're right on.
00:29:37.079 --> 00:29:38.339
That's exactly right.
00:29:38.390 --> 00:29:41.029
That is an opportunity, and for the reasons that you said.
00:29:41.089 --> 00:29:41.599
Awesome.
00:29:42.079 --> 00:29:46.160
Somebody else might have something that is an opportunity, but they've mis analyzed it.
00:29:46.849 --> 00:29:49.130
And so you can say, well, that's a fantastic opportunity.
00:29:49.130 --> 00:29:49.849
You nailed it.
00:29:50.359 --> 00:29:55.733
And let me share with you some additional reasons why that's so significant for us.
00:29:56.233 --> 00:29:56.923
And you give'em that.
00:29:57.403 --> 00:29:59.923
And then the person who brings something in that's, eh.
00:30:00.423 --> 00:30:06.159
It is tangentially related, but not necessarily an opportunity and not necessarily valuable Intel.
00:30:06.659 --> 00:30:09.375
You can say, okay, so that's related.
00:30:09.799 --> 00:30:11.119
How might that matter to us?
00:30:11.873 --> 00:30:17.817
And the answer is basically, it might matter to us, but right now there's no clear indicator of how.
00:30:18.317 --> 00:30:20.057
So that's the kind of thing you just file away.
00:30:20.551 --> 00:30:22.201
Maybe it'll be relevant later, maybe it won't.
00:30:23.126 --> 00:30:32.554
The bottom line here is incremental opportunities for practice and feedback that helps them refine their understanding and get a little bit better each time.
00:30:32.884 --> 00:30:39.579
And you might go through two or three rounds of this before everybody is starting to get, oh, okay.
00:30:39.579 --> 00:30:41.099
This is kind of what we're looking for.
00:30:41.609 --> 00:30:43.049
You're creating new habits here.
00:30:43.049 --> 00:30:46.049
So the more repetition they get on it, the better.
00:30:46.650 --> 00:30:58.886
What we know is that retraining the reticular activating system takes about two to two and a half months of training the brain to filter in a new thing or to filter out a thing.
00:30:59.777 --> 00:31:06.711
I would keep this going for at least a couple of months so that you have built the habit and you're giving people decent feedback.
00:31:07.132 --> 00:31:10.132
You know, you balance that with how much time you have to work on this.
00:31:10.132 --> 00:31:15.811
I understand that, but people need to practice it You can't just have'em practice it once and say, okay, great.
00:31:15.811 --> 00:31:16.321
They got it.
00:31:16.321 --> 00:31:17.311
They did a good job.
00:31:17.521 --> 00:31:25.626
Unless everybody completely aced it on the first try, in which case they're already doing the right filtering in.
00:31:26.241 --> 00:31:27.741
And you don't have to train'em on it.
00:31:27.771 --> 00:31:36.074
What you now have to do is give them permission to get out there and interact when the opportunity arises, and to encourage them to do that.
00:31:37.003 --> 00:31:41.894
And to be sure that when they notice those things, that they are bringing them to you.
00:31:42.384 --> 00:31:49.037
So you have a rule that says, for example, every Friday or every Monday, whatever.
00:31:49.506 --> 00:31:54.684
Send me anything you noticed that you think we should be paying attention to from this past week.
00:31:55.155 --> 00:31:59.872
And if there isn't anything, send me an email saying there wasn't anything so that I know you didn't just forget.
00:32:00.372 --> 00:32:02.071
Don't make me come find you to ask you.
00:32:02.909 --> 00:32:15.200
The corollary to that is if something comes across your radar on a Tuesday and the official time to tell you isn't until Friday or the next Monday, and the thing is urgent, you tell me now.
00:32:16.160 --> 00:32:16.759
Don't wait.
00:32:17.430 --> 00:32:19.440
And then tell them how you want them to tell you.
00:32:19.500 --> 00:32:28.412
Whether you have an internal messaging app, or whether you want them to text you or email you with a specific subject line, whatever system you like.
00:32:28.551 --> 00:32:30.377
It doesn't matter as long as it works for you.
00:32:30.877 --> 00:32:33.968
But tell them what to do with stuff that is time sensitive.
00:32:34.468 --> 00:32:39.500
Or they'll leave it sitting there until the next appointed time to tell you, by which time it might be too late.
00:32:40.336 --> 00:32:52.727
This is all a process of training, but that will give you a really good start on training your entire staff to see advocacy as part of their responsibility and to empower them to actually do something about it.
00:32:53.405 --> 00:32:55.384
And get them excited about doing it.
00:32:56.202 --> 00:33:01.393
And I know you know this, but the more positive feedback you can give about, that was really helpful.
00:33:01.393 --> 00:33:01.873
Thank you.
00:33:01.932 --> 00:33:03.732
And this is what I did with it.
00:33:04.393 --> 00:33:11.212
If people bring you good intel that is actionable, and you then go use it, let them know how you used it.
00:33:11.862 --> 00:33:13.751
Don't just have it be one way.
00:33:13.751 --> 00:33:18.311
Here, I'm giving you all this stuff and then it goes off somewhere and the important people do stuff with it.
00:33:18.311 --> 00:33:18.852
I don't know.
00:33:19.061 --> 00:33:20.471
I don't know if anything ever came of that.
00:33:21.210 --> 00:33:22.289
Don't let that happen.
00:33:22.721 --> 00:33:25.298
Come back to folks and say, that was awesome.
00:33:25.448 --> 00:33:27.488
Thank you so much for letting me know that.
00:33:27.587 --> 00:33:29.688
Here's what we were able to do with it.
00:33:30.238 --> 00:33:32.008
And this is how it made a big difference.
00:33:32.508 --> 00:33:35.347
Or this is how it moved our strategy forward, or whatever it is.
00:33:35.847 --> 00:33:53.365
If you give them this initial opportunity and training and positive feedback, that really tells them how their efforts have helped, you just might find that a couple of folks start wanting to level up their skills even more in the advocacy arena, and that's a win for everyone.
00:33:54.200 --> 00:33:59.970
Even if you don't get that, you're gonna get an entire staff that now sees advocacy as part of their role.
00:34:00.521 --> 00:34:10.090
And that is a fabulous organizational culture to have'cause it brings vastly more opportunity into the organization than you can do with the staff you have officially doing that now.
00:34:10.862 --> 00:34:15.782
Thanks for listening, and I'll see you in the next episode right here on the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
