April 8, 2026
My Three Favorite Shortcuts to Faster Advocacy Results
Right now, maybe more than ever, it's so important for Nonprofit leaders to be as effective in our advocacy work as possible, while dealing with the fact that we have super-limited bandwidth. So anything we can do to be faster and more efficient and more effective getting to those results, the better. I had a call with a client a few days ago that was a case study in all the things that can make us crazy when we're advocating with government decisionmakers in particular. Whether we're ...
Right now, maybe more than ever, it's so important for Nonprofit leaders to be as effective in our advocacy work as possible, while dealing with the fact that we have super-limited bandwidth. So anything we can do to be faster and more efficient and more effective getting to those results, the better.
I had a call with a client a few days ago that was a case study in all the things that can make us crazy when we're advocating with government decisionmakers in particular. Whether we're looking for a policy change or funding or both, it seems like the process and the path are rarely clear and certainly never easy.
A lot of times it can feel like a long and cumbersome process, especially if you don't have a full-time government relations person on staff. Which frankly, most nonprofits don't. I hear from a lot of clients their frustration with overly complex systems that have a million moving parts and are hard to decipher. Opaque decisionmaking structures where it sometimes feels impossible to figure out who's really in charge of the decisions you're trying to affect.
It's enough to make you want to give up before you even start.
I'm here to tell you that even when you're a full-time advocate, those roadblocks and challenges still crop up all the time. The difference is we know some tricks to cut through the fog and get on the shortest path to the results we want.
Today I'm sharing with you my three favorite shortcuts for doing just that.
In this episode, we share:
- The one place you should always start from to get faster advocacy results
- Two magic questions that will buy you more progress than any others
- How taking these three shortcuts can result in more and stronger strategic relationships
- The key to avoiding unseen holes in your dream policy that will come back to bite you
- How to use AI effectively in your advocacy work
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, I'm sharing my three favorite shortcuts to faster advocacy results.
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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'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 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 because right now, maybe more than ever, it's so important that we be able, as Nonprofit leaders, to be as effective in our advocacy work as possible, while dealing with the fact that we have super limited bandwidth.
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So anything we can do to be faster and more efficient and more effective getting to those results, the better.
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I had a call with a client a few days ago that was a case study in all the things that can make us crazy when we're advocating with government decision makers in particular.
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Whether we're looking for a policy change or funding or both, it seems like the process and the path are rarely clear and certainly never easy.
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A lot of times it can feel like a long and cumbersome process, especially if you don't have a full-time government relations person on staff.
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Which frankly, most nonprofits don't.
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I hear from a lot of clients their frustration with overly complex systems that have a million moving parts and are hard to decipher.
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Opaque decision making structures where it sometimes feels impossible to figure out who's really in charge of the decisions you're trying to affect.
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It's enough to make you want to give up before you even start.
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I'm here to tell you that even when you're a full-time advocate, those roadblocks and challenges still crop up all the time.
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The difference is we know some tricks to cut through the fog and get on the shortest path to the results we want.
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Today I'm gonna share with you my three favorite shortcuts for doing just that.
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The first thing to understand is that whenever you're looking to get an advocacy result from some aspect of government, whether it's elected officials or government agency folks, it's always going to involve dealing with some sort of existing policy.
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There's already a policy landscape, in which your request has to exist.
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And you need to know what that policy landscape looks like.
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But getting to the bottom of that, understanding that deeply, could turn into a huge, heavy lift if you had to do it all yourself.
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Sure.
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Ultimately, you're gonna wanna learn as much as you can about that existing policy landscape.
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But it's absolutely not necessary to know all of that before you start.
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What is necessary is to understand that no matter what it is you're going after, it's going to be occurring in an existing policy landscape.
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So, you gotta figure out what it is.
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You don't wanna spend a ton of time on it.
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Shortcut number one is, find the people who already deeply understand that policy landscape, and that can be your guide through it.
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That will make so much difference.
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It will keep you from making unnecessary mistakes that might cause you to fail, or come up with results that weren't really what you wanted.
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I just had this conversation with this client a few days ago.
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Where they knew what they wanted as an outcome, but they didn't know exactly which policy levers they needed to pull and how many pieces of policy would be touched by the thing that they wanted.
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And so they were kind of operating in the dark.
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And not surprisingly, they were missing a lot of critical information about all the different pieces of policy that actually were going to need to come together to make their request happen.
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Now, all of it's doable.
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There was not a problem.
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We got to work right away on what were some ways we could start to piece that together.
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But the reality was the client didn't realize how many pieces of policy were involved.
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A lot of times if you're looking to make something happen in policy or even in funding and you haven't corralled all the related pieces and made sure they're integrated.
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Then what you wind up with is holes in your policy that come back to bite you later.
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We definitely don't want that.
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But we also can't be expected to know ourselves where all those things are hiding.
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Somebody else already knows.
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So our job, our shortcut, is go find the people who already know.
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Go find those existing experts and let them guide you.
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The chances are very good you've already got a relationship with at least one person who knows more than you do.
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And that's where you start.
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You might not already know the super-duper expert, but you know somebody.
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You know somebody in that world who knows something or who knows someone who does.
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You start there.
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Always start with the relationships you already have.
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'Cause they're the easiest to leverage.
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Yes, you're gonna be building lots of relationships in the process and we talk about that all the time.
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But for the purpose of this conversation, I really wanna focus in on how do you get there the fastest.
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And the fastest way to anything is to start with the relationships you've already got.
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And even if, like in the case of this client, they were looking at influencing a state policy.
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And so they said to me, well, we have this great relationship with the mayor, but I can't really figure out what they could do for us.
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Well, the simplest answer there is don't try to figure that out yourself.
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Go ask them.
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Tell them what it is you're trying to get done, and say hey, have you got any strategic advice for me?
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And then see what they say.
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As they talk, you can ask more detailed and more intelligent questions.
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But it's perfectly okay when you've already got a good relationship somewhere to start there.
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Assuming that you have a good relationship there and they're generally aligned with your values and your vision, they're gonna wanna help.
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But until you go to them, they don't even know you need help.
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They don't even know you've got this iron in the fire that you're hoping to make happen.
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But when you go to them and say, Hey, here's what I'm trying to make happen.
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Here's why it matters.
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Here's what the impact would be.
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I could really use your help.
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And if the relationship is a solid one.
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They're gonna say, well, sure, what can I do?
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What do you need?
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And then, not only is it okay to say, it is actually really smart to say, well, I don't fully understand the policy landscape that we're operating in here.
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I know there's probably hidden pieces that I'm not aware of.
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I'm pretty clear about the outcome and the impact I want.
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But I don't know exactly how this policy landscape is structured and where our stuff would fit, and I really need guidance around that.
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Can you give me that guidance?
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And if they can, they will.
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If they can't, they will tell you.
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Then your follow up question is, who would be a good person for me to be talking with to help get more clarity and more strategic guidance around how to pursue this?
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Who would you recommend and will you make the introduction?
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Maybe even, will you join in with the meeting so that you can kind of be the bridge between us until we get to know each other.
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That's how you get in the room with people you wouldn't otherwise even know you needed to be in the room with.
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And you get in there with the added credibility of this bridge person who's saying, yeah, you need to be talking to this person because they wanna do something really important that I think you're gonna be aligned with.
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They need strategic help.
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The bottom line message here is don't feel like you've got to figure it out yourself.
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I love Nonprofit leaders so much for so many reasons.
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And one of them is that we tend to be super overachievers and we feel like we need to be able to figure stuff out.
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And I'll get it.
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I'll figure it out myself.
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Well, yeah, you could.
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But my advice is take that shortcut.
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Because it'll do two things for you.
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One, it'll get you to your result faster.
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But the other thing it will do that can never be a bad thing, is that it will cause you to wind up with additional helpful relationships in that system, and that is always a plus.
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Now if you know more than one person in that realm, then you could start two different ways.
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You could start with the person with whom you have the strongest relationship.
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Or you could start with the person who you think is gonna have the deepest knowledge of the policy landscape.
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You could wind up talking to them both.
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It's fine.
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But for example, if you have a relationship with a relevant committee chair versus a random office holder, then start with that relevant committee chair.
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'Cause they're gonna know more.
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Or a relevant agency leader versus a random person who works in that department.
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But if the only relationship you have is the random person who works in that department, start with them.
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They're gonna know something.
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If nothing else, they're gonna know who else you should talk to.
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You're almost always gonna have to talk to more than one person.
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But again, that's a good thing because you're building relationships everywhere you go.
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And always your goal is to figure out what's the shortest distance from where you are now to the result you're trying to get to.
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So you wanna ask, tell me the policy landscape, the policy architecture, so we know where our thing fits.
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And are there any hidden weirdnesses, landmines, whatever in that landscape that we need to be aware of?
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And what should we do about them?
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That is all super valuable.
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And then always the question, is there anyone else we should be talking to?
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The second thing you're gonna have to do, and this leads to our second shortcut.
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You're gonna have to understand the decision making landscape too, right?
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You need to understand the policy landscape and environment, but you also need to understand how decisions about this thing, this area of policy or funding, or both.
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How do those decisions get made?
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Who's in charge of those decisions?
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Who's officially in charge?
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And are there any unofficial people who have a significant role, who function as gatekeepers?
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And your shortcut for this is very similar to the first shortcut.
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But it's a different set of questions and a different objective.
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You're still gonna start with people you already have relationships with.
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They may be different than the people you asked the policy landscape questions of, or they may be the same.
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There will probably be some overlap, but there will probably be some who are better for one than the other.
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Start with people you have relationships with.
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And you start asking them these questions about the decision making structure, system.
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First of all, who's really in charge?
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Almost always with government at any level, city, county, state, federal, there are going to be layers of decision making.
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And so you wanna understand what the layering looks like and the hierarchy of it.
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I often will say, can you draw that for me?
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I'm a very visual thinker.
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I do really well if somebody diagrams for me, who's in charge of what, how it flows.
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Then I have that pretty clearly in my head, and I can operate from that going forward.
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You wanna understand the structure, but you also want to understand the players.
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Who's likely to be aligned with what you want?
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Who's likely to be opposed?
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If you're looking for money, who's always opposed to new spending of any kind?
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And how important is it that you get that person on board?
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All that stuff.
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You wanna know the decision making structure, but you also wanna know the key decision making players.
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Personally, I like to ask about the structure first,'cause that's how my brain works.
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But if you're more oriented toward understanding the players first and then figuring out how they fit together, it doesn't matter.
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ideally, you want both pieces of information.
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Both where people are in the pecking order, but it's also, there is often a flow to the decision making process.
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Step one has to happen before step two.
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And those might be different players.
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A super simple example would be legislation that might originate with an individual member of the body, but then it has to go to a committee.
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And then the committee tinkers with it or reports it out wholesale and then the larger body votes on it.
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And maybe there's steps in between.
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Or if it's in a government agency, it may be a totally different set of decision making processes.
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Maybe then it's there's a department or a sub-agency or something that has to sign off first because they're the ones who will do the actual implementation.
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And then they make their recommendations up the chain until it gets to the head of that agency, or however it works.
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It will be different depending on what you're trying to make happen.
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So you wanna understand both the structure and the players.
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In whatever way that works for your brain.
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But those are the questions you want to be asking the people you already have relationships with who are in that world or who are near it.
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Sometimes you have to start outside that world and work your way in.
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You just start with whatever you have.
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And again, after you've asked your structure and flow questions and gotten clarity about that.
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Then always, the last two questions you ask are, who else should I be talking to about this?
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And what is your strategic advice for how we should proceed?
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Honestly, especially that last question.
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What's your strategic advice about how we should proceed?
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Everybody loves to be asked that question.
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Because it gives'em a chance to show off what they know, to exercise their strategic thinking muscles.
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And it's a fun question for people to answer.
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You will get a lot of leaning in with that question 99% of the time.
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Unless.
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Well actually, I was gonna say, unless you're talking to somebody who is pretty far removed from the decision making.
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But even then, they will have insights.
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Maybe you don't have a relationship with somebody who is inside the decision making structure at an agency, but you happen to have a relationship with someone who works in that department.
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And you go have coffee with them or whatever, and you're telling them what's going on and asking for their help.
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And they've told you the structure as far as they know it and all of that.
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And they've told you, okay, well here's a person who knows more and they're pretty friendly.
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I know they're aligned with your stuff.
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They would probably meet with you.
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But if you ask do you have any strategic advice for me?
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They might say, yeah, actually, you know who you should not talk to, or who you should be really careful about is so and so because such and such.
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And then they will give you some little piece of inside information, that will tell you something about how to approach them or whether to approach them, and help you avoid making mistakes.
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And the mistake you don't make, is a mistake you don't have to clean up and spend time on.
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Again, we're all about the shortest path to the results you want.
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Now, shortcut number three, and this is a biggie too.
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All three of these are my go-tos because they buy so much for just a handful of questions and a couple of hours spent in conversation.
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This one may not even involve a conversation.
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Shortcut number three is to ask, who else has done this before?
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Is there another set of advocates somewhere in the country who've already achieved what you're hoping to achieve?
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And what can they tell you about what was key for them getting the results that they got?
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Now, here's the hitch.
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You may not know if there's anybody else who's done this.
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You may be working on something where you're actually following a conceptual model and you're going, yeah, they got this thing.
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We want that too.
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They got this policy, they got this funding that we think is a great idea.
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We're gonna go for that idea here too.
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But maybe all you have is the idea, but not all the details.
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Well, all those details are probably pieces of ingredients to their success strategy.
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So if you can find them and talk to them, you're gonna learn a ton about what worked and what didn't and why.
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If you're part of a state or a national coalition of like-minded groups who are working towards similar goals, that may be where you're getting some of your ideas and your models.
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And so you already have a built-in network of some people you can talk to.
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So definitely reach out in that network, obviously.
00:18:03.270 --> 00:18:05.675
But If you're not sure who those people might be.
00:18:06.175 --> 00:18:11.195
If there's a group listserv or whatever, you can put out a query in whatever the group forums are.
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And a lot of times you'll get answers back that way.
00:18:14.346 --> 00:18:21.834
But if you're not part of a group at all, that would have any relationship to what you're looking for, here's where AI can be your friend.
00:18:22.701 --> 00:18:27.411
I have a lot of quarrel with some of the AI summaries you'll get from some search engines.
00:18:27.411 --> 00:18:33.201
But for this particular project, it's really quite useful and I have had good results with this.
00:18:33.800 --> 00:18:42.584
And that's to put together a query, basically asking who are the experts on, fill in the blank result.
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Whether it's policy results or funding result that you're looking to get.
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Who are the experts on that?
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And be as detailed as possible.
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So like, who are the experts on getting an exemption to this federal policy so that a state can do X, Y, Z service under this law?
00:19:04.162 --> 00:19:04.912
Something like that.
00:19:05.031 --> 00:19:06.862
Be as detailed as you wanna be.
00:19:07.362 --> 00:19:12.912
And then if that doesn't get you anything, you can drop some of the extraneous details, but keep playing with it.
00:19:13.695 --> 00:19:16.246
Basically you're looking to ask, who are the experts?
00:19:16.246 --> 00:19:17.596
Who knows about this?
00:19:18.506 --> 00:19:21.395
That will give you a starting point for people to reach out to.
00:19:22.058 --> 00:19:23.439
And then you go reach out to them.
00:19:24.189 --> 00:19:33.909
Chances are pretty good that someone somewhere has already either done or tried to do the thing you're trying to do and they can help you.
00:19:34.598 --> 00:19:37.298
But you gotta find them and then you gotta ask'em.
00:19:38.102 --> 00:19:38.971
So that's it.
00:19:39.471 --> 00:19:45.332
Three shortcuts that will save you a ton of time and frustration.
00:19:46.037 --> 00:19:50.067
Of just knowing who to go to and what questions to ask when you get there.
00:19:50.307 --> 00:19:52.767
And then what to do with the information you get.
00:19:53.626 --> 00:20:01.307
That will accelerate your advocacy strategy, and ultimately your results path, tremendously.
00:20:02.153 --> 00:20:11.183
Ultimately, the goal here is we want to get you in the right room with the right people, making your case to the people who can actually make the decision.
00:20:11.993 --> 00:20:25.104
And making your case in a way that is cognizant of the existing policy landscape so that you're not asking for something that is going to cause them to say, well, we can't do that because blah, blah, blah policy landscape.
00:20:25.523 --> 00:20:27.473
You will have already worked that through.
00:20:28.411 --> 00:20:40.580
And then obviously, once you're in the room with them, then you're gonna use all of your great messaging and all of your engagement technique to get them leaning in, get them excited about the thing you want to do.
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But you're doing it from a place that is super well informed about the policy landscape and the decision making structure and players.
00:20:48.340 --> 00:20:56.621
And hopefully armed with evidence of who else has done this elsewhere in the country or elsewhere in the state, whatever it is.
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And can point to it and say, Hey, they did this in such and such place and it had fantastic results.
00:21:02.560 --> 00:21:03.790
It worked really well.
00:21:04.570 --> 00:21:19.040
One of the things that does is, there's always a certain percentage of decision makers who are risk averse, and if you can point to where it's already been done and had a good result, it makes them feel much more comfortable taking that on and giving it a try where you are.
00:21:20.126 --> 00:21:26.186
Those three things will buy you a ton of leverage and a ton of acceleration.
00:21:27.163 --> 00:21:32.482
So go out there, grab those shortcuts, lighten your load, and get to those results faster.
00:21:33.276 --> 00:21:38.046
Thanks for listening, and I'll see you in the next episode right here on the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
00:00:00.050 --> 00:00:02.689
You're listening to the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
00:00:02.959 --> 00:00:09.016
In today's episode, I'm sharing my three favorite shortcuts to faster advocacy results.
00:00:09.137 --> 00:00:10.307
So stay tuned.
00:00:16.626 --> 00:00:25.536
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.
00:00:26.137 --> 00:00:39.156
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 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 because right now, maybe more than ever, it's so important that we be able, as Nonprofit leaders, to be as effective in our advocacy work as possible, while dealing with the fact that we have super limited bandwidth.
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So anything we can do to be faster and more efficient and more effective getting to those results, the better.
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I had a call with a client a few days ago that was a case study in all the things that can make us crazy when we're advocating with government decision makers in particular.
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Whether we're looking for a policy change or funding or both, it seems like the process and the path are rarely clear and certainly never easy.
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A lot of times it can feel like a long and cumbersome process, especially if you don't have a full-time government relations person on staff.
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Which frankly, most nonprofits don't.
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I hear from a lot of clients their frustration with overly complex systems that have a million moving parts and are hard to decipher.
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Opaque decision making structures where it sometimes feels impossible to figure out who's really in charge of the decisions you're trying to affect.
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It's enough to make you want to give up before you even start.
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I'm here to tell you that even when you're a full-time advocate, those roadblocks and challenges still crop up all the time.
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The difference is we know some tricks to cut through the fog and get on the shortest path to the results we want.
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Today I'm gonna share with you my three favorite shortcuts for doing just that.
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The first thing to understand is that whenever you're looking to get an advocacy result from some aspect of government, whether it's elected officials or government agency folks, it's always going to involve dealing with some sort of existing policy.
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There's already a policy landscape, in which your request has to exist.
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And you need to know what that policy landscape looks like.
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But getting to the bottom of that, understanding that deeply, could turn into a huge, heavy lift if you had to do it all yourself.
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Sure.
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Ultimately, you're gonna wanna learn as much as you can about that existing policy landscape.
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But it's absolutely not necessary to know all of that before you start.
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What is necessary is to understand that no matter what it is you're going after, it's going to be occurring in an existing policy landscape.
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So, you gotta figure out what it is.
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You don't wanna spend a ton of time on it.
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Shortcut number one is, find the people who already deeply understand that policy landscape, and that can be your guide through it.
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That will make so much difference.
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It will keep you from making unnecessary mistakes that might cause you to fail, or come up with results that weren't really what you wanted.
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I just had this conversation with this client a few days ago.
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Where they knew what they wanted as an outcome, but they didn't know exactly which policy levers they needed to pull and how many pieces of policy would be touched by the thing that they wanted.
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And so they were kind of operating in the dark.
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And not surprisingly, they were missing a lot of critical information about all the different pieces of policy that actually were going to need to come together to make their request happen.
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Now, all of it's doable.
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There was not a problem.
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We got to work right away on what were some ways we could start to piece that together.
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But the reality was the client didn't realize how many pieces of policy were involved.
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A lot of times if you're looking to make something happen in policy or even in funding and you haven't corralled all the related pieces and made sure they're integrated.
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Then what you wind up with is holes in your policy that come back to bite you later.
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We definitely don't want that.
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But we also can't be expected to know ourselves where all those things are hiding.
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Somebody else already knows.
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So our job, our shortcut, is go find the people who already know.
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Go find those existing experts and let them guide you.
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The chances are very good you've already got a relationship with at least one person who knows more than you do.
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And that's where you start.
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You might not already know the super-duper expert, but you know somebody.
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You know somebody in that world who knows something or who knows someone who does.
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You start there.
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Always start with the relationships you already have.
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'Cause they're the easiest to leverage.
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Yes, you're gonna be building lots of relationships in the process and we talk about that all the time.
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But for the purpose of this conversation, I really wanna focus in on how do you get there the fastest.
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And the fastest way to anything is to start with the relationships you've already got.
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And even if, like in the case of this client, they were looking at influencing a state policy.
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And so they said to me, well, we have this great relationship with the mayor, but I can't really figure out what they could do for us.
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Well, the simplest answer there is don't try to figure that out yourself.
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Go ask them.
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Tell them what it is you're trying to get done, and say hey, have you got any strategic advice for me?
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And then see what they say.
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As they talk, you can ask more detailed and more intelligent questions.
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But it's perfectly okay when you've already got a good relationship somewhere to start there.
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Assuming that you have a good relationship there and they're generally aligned with your values and your vision, they're gonna wanna help.
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But until you go to them, they don't even know you need help.
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They don't even know you've got this iron in the fire that you're hoping to make happen.
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But when you go to them and say, Hey, here's what I'm trying to make happen.
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Here's why it matters.
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Here's what the impact would be.
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I could really use your help.
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And if the relationship is a solid one.
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They're gonna say, well, sure, what can I do?
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What do you need?
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And then, not only is it okay to say, it is actually really smart to say, well, I don't fully understand the policy landscape that we're operating in here.
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I know there's probably hidden pieces that I'm not aware of.
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I'm pretty clear about the outcome and the impact I want.
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But I don't know exactly how this policy landscape is structured and where our stuff would fit, and I really need guidance around that.
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Can you give me that guidance?
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And if they can, they will.
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If they can't, they will tell you.
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Then your follow up question is, who would be a good person for me to be talking with to help get more clarity and more strategic guidance around how to pursue this?
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Who would you recommend and will you make the introduction?
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Maybe even, will you join in with the meeting so that you can kind of be the bridge between us until we get to know each other.
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That's how you get in the room with people you wouldn't otherwise even know you needed to be in the room with.
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And you get in there with the added credibility of this bridge person who's saying, yeah, you need to be talking to this person because they wanna do something really important that I think you're gonna be aligned with.
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They need strategic help.
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The bottom line message here is don't feel like you've got to figure it out yourself.
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I love Nonprofit leaders so much for so many reasons.
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And one of them is that we tend to be super overachievers and we feel like we need to be able to figure stuff out.
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And I'll get it.
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I'll figure it out myself.
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Well, yeah, you could.
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But my advice is take that shortcut.
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Because it'll do two things for you.
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One, it'll get you to your result faster.
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But the other thing it will do that can never be a bad thing, is that it will cause you to wind up with additional helpful relationships in that system, and that is always a plus.
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Now if you know more than one person in that realm, then you could start two different ways.
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You could start with the person with whom you have the strongest relationship.
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Or you could start with the person who you think is gonna have the deepest knowledge of the policy landscape.
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You could wind up talking to them both.
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It's fine.
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But for example, if you have a relationship with a relevant committee chair versus a random office holder, then start with that relevant committee chair.
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'Cause they're gonna know more.
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Or a relevant agency leader versus a random person who works in that department.
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But if the only relationship you have is the random person who works in that department, start with them.
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They're gonna know something.
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If nothing else, they're gonna know who else you should talk to.
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You're almost always gonna have to talk to more than one person.
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But again, that's a good thing because you're building relationships everywhere you go.
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And always your goal is to figure out what's the shortest distance from where you are now to the result you're trying to get to.
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So you wanna ask, tell me the policy landscape, the policy architecture, so we know where our thing fits.
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And are there any hidden weirdnesses, landmines, whatever in that landscape that we need to be aware of?
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And what should we do about them?
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That is all super valuable.
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And then always the question, is there anyone else we should be talking to?
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The second thing you're gonna have to do, and this leads to our second shortcut.
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You're gonna have to understand the decision making landscape too, right?
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You need to understand the policy landscape and environment, but you also need to understand how decisions about this thing, this area of policy or funding, or both.
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How do those decisions get made?
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Who's in charge of those decisions?
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Who's officially in charge?
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And are there any unofficial people who have a significant role, who function as gatekeepers?
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And your shortcut for this is very similar to the first shortcut.
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But it's a different set of questions and a different objective.
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You're still gonna start with people you already have relationships with.
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They may be different than the people you asked the policy landscape questions of, or they may be the same.
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There will probably be some overlap, but there will probably be some who are better for one than the other.
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Start with people you have relationships with.
00:12:04.376 --> 00:12:09.995
And you start asking them these questions about the decision making structure, system.
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First of all, who's really in charge?
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Almost always with government at any level, city, county, state, federal, there are going to be layers of decision making.
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And so you wanna understand what the layering looks like and the hierarchy of it.
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I often will say, can you draw that for me?
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I'm a very visual thinker.
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I do really well if somebody diagrams for me, who's in charge of what, how it flows.
00:12:37.778 --> 00:12:42.581
Then I have that pretty clearly in my head, and I can operate from that going forward.
00:12:43.538 --> 00:12:46.927
You wanna understand the structure, but you also want to understand the players.
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Who's likely to be aligned with what you want?
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Who's likely to be opposed?
00:12:51.668 --> 00:12:55.087
If you're looking for money, who's always opposed to new spending of any kind?
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And how important is it that you get that person on board?
00:12:57.931 --> 00:12:58.951
All that stuff.
00:12:59.910 --> 00:13:04.801
You wanna know the decision making structure, but you also wanna know the key decision making players.
00:13:05.301 --> 00:13:09.350
Personally, I like to ask about the structure first,'cause that's how my brain works.
00:13:09.650 --> 00:13:17.303
But if you're more oriented toward understanding the players first and then figuring out how they fit together, it doesn't matter.
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ideally, you want both pieces of information.
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Both where people are in the pecking order, but it's also, there is often a flow to the decision making process.
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Step one has to happen before step two.
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And those might be different players.
00:13:32.601 --> 00:13:41.187
A super simple example would be legislation that might originate with an individual member of the body, but then it has to go to a committee.
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And then the committee tinkers with it or reports it out wholesale and then the larger body votes on it.
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And maybe there's steps in between.
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Or if it's in a government agency, it may be a totally different set of decision making processes.
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Maybe then it's there's a department or a sub-agency or something that has to sign off first because they're the ones who will do the actual implementation.
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And then they make their recommendations up the chain until it gets to the head of that agency, or however it works.
00:14:15.403 --> 00:14:17.863
It will be different depending on what you're trying to make happen.
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So you wanna understand both the structure and the players.
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In whatever way that works for your brain.
00:14:25.312 --> 00:14:32.423
But those are the questions you want to be asking the people you already have relationships with who are in that world or who are near it.
00:14:33.023 --> 00:14:36.623
Sometimes you have to start outside that world and work your way in.
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You just start with whatever you have.
00:14:39.238 --> 00:14:44.567
And again, after you've asked your structure and flow questions and gotten clarity about that.
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Then always, the last two questions you ask are, who else should I be talking to about this?
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And what is your strategic advice for how we should proceed?
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Honestly, especially that last question.
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What's your strategic advice about how we should proceed?
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Everybody loves to be asked that question.
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Because it gives'em a chance to show off what they know, to exercise their strategic thinking muscles.
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And it's a fun question for people to answer.
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You will get a lot of leaning in with that question 99% of the time.
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Unless.
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Well actually, I was gonna say, unless you're talking to somebody who is pretty far removed from the decision making.
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But even then, they will have insights.
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Maybe you don't have a relationship with somebody who is inside the decision making structure at an agency, but you happen to have a relationship with someone who works in that department.
00:15:41.613 --> 00:15:46.552
And you go have coffee with them or whatever, and you're telling them what's going on and asking for their help.
00:15:46.942 --> 00:15:50.003
And they've told you the structure as far as they know it and all of that.
00:15:50.003 --> 00:15:53.812
And they've told you, okay, well here's a person who knows more and they're pretty friendly.
00:15:54.003 --> 00:15:55.472
I know they're aligned with your stuff.
00:15:55.472 --> 00:15:56.852
They would probably meet with you.
00:15:57.432 --> 00:16:00.043
But if you ask do you have any strategic advice for me?
00:16:00.673 --> 00:16:11.817
They might say, yeah, actually, you know who you should not talk to, or who you should be really careful about is so and so because such and such.
00:16:12.298 --> 00:16:25.048
And then they will give you some little piece of inside information, that will tell you something about how to approach them or whether to approach them, and help you avoid making mistakes.
00:16:25.548 --> 00:16:29.807
And the mistake you don't make, is a mistake you don't have to clean up and spend time on.
00:16:30.307 --> 00:16:33.668
Again, we're all about the shortest path to the results you want.
00:16:34.595 --> 00:16:37.235
Now, shortcut number three, and this is a biggie too.
00:16:37.975 --> 00:16:47.125
All three of these are my go-tos because they buy so much for just a handful of questions and a couple of hours spent in conversation.
00:16:47.850 --> 00:16:50.340
This one may not even involve a conversation.
00:16:51.000 --> 00:16:55.284
Shortcut number three is to ask, who else has done this before?
00:16:56.445 --> 00:17:02.865
Is there another set of advocates somewhere in the country who've already achieved what you're hoping to achieve?
00:17:03.365 --> 00:17:08.134
And what can they tell you about what was key for them getting the results that they got?
00:17:08.855 --> 00:17:10.295
Now, here's the hitch.
00:17:10.535 --> 00:17:13.535
You may not know if there's anybody else who's done this.
00:17:14.035 --> 00:17:19.855
You may be working on something where you're actually following a conceptual model and you're going, yeah, they got this thing.
00:17:19.855 --> 00:17:20.904
We want that too.
00:17:21.265 --> 00:17:25.825
They got this policy, they got this funding that we think is a great idea.
00:17:25.825 --> 00:17:28.375
We're gonna go for that idea here too.
00:17:29.300 --> 00:17:32.810
But maybe all you have is the idea, but not all the details.
00:17:33.265 --> 00:17:38.721
Well, all those details are probably pieces of ingredients to their success strategy.
00:17:39.111 --> 00:17:46.131
So if you can find them and talk to them, you're gonna learn a ton about what worked and what didn't and why.
00:17:46.944 --> 00:17:55.375
If you're part of a state or a national coalition of like-minded groups who are working towards similar goals, that may be where you're getting some of your ideas and your models.
00:17:55.375 --> 00:17:58.654
And so you already have a built-in network of some people you can talk to.
00:17:59.401 --> 00:18:02.790
So definitely reach out in that network, obviously.
00:18:03.270 --> 00:18:05.675
But If you're not sure who those people might be.
00:18:06.175 --> 00:18:11.195
If there's a group listserv or whatever, you can put out a query in whatever the group forums are.
00:18:11.496 --> 00:18:13.746
And a lot of times you'll get answers back that way.
00:18:14.346 --> 00:18:21.834
But if you're not part of a group at all, that would have any relationship to what you're looking for, here's where AI can be your friend.
00:18:22.701 --> 00:18:27.411
I have a lot of quarrel with some of the AI summaries you'll get from some search engines.
00:18:27.411 --> 00:18:33.201
But for this particular project, it's really quite useful and I have had good results with this.
00:18:33.800 --> 00:18:42.584
And that's to put together a query, basically asking who are the experts on, fill in the blank result.
00:18:42.759 --> 00:18:45.939
Whether it's policy results or funding result that you're looking to get.
00:18:46.501 --> 00:18:47.647
Who are the experts on that?
00:18:48.241 --> 00:18:49.801
And be as detailed as possible.
00:18:49.801 --> 00:19:03.652
So like, who are the experts on getting an exemption to this federal policy so that a state can do X, Y, Z service under this law?
00:19:04.162 --> 00:19:04.912
Something like that.
00:19:05.031 --> 00:19:06.862
Be as detailed as you wanna be.
00:19:07.362 --> 00:19:12.912
And then if that doesn't get you anything, you can drop some of the extraneous details, but keep playing with it.
00:19:13.695 --> 00:19:16.246
Basically you're looking to ask, who are the experts?
00:19:16.246 --> 00:19:17.596
Who knows about this?
00:19:18.506 --> 00:19:21.395
That will give you a starting point for people to reach out to.
00:19:22.058 --> 00:19:23.439
And then you go reach out to them.
00:19:24.189 --> 00:19:33.909
Chances are pretty good that someone somewhere has already either done or tried to do the thing you're trying to do and they can help you.
00:19:34.598 --> 00:19:37.298
But you gotta find them and then you gotta ask'em.
00:19:38.102 --> 00:19:38.971
So that's it.
00:19:39.471 --> 00:19:45.332
Three shortcuts that will save you a ton of time and frustration.
00:19:46.037 --> 00:19:50.067
Of just knowing who to go to and what questions to ask when you get there.
00:19:50.307 --> 00:19:52.767
And then what to do with the information you get.
00:19:53.626 --> 00:20:01.307
That will accelerate your advocacy strategy, and ultimately your results path, tremendously.
00:20:02.153 --> 00:20:11.183
Ultimately, the goal here is we want to get you in the right room with the right people, making your case to the people who can actually make the decision.
00:20:11.993 --> 00:20:25.104
And making your case in a way that is cognizant of the existing policy landscape so that you're not asking for something that is going to cause them to say, well, we can't do that because blah, blah, blah policy landscape.
00:20:25.523 --> 00:20:27.473
You will have already worked that through.
00:20:28.411 --> 00:20:40.580
And then obviously, once you're in the room with them, then you're gonna use all of your great messaging and all of your engagement technique to get them leaning in, get them excited about the thing you want to do.
00:20:40.851 --> 00:20:47.840
But you're doing it from a place that is super well informed about the policy landscape and the decision making structure and players.
00:20:48.340 --> 00:20:56.621
And hopefully armed with evidence of who else has done this elsewhere in the country or elsewhere in the state, whatever it is.
00:20:56.951 --> 00:21:02.560
And can point to it and say, Hey, they did this in such and such place and it had fantastic results.
00:21:02.560 --> 00:21:03.790
It worked really well.
00:21:04.570 --> 00:21:19.040
One of the things that does is, there's always a certain percentage of decision makers who are risk averse, and if you can point to where it's already been done and had a good result, it makes them feel much more comfortable taking that on and giving it a try where you are.
00:21:20.126 --> 00:21:26.186
Those three things will buy you a ton of leverage and a ton of acceleration.
00:21:27.163 --> 00:21:32.482
So go out there, grab those shortcuts, lighten your load, and get to those results faster.
00:21:33.276 --> 00:21:38.046
Thanks for listening, and I'll see you in the next episode right here on the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
