The One Person You Absolutely Need When You Want to Change a Piece of Public Policy

You're listening to the Nonprofit Power Podcast. In today's episode, we reveal the one person you absolutely need when you wanna change a piece of public policy. So stay tuned. If you want to have real and powerful influence over the money and policy decisions that impact your organization and the people you serve, then you're in the right place. I'm 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. It is possible to get a critical mass of the money and policy decision makers in your world to be as invested in your success as you are, to have them seeking you out as an equal partner, and to have them bringing opportunities and resources to you. This podcast will help you do just that. Welcome to the Nonprofit Power Podcast. Hey there, folks. Welcome to the Nonprofit Power Podcast. I'm your host, Kath Patrick. I'm so glad you're here for today's episode because I hear from so many nonprofit leaders that they struggle to figure out how to go after a particular policy goal even when they're really clear about what they want. Because the path from here to there is not at all clear. The advice I will often give a client is the same advice I'm gonna give to you today. Which is that there's really one person that you need to have that is going to make your life so much easier. And you wanna start by finding that one person. That is the person who knows how stuff works. You need someone who understands inside and out the process for changing the specific type of policy you wanna change. And that's the thing. It's not like there's just one way or one method or one process or one strategy. It depends immensely on the policy arena you're operating in. It depends on who the decision-makers are that are involved and what their openness to change and different ideas looks like. It depends on lots and lots of things. But what never changes is that for any given policy change that you wanna try to make, you're always going to be operating in some sort of an existing policy landscape and some sort of an existing decision-making structure with people in charge of stuff and people who have vested interests in stuff and all of that. And if you don't know that landscape, you're in a real bind. So the one person you need in all of this is a guide. You need the person who knows all of that landscape like the back of their hand, and that can take you through it and help you find the best path to the results that you want. Now, eventually, you will need to learn all those details yourself. But you wanna start with somebody who already knows. Who has real-world experience in that universe, and who understands the entire process and the landscape thoroughly. That's the person you want to be your guide. All right, cool, Kath. Now where am I supposed to go get that person? Well, first of all, chances are good there's more than one of them floating around. Typically, you will have some choices. And often you can find a person who will help you for free, either because it's their job to help you, and we'll talk about who those people are, or because they're really on board with what you wanna do and they want to help you. Absent those two possibilities, you can hire this expertise. There are all kinds of consulting firms that specialize in this. And I have yet to run into a state where there wasn't at least one consulting firm that would help people navigate, say, a state policy landscape. Now, when you start getting down to city and county and town, there may be fewer consulting options on the ground, but even then, there's people who know, and so the trick is to find them. The other nice thing is that in any of these cases, however they achieved their insider knowledge, it's typically the case that someone who knows the process and the landscape inside and out is also going to have relationships with the people who are responsible for making all of that work. So you kinda get a twofer with this. You get not only someone who knows the landscape, but someone who also knows those decision-makers personally and can help get you in the door and get a conversation going between you. Before I get into how you find these folks, let me say something about a question I'm getting a lot more often these days, which is, "Well, what about AI? Can't I just ask ChatGPT or Google AI or whatever?" And here's the answer with that. It's a perfectly good place to start to help you get an overview of what the process might look like. It's easy enough to do. If you write a decent prompt, you can get some basic information about what the landscape looks like and what the process for changing policy within that landscape would look like. That can be quite helpful. I use it on a regular basis. I particularly use it when I'm going to work with a client in a state that I'm not as familiar with. Maybe I haven't worked that state legislative process before. They're all similar, but they're not the same, and individual landscapes can vary widely. So I will often start there just to say, "Here, give me the overview. Let me get a baseline understanding." But then from there, I always want that local guide, and I want my clients to use that local guide. So AI has its place in this process. Go ahead and use it on the front end. But don't over-rely on it, and don't expect it to give you much more than an overview. It's just no substitute for insider knowledge of an actual human who has operated inside that process and who has working knowledge of where the levers are and where the landmines are. So where do you find these people? Well, first off, it's possible you already have a champion. For the purposes of this conversation, we're talking about government policy. So this is either legislative policy at the city, county, or state level, or it's administrative policy where an agency makes the decisions. Sometimes there's overlap, sometimes an agency initiates, but then the legislature has to sign off. Sometimes it's the agency has some authority, but they need legislative buy-in for certain pieces. That's part of the landscape that you need to figure out. But in either case, if you have a champion, that would either be someone in the legislative body or someone in the administrative body, the agency. Obviously, the more influential that person is within that body, the better. The most important thing is that if you have a champion, by definition, that's someone who's on the inside, who's super excited about the thing you want to achieve, and they really wanna help you get there. That is awesome. Whenever you can get one or more champions helping you, the better. But those champions don't just appear out of the blue. They come as a result of long-term relationship building and working together, over often years. Where there's a lot of trust built up and there's a lot of alignment and a lot of affinity, and then when you've got that, it's amazing. That said, champions are not always the best guide to the inside process. They can be. And particularly if they hold a lot of influence because they're either an agency head or a committee chair that's the jurisdiction that you're aiming at, then chances are pretty good they also know the process really well and they know the full landscape. But if it is, say, a random legislator who's really aligned with your stuff, but who doesn't sit on the relevant committee or who doesn't have deep knowledge of that particular policy arena, then they may not be your best guide. However, you can ask them, who's the person who knows the most about the process?" Ask them who they would go to. What you're looking for in a guide is someone who really, really knows the place inside and out. Often in larger municipalities and in more populous states, that person may be a paid staffer to the legislative body You'd be amazed at what staffers know because they're the ones who have to make the place run. So don't overlook the possibility that a staffer may be your best guide. You can look to members of the legislative body, members of the agency body who are on the inside. With an agency, a lot of times you may wanna talk to two or three people, and among them they can piece together the picture for you. And in a little bit I will talk about what you're actually gonna ask them. It's not that hard to find these people. If you absolutely cannot come up with anybody, either because you don't have any relationships where you need them. I'm trying to imagine a scenario in which you would be going after a significant policy shift where you didn't already have some pretty significant relationships, but I guess there could be a scenario where that would happen. If that's the case and you just don't have anybody that you already know who's on the inside, then there's two other possibilities. One is someone whose job it is to help you, and that might be someone who's at a national organization that you're a part of that has deep knowledge on that policy arena and does a lot of work in states or municipalities on the regular. You can always ask there. It really depends on what the policy arena is. That was my job for a long time, was as a staff person at a national organization where I had deep expertise in several different policy areas, and it was my job to provide technical assistance and guidance to folks at the local level in our network who wanted to affect change on a piece of policy locally. And I would help them basically lay out the roadmap for how to get there. So there can be folks at national organizations that are aligned with your work that can be very helpful on this. It's always worth asking. Those national people may also have relationships that you don't have at the state or local level. It does happen. The other option that a number of my clients use on either an interim basis or on a consistent basis, is a paid consultant who both knows the policy arena, knows the landscape, knows the process, and has relationships because that's what they do all day long. In smaller population states and municipalities, there might not be a big firm operating that does this, but there might be individuals. And very commonly those are folks who used to be legislative staff or might even be former legislators themselves. Or they've been in advocacy forever and then went out on their own because they'd built all the relationships and learned all the systems. So they're out there even in smaller population locales. And they can be an incredibly useful investment. What I would caution against, and I have seen organizations do this and come to regret it, I would caution against hiring that individual or firm and then saying, Here, go get us this result. Just go do it." That doesn't usually work very well, for obvious reasons. They will never know your issue as well as you know it. They will not have the messaging that you are capable of creating, and they will not have the insider knowledge and perspective that you bring that will help decision-makers understand why this needs to be such a priority. So use those consultants wisely. They are best for helping you do three things. They are great for helping you map the landscape and understand it, to identify exactly which policy levers you need to go after and where in the policy you need to make your changes. They will understand the decision-making landscape and who the players are, and often they will have relationships with them that they can leverage on your behalf and make introductions, put together meetings with you and the decision-maker until you build your own relationship with the decision-maker. They can do all of those things really well. But what is not wise is to just say, "Here, go make it happen." Because they'll never be able to bring to the table what you will bring. I'm just putting that out there as a cautionary note, 'cause I've seen nonprofits do this, and like I say, they almost always come to regret it Okay, you've found your guide or guides. And it's okay to have more than one. In fact, I love it when there's more than one, 'cause you might have one guide who knows all about the policy part, but doesn't know the decision-making landscape as well. And then you might have somebody who really knows the decision-makers, but might not have exactly the policy nuance down. Use them both. It's great. There's just a handful of questions that you wanna ask your guide or guides But first, there's some things you need to tell them so that they can help you to maximum effect, and so that they don't have to work so hard to help you. Especially if you're not paying these people, you wanna do everything you can to make it easy to help you. That goes without saying, right? So first up, there's some things to tell them. The most important thing is to be incredibly clear and as detailed as possible about the result that you want. What's your end game? What does the finished thing look like? In some cases you're gonna know precisely, I wanna change this piece of policy language to read this other thing instead, because here's the problem with the way it reads now, and here's what I need it to do instead. You may know that, and that's cool. But even if you already know that, go ahead and explain to your guide what it is that you're really trying to make happen. So it's not just the policy result, it's also what will that policy result cause in the real world. If, for example, you are trying to change a policy that is impeding members of the community from accessing your services or getting the full benefit of them or whatever it is, and you wanna change that. It's great to say there's this barrier in the policy that makes them jump through these stupid hoops, and they don't pursue the process or they don't complete the process 'cause it's too onerous, and we gotta change that. We gotta make it easy and seamless for them. That's good. But go a step further and say, "What will it look like when people have the access they really need? What would the perfect outcome look like?" And describe that. Because it's possible that you're thinking too narrowly with your policy fix, and the guide can help spot that. If you just go to them and say, "I wanna change ABC language to XYZ language. How do I do that?" They can tell you. But it's possible that what you really want is something bigger. If instead you say, "Okay, look, here's the grand vision for what we want to accomplish. Here's what happens now in the world, and here's what we wanna have happen instead. We have identified this particular policy as the problem, and we think that the best way to fix the problem is to change this language from ABC to XYZ." That's a much better way to explain to your guide the result that you want. Because it's possible there's another way to get to the big result that you really want. Maybe there's more than one avenue, and the guide may actually be able to tell you that. So start there And then there's two more things that you wanna tell this guide. Number one, if you are under some sort of a deadline or time constraint, that is incredibly important for them to know. Whatever that might be, if there is something that says this has to be done by X date, they need to know that because that could change the possible pathways. And then the last thing you wanna be sure to tell them is what other allies and resources you're gonna be bringing to the process. If it's just little old you and your organization, and you're the only ones who care about this, and you're like, "We're here, and we're ready to work hard on it," okay. But it would be a lot better if you could say, Hey, we've identified three other allied organizations that have an interest in this, and they're willing to work with us on this." And/or, "We have these two champions that are gung-ho to do this but are not down with crafting the entire strategy, and we want your help with that." And then also, what can you bring from your own organization and team? You wanna be able to bring a collection of people who have deep knowledge and ability to deliver brilliant messaging on this. You want people to have time freed up that they can go do that, 'cause there's gonna be meetings and conversations and advocating that has to happen. So, you have to have made plans to free people's time up ahead of time so that you can go to this guide and say, we're ready. Let's work on the strategy, but we'll be there when it comes time to go do the thing." So those are the three things that you absolutely must tell your guide before you start. And they will probably have additional questions for you, but that's a great set of things to kick off with. Now, here's what you wanna ask them. First question, after you've said what result you want in the big world, not just change ABC to XYZ, but like here's the outcome, here's what it looks like when we have achieved this thing. First thing to ask them is, What do you think is the most efficient way for us to get to that desired result?" 'Cause they may have a totally different idea about the best and most efficient way to get there than what you thought of. Remember, you're going to them as a guide because they know more about the process and the players. And sometimes there's some little cute backdoor that you don't have any idea about that they're like, "Oh, well, you could do a whole campaign, but actually I think if we just go talk to so-and-so and get them to talk to so-and-so, we could probably just get this done if you're cool with that, if you don't have to have a whole campaign." I've seen that happen a lot. So don't make assumptions going in that you already know the answer. That's why you're going to a guide is to say, "What do you think? You know more about the inside of this than we do. Help us think this through." What's the most efficient way to get to the end result? And then this is very important. What are the advantages and disadvantages of taking that approach? 'Cause there will always be both advantages and disadvantages, and you wanna know what those are going in. It doesn't mean you won't do it. It just means you go in with your eyes open. And then the other thing you wanna ask is, and this is a variation on the theme, is where are the key levers and where are the biggest landmines? Again, so that you have a heads-up about what you're going into and what you're gonna have to prepare to address. Depending on how they answered that set of questions, you may also wanna ask, what are the other options? If by the time they say, "Well, the most efficient way would be blah, blah, blah," and then they go, "Well, but you know, there's some potential landmines there, and there's, this could blow up, and blah, blah, blah." Maybe they say some stuff that you're like, "Well, I don't know. That may be the most efficient, but it doesn't sound very appealing." Go ahead and ask then, "Well, are there some other options, and what do those look like? And what are the pros and cons of those?" And once you hear that, you may be like, "Okay, yeah, the efficient way is the way we need to go. They all kinda suck. We'll take option A." But maybe they'll lay out another option and you're like, "You know what? Actually, for where we're at, that one sounds better. And then here is the million-dollar question. If they have gotten into it while you're talking about these questions that we've started with, and they're getting more excited and they're more enthused. And they're not, like, looking at their timepiece and wondering when you're gonna get out of their office. The next big question for them is, will you help us devise a strategy to get to that result? Love your approach. That's brilliant. That is so helpful. Thank you so much. Would you be willing to help us devise a strategy? If they say yes to that, awesome. If they say no to that, you can still ask the next thing, which is, can you help us get access to key decision-makers? You mentioned these three decision-makers that are really key. We have a great relationship with person A, but we kinda don't have relationships with B and C. Can you help us with that? Can you maybe provide an introduction, or advise us on how best to connect with them? See if they'll help you with the relationship building piece as well, or if they're willing to be a bridge to those relationships. That's the place to start. If you're talking with your guide and they have been excited about this whole conversation, chances are pretty good they're gonna wanna continue working with you 'cause now they're kinda invested in this. So certainly invite that. And of course, thank them. Thank them, thank them And even if they're basically done, it's always useful to first of all, tell them how incredibly helpful this has been. Thank you so much. We are light years ahead of where we were before we started this conversation. This has been incredibly valuable to us. You've said so many brilliant things, there's probably stuff we didn't fully get, and we might wanna circle back on a couple of them. Would that be okay? And see how open the door is. If their response is, "Oh my goodness, are you kidding me? This is awesome. I'm happy to help you anytime," which honestly, most of the time that's gonna be the response. But even if it's more reserved and it's like, "Well, that would be all right. You know, I don't have a ton of bandwidth, but I would certainly be happy to clarify anything," blah, blah, blah. That's another signal. That's like, "Okay, don't bother me with anything trivial, but if you have something substantive, you can call me." If they've taken the time to talk with you already, those are the two most likely answers. And the last thing you always ask in every conversation is, Who else would you suggest we talk to for any additional insights, for strategy ideas, for anything? "Who else should we be talking with?" And they'll be like, "Oh, yeah. Right. Wait. I almost forgot." Yeah, you should really talk to so-and-so. Always have that be your wrap-up question. Once you've had even this initial conversation with a guide, you're already in so much better a position to then start plotting your strategy and getting going on whatever that strategy turns out to be. And if you can keep that guide in your corner and working with you on an ongoing basis, that's even better. Bottom line, getting a guide is the absolute best shortcut to policy change anywhere, anytime, especially for nonprofits. That's the number one thing. The one person you really need is a great insider guide. Once you've got one of those, or two or three of them if you can find them, you are golden. Everything else will be so much easier from there. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you in the next episode right here on the Nonprofit Power Podcast.