March 11, 2026
Three Big Mistakes that can Turn Your Great Policy Win into a Bust
I know how much work it is to score a big policy win. If you're working toward one right now, I am cheering you on. And I'm affirming that you're gonna get that policy win. So the last thing I want to see happen is for you to make one or more of three common mistakes that can wind up greatly diminishing that win. Whatever you're working on that's a policy change at whatever level of government. Getting that legislation or other policy that you've advocated for, getti...
I know how much work it is to score a big policy win. If you're working toward one right now, I am cheering you on. And I'm affirming that you're gonna get that policy win.
So the last thing I want to see happen is for you to make one or more of three common mistakes that can wind up greatly diminishing that win.
Whatever you're working on that's a policy change at whatever level of government. Getting that legislation or other policy that you've advocated for, getting that done, getting that to the finish line is a huge win. And it's worthy of a ton of celebration. It's a really big deal.
And, it's only the beginning of your advocacy work. Because now you need to make sure that policy gets implemented the way you intended.
The bottom line is that implementation is a critically important piece. If you want your policy to be implemented as you intended, it will take a lot of advocacy work to make sure that happens.
That's what I’m focusing on today. And I'm going to help you make sure that your big wins, stay big wins.
In this episode, we share:
- Four reasons why even the best crafted policy can fail to create the intended impact
- The three biggest mistakes that will undermine and possibly torpedo the successful implementation of your great policy win
- How to effectively monitor how your policy is working, and what to do to fix any problems as they arise
- Why advocates need to actively monitor, even when there’s an official monitor designated in the policy
- How to share the work of monitoring with the right allies, and benefit from multiple angles of expertise and perspective
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
00:00:00.050 --> 00:00:02.750
You're listening to the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
00:00:03.109 --> 00:00:10.339
In today's episode, we share three big mistakes that can turn your great policy win into a bust.
00:00:10.699 --> 00:00:12.050
So, stay tuned.
00:00:18.480 --> 00:00:27.390
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.
00:00:27.989 --> 00:00:41.009
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.
00:00:41.640 --> 00:00:54.179
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.
00:00:54.240 --> 00:00:57.030
Bringing opportunities and resources to you.
00:00:57.630 --> 00:00:59.759
This podcast will help you do just that.
00:01:00.210 --> 00:01:03.240
Welcome to the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
00:01:08.944 --> 00:01:09.634
Hey there folks.
00:01:09.634 --> 00:01:11.674
Welcome to the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
00:01:11.974 --> 00:01:13.293
I'm your host, Kath Patrick.
00:01:13.653 --> 00:01:21.350
I'm so glad you're here for today's episode because I know how much work it is to score a big policy win.
00:01:22.156 --> 00:01:24.856
If you're working toward one right now, I am cheering you on.
00:01:25.524 --> 00:01:29.123
And I'm affirming that you're gonna get that policy win.
00:01:30.084 --> 00:01:40.691
So the last thing I wanna see happen is for you to make one or more of three common mistakes that can wind up greatly diminishing that win.
00:01:41.492 --> 00:01:43.337
That's what we're gonna focus on today.
00:01:43.757 --> 00:01:48.587
And I'm gonna help you make sure that your big wins, stay big wins.
00:01:50.581 --> 00:01:53.012
Whatever you're working on that's a policy change.
00:01:53.581 --> 00:01:57.391
Typically legislative policy at whatever level of government.
00:01:57.391 --> 00:02:01.412
Sometimes administrative policy, also usually in government.
00:02:01.912 --> 00:02:11.486
Getting that legislation or other policy that you've advocated for, getting that done, getting that to the finish line is a huge win.
00:02:11.986 --> 00:02:14.866
And it's worthy of a ton of celebration.
00:02:15.257 --> 00:02:16.606
It's a really big deal.
00:02:17.500 --> 00:02:21.000
And, it's only the beginning of your advocacy work.
00:02:21.500 --> 00:02:28.740
Because now you need to make sure that policy gets implemented the way you intended.
00:02:29.240 --> 00:02:34.395
The bottom line is that implementation is a critically important piece.
00:02:35.085 --> 00:02:42.754
If you want your policy to be implemented as you intended, it will take a lot of advocacy work to make sure that happens.
00:02:43.534 --> 00:02:44.254
And here's why.
00:02:44.754 --> 00:02:47.935
First of all, policy is never perfect.
00:02:48.435 --> 00:02:51.604
Whatever the process was for getting the policy in place.
00:02:52.034 --> 00:02:59.564
Whether you wrote it all yourself and the decision makers adopted it wholesale, in which case congratulations.
00:03:00.164 --> 00:03:07.215
Or more typically, if there were many hands in the drafting, and lots of compromises along the way.
00:03:07.715 --> 00:03:13.435
Whichever it was, the truth is there are holes in the policy.
00:03:14.179 --> 00:03:16.218
Those holes can take a couple of forms.
00:03:16.848 --> 00:03:28.318
There'll be things you didn't think of, little details that didn't get written down, or things that you thought were obvious and so didn't get spelled out specifically.
00:03:29.155 --> 00:03:35.185
And if it's been a compromise heavy process, then there are gonna be gaps as a result of the compromises.
00:03:35.685 --> 00:03:37.305
So there's always holes.
00:03:38.262 --> 00:03:43.663
The second thing is that policy writ large has inherent limitations.
00:03:44.163 --> 00:03:50.304
You simply can't write policy for every possible eventuality and have it still be workable.
00:03:50.973 --> 00:04:03.337
If you get too in the weeds and too detailed, it winds up being so cumbersome as to be kind of unworkable and it doesn't leave any room for people on the ground to make it work well.
00:04:04.230 --> 00:04:11.360
There's always gonna be stuff that you envision happening, but that you can't necessarily write down every last thing.
00:04:12.177 --> 00:04:18.927
And beyond that, if again, you're in a situation where there were a lot of compromises in the development of the policy.
00:04:19.680 --> 00:04:26.100
It's likely that there are some significant escape hatches for those who don't wish to follow the policy.
00:04:26.600 --> 00:04:31.190
And those can get built in in ways that are hard to detect sometimes.
00:04:31.690 --> 00:04:40.000
And that leads me to the third thing, which is that not everyone will be interested in complying with this new and wonderful policy that you helped make happen.
00:04:40.781 --> 00:04:45.550
There will be people who are being made to do things that they don't wanna do.
00:04:46.511 --> 00:04:47.891
And they'll resist that.
00:04:48.130 --> 00:04:50.321
Shocking human behavior.
00:04:51.187 --> 00:05:03.317
That resistance can take a lot of different forms, but a lot of times, folks just kind of ignore the new policy and continue business as usual and wait for somebody to slap their hand.
00:05:04.247 --> 00:05:06.408
And I'll tell you a little secret.
00:05:06.437 --> 00:05:09.048
A lot of times that hand slap never comes.
00:05:09.918 --> 00:05:10.187
Now.
00:05:10.247 --> 00:05:13.677
In addition, if there are government agencies involved.
00:05:14.177 --> 00:05:16.083
Let's say you've gotten some legislation passed.
00:05:16.083 --> 00:05:24.872
Whether it's city council, county board, state legislature, there's some agency that probably is charged with implementing that policy.
00:05:26.065 --> 00:05:33.956
And the reality is there may be some people in those agencies who are resistant to the policy and don't really wanna follow it.
00:05:33.956 --> 00:05:35.516
They kinda like things how they are.
00:05:36.016 --> 00:05:40.125
You can imagine how that would create a whole bunch of implementation problems.
00:05:40.516 --> 00:05:44.675
If the agency charged with carrying it out is like, eh, maybe not.
00:05:44.675 --> 00:05:45.216
I don't know.
00:05:45.396 --> 00:05:46.656
I don't know if I wanna do that part.
00:05:47.526 --> 00:06:02.495
So those are the reasons that focusing on implementation details is so important to ensuring that the fantastic policy you worked so hard to get in place is actually gonna do what you wanted it to do.
00:06:03.247 --> 00:06:07.267
And make the changes and improve things in the way that you designed it to do.
00:06:08.384 --> 00:06:24.999
The three biggest mistakes that advocates often make that will really undermine and possibly completely torpedo successful implementation of your great policy are: Number one, assuming that the policy will automatically be implemented as intended.
00:06:25.449 --> 00:06:28.329
It's like, well, we wrote it all in there, now go do it.
00:06:28.829 --> 00:06:29.639
Our work is done.
00:06:29.639 --> 00:06:31.413
We can go back to providing services.
00:06:31.442 --> 00:06:40.673
'Cause we worked really hard on this thing and now let's just let the people who have been assigned the responsibility in the policy, let'em go do their thing so we can get back to doing our thing.
00:06:41.392 --> 00:06:43.463
That is a super common mistake.
00:06:43.463 --> 00:06:52.144
And given what I've just explained about why there are hazards waiting to trip up your policy when it goes to be implemented.
00:06:52.797 --> 00:07:01.396
You can see how walking away from it once the policy's done and assuming it'll take care of itself would be a huge mistake.
00:07:02.319 --> 00:07:07.439
The second big mistake is expecting the policy to do more than it's capable of.
00:07:07.939 --> 00:07:15.293
And what I mean by that is, again, going back to how there are very likely some gaps and holes in the policy.
00:07:15.293 --> 00:07:21.564
There may be some things that, you know, got a little watered down in compromise process or what have you.
00:07:22.254 --> 00:07:29.769
There's a big difference between the spirit and intent of a policy, versus the letter of the law.
00:07:30.430 --> 00:07:37.815
When you either initiated this policy change yourself, or you got on board with a larger movement making it happen.
00:07:38.656 --> 00:07:42.396
You were really clear about what you were envisioning, what the change would be.
00:07:42.396 --> 00:07:44.615
That's the spirit and the intent of the policy.
00:07:45.485 --> 00:07:50.466
But then there's the what's actually written down, the letter of the law, as it were.
00:07:50.886 --> 00:07:53.245
And there's often quite a bit of gap between those two.
00:07:54.216 --> 00:08:04.896
we have to be realistic about realizing that our grand vision is probably not fully represented in the letter of the policy.
00:08:05.495 --> 00:08:08.795
And so we're gonna have to be attentive to how that's going to play out.
00:08:09.577 --> 00:08:18.369
If we're not on top of it, we could go along thinking that we got the thing passed, the spirit and intent are gonna happen.
00:08:19.184 --> 00:08:24.764
And then we get really disappointed when a year later we realize, oh, that's not happening at all.
00:08:25.983 --> 00:08:29.934
The third mistake, and these are all obviously connected to one another.
00:08:30.834 --> 00:08:37.614
Is not having a plan and defined roles for how advocates will monitor implementation.
00:08:38.427 --> 00:08:45.524
A corollary mistake to this that's closely related is thinking that implementation monitoring is somebody else's job.
00:08:46.323 --> 00:08:48.844
This can come up in a number of different ways.
00:08:48.844 --> 00:08:55.443
If it was a coalition or alliance that helped make a policy change happen, there were a lot of advocacy players involved.
00:08:55.894 --> 00:09:03.611
And it's not uncommon for members of the coalition or alliance to think, oh, well, such and such organization spearheaded this.
00:09:03.611 --> 00:09:07.572
So they'll obviously, you know, take care of any monitoring that needs to happen.
00:09:08.381 --> 00:09:13.892
But even if it was just your organization that worked with a policymaker and got this done all on your own.
00:09:14.392 --> 00:09:28.884
There still needs to be, just like there was an advocacy plan to get the policy enacted, there now needs to be a plan for monitoring the implementation and addressing enforcement issues if those are built in.
00:09:29.794 --> 00:09:32.254
I probably don't have to explain why that's so important.
00:09:32.735 --> 00:09:36.995
Because generally speaking, if there's not a plan, things tend not to happen.
00:09:38.125 --> 00:09:39.894
Those are the mistakes we wanna avoid.
00:09:39.995 --> 00:09:43.914
So basically, we need to do the opposite.
00:09:44.414 --> 00:09:49.034
The three major things that advocates need to do once the policy has been enacted.
00:09:49.815 --> 00:09:55.875
Well, four things because the first thing you do is celebrate like crazy'cause you just did awesome work and that is great.
00:09:56.284 --> 00:10:08.985
But beyond the celebration, the three big things that advocates need to have on their agenda are: Monitoring for how even really well designed policy plays out on the ground.
00:10:09.956 --> 00:10:11.875
And there's two reasons for this.
00:10:11.875 --> 00:10:16.566
You wanna make sure that it's working as intended or as closely as possible to that.
00:10:17.427 --> 00:10:20.366
But this is also an opportunity to make it better.
00:10:21.328 --> 00:10:24.070
Because we know there are inherent limitations in policy.
00:10:24.070 --> 00:10:28.331
You can't put everything in there, especially not in the first iteration.
00:10:29.172 --> 00:10:41.081
And because there are lots of players involved in actually implementing the policy, there are gonna be things that unfold that might have been really difficult to foresee.
00:10:42.010 --> 00:10:49.421
But once they happen, you can go, oh wow, I never imagined that anybody would interpret that that way.
00:10:49.841 --> 00:10:58.181
Or, huh, well that's another way to do that, but that's not the best way and we probably ought to go clean that up.
00:10:58.928 --> 00:11:06.509
So as you begin to observe how things are being implemented, you get to identify the stuff that's working great.
00:11:07.423 --> 00:11:08.864
And the stuff that's not.
00:11:09.254 --> 00:11:15.104
That's kind of not quite clicking or is just being misinterpreted consistently.
00:11:15.313 --> 00:11:24.875
All kinds of things can happen that even with well-designed policy wind up being a little funky once things actually start being rolled out.
00:11:25.456 --> 00:11:36.176
The more you can pay attention to that and take really good notes on that, then you can go back to your policymaker allies who helped you get this thing passed in the first place and say, Hey.
00:11:36.596 --> 00:11:38.216
You know, here's some stuff that's working great.
00:11:38.216 --> 00:11:39.265
We did a good job on that.
00:11:39.265 --> 00:11:43.131
But oh, we're noticing some things that aren't being implemented as intended.
00:11:43.402 --> 00:11:45.322
Let's talk about how we shore that up.
00:11:46.162 --> 00:11:49.042
And maybe the answer will be through amending the policy.
00:11:49.341 --> 00:11:55.341
Maybe the answer will be through issuing additional guidance or creating some regulations, what have you.
00:11:55.642 --> 00:11:57.172
It depends on what the problem is.
00:11:58.011 --> 00:12:01.782
But if you don't do the monitoring, you won't ever know.
00:12:02.471 --> 00:12:08.302
And you won't have an organized way to go back and fix the inevitable holes and problems that will occur.
00:12:09.501 --> 00:12:18.231
Another thing that is really important to monitor for is whether the key players are doing their part fully.
00:12:18.966 --> 00:12:23.797
And this is where when I referenced government agency people or whoever else is involved.
00:12:24.277 --> 00:12:30.157
And sometimes there are a lot of different types of players who each have a role in the implementation.
00:12:30.657 --> 00:12:37.590
They've all gotta be doing their job and doing it sincerely to make the policy actually come to life.
00:12:38.429 --> 00:12:39.570
You gotta have eyes on that.
00:12:40.409 --> 00:12:50.458
And it's a judgment call that you will make within your own context as to whether for any key players who may not be fully doing their part, what's the reason for that?
00:12:50.729 --> 00:12:58.558
Sometimes it's that they really don't understand what they're supposed to be doing, because maybe part of the policy wasn't clear or didn't get communicated clearly to them.
00:12:59.428 --> 00:13:03.058
Sometimes it's because they're genuinely resistant and are sandbagging.
00:13:03.418 --> 00:13:05.009
Sometimes it's something else.
00:13:05.369 --> 00:13:13.244
So you may have to have some conversations with those folks before you go back to your policy makers to talk about how to fix it.
00:13:14.234 --> 00:13:21.734
The other thing that can happen is there may be something in their way that nobody thought of while the policy was being crafted.
00:13:21.734 --> 00:13:23.953
But when they go to implement it, they go, oh, wait a second.
00:13:23.953 --> 00:13:33.403
There's this huge boulder in our path, and we're having to figure out how to get around that because it's not addressed in the policy and we're not sure.
00:13:33.403 --> 00:13:38.083
We've got conflicting orders, we've got conflicting priorities, whatever it is.
00:13:38.563 --> 00:13:41.293
Again, those are things that can be cleaned up.
00:13:41.671 --> 00:13:48.221
But you've gotta be paying attention and talking to people about if stuff isn't getting implemented, what's going on, what's in the way.
00:13:48.941 --> 00:13:52.721
And then going back and working with your policymaker allies to improve it.
00:13:53.778 --> 00:13:59.018
And then the third thing, which is never fun, but may be necessary.
00:13:59.618 --> 00:14:05.990
And that is to push for enforcement where there is genuine non-compliance.
00:14:06.410 --> 00:14:10.941
Whether it's determined non-compliance, like I don't want it, and you can't make me.
00:14:11.780 --> 00:14:19.821
Or whether it's kind of passive non-compliance of, oh yeah, here's another directive from so and so, such and such source.
00:14:19.910 --> 00:14:21.020
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:14:21.020 --> 00:14:22.520
We always ignore all their stuff.
00:14:22.520 --> 00:14:24.740
We'll just ignore this and see if anything happens.
00:14:25.553 --> 00:14:35.856
So whether it's forceful or passive, non-compliance means your policy isn't getting implemented at all in that little corner of the world.
00:14:36.336 --> 00:14:37.807
And that has to be addressed.
00:14:38.557 --> 00:14:42.397
Hopefully your policy built in some remedies for that.
00:14:43.057 --> 00:14:49.927
But if it didn't, then that means you've now identified a hole in your policy, which is that there's no enforcement for compliance.
00:14:50.379 --> 00:14:54.940
And you may have to use more carrots than sticks if that's the case, until you can fix the policy.
00:14:55.809 --> 00:15:01.899
This is really a situation in which you're a little bit the traffic cop and you're flagging violations.
00:15:02.399 --> 00:15:08.399
Because the other thing that is always operating here, and that I haven't said up to this point, but I wanna flag it.
00:15:08.490 --> 00:15:14.799
Is that for the most part, once policymakers have enacted a policy, they're kind of done with it.
00:15:14.860 --> 00:15:16.000
They're on to the next thing.
00:15:16.500 --> 00:15:23.870
If it's their baby and they really fought for it and really wanted to make it happen, then maybe they're also paying attention to implementation.
00:15:24.169 --> 00:15:36.940
But a lot of times, policy makers are not that focused on implementation, and it's up to the advocates to bring implementation issues to their attention so that you can work together to find the solutions.
00:15:37.927 --> 00:15:50.706
A couple other things to be aware of around monitoring is that if it happened that in the crafting of the policy, no monitoring role was assigned anywhere.
00:15:51.364 --> 00:15:56.620
Sometimes it's assigned to a government agency or a quasi government agency.
00:15:57.364 --> 00:16:07.573
If there's no monitoring role assigned to one of those, then it absolutely falls to the advocates to monitor how well things are being implemented.
00:16:08.413 --> 00:16:14.384
And very importantly, it's not just about implementing the technical details.
00:16:14.413 --> 00:16:17.293
It's about whether the desired impact is happening.
00:16:17.744 --> 00:16:24.913
Are they being implemented in a way that's producing the results that caused you to wanna have the policy in the first place?
00:16:25.844 --> 00:16:36.254
Now, if a government or quasi-government entity was assigned a monitoring role, don't assume they will do that monitoring well or thoroughly.
00:16:37.048 --> 00:16:42.198
They might, but advocates really need to monitor the people doing the monitoring.
00:16:42.769 --> 00:16:46.729
Again, to make sure that things are being implemented as intended.
00:16:46.729 --> 00:16:52.129
And very importantly, that the policy is resulting in the impact it was designed to create.
00:16:53.024 --> 00:16:58.943
And if it's not, then it's time to talk to those officially assigned monitors.
00:16:59.427 --> 00:17:05.509
And if they're not responsive, then it may be time to escalate that back to the policymakers to address that further.
00:17:06.537 --> 00:17:11.787
I would kind of expect that about now you're thinking, that sounds like a lot of work.
00:17:12.287 --> 00:17:16.037
And we barely had enough bandwidth to get the thing passed.
00:17:16.037 --> 00:17:17.926
Now you want me to monitor it too?
00:17:18.267 --> 00:17:19.576
Ugh, this sounds horrible.
00:17:20.076 --> 00:17:28.836
This is where if you had a coalition or an alliance that did the work to get the policy passed, then the monitoring work should also be shared.
00:17:29.166 --> 00:17:33.366
And that's where we go back to how important it's to have a plan with assigned roles.
00:17:33.936 --> 00:17:36.007
You're gonna follow up on this, you're gonna follow up on that.
00:17:36.007 --> 00:17:39.007
We're gonna meet once a month or once every two months or whatever it is.
00:17:39.336 --> 00:17:41.346
And we're just gonna keep checking in with one another.
00:17:41.960 --> 00:17:44.720
I've done this at both the state level and at the national level.
00:17:44.779 --> 00:17:55.809
And at one point when I was working at the national level, I was part of the leadership for several different coalitions, monitoring several different pieces of federal legislation.
00:17:56.259 --> 00:18:01.269
And we were able to do that with not a huge number of core members of our coalitions.
00:18:01.758 --> 00:18:03.617
The coalitions had different compositions.
00:18:03.617 --> 00:18:08.208
So it's like Coalition A, coalition B, coalition C, and some overlap, but not a lot.
00:18:08.613 --> 00:18:13.982
Because like one thing was in workforce development and one thing was in healthcare, and one thing was in education.
00:18:14.605 --> 00:18:23.806
There were different things that we had to pay attention to and different sets of expertise that needed to be at the table to inform the monitoring.
00:18:24.405 --> 00:18:37.506
So this is absolutely doable, but it goes a lot easier, and actually better quality monitoring, when you have multiple perspectives and multiple sets of expertise contributing to the project.
00:18:38.006 --> 00:18:48.501
And even if you put that policy in place all on your own, it's probably a good idea to recruit some other individuals or organizations to help you with the monitoring.
00:18:49.282 --> 00:18:57.769
The other thing is that although I highlighted the possibility that there could be people in those government agencies who are resistant.
00:18:59.039 --> 00:19:06.029
Chances are very good there are also a number of people in those agencies who really love your policy and want to see it implemented.
00:19:06.029 --> 00:19:09.900
They agree with your intended result and they really wanna see that happen.
00:19:10.200 --> 00:19:13.410
So they're your allies and they can help you a ton.
00:19:13.650 --> 00:19:17.250
They can give you all kinds of inside information about what's really going on.
00:19:17.400 --> 00:19:22.230
They can help point you to what levers to pull to help make things work better.
00:19:22.696 --> 00:19:26.416
So you absolutely wanna build those relationships if you don't already have them.
00:19:27.255 --> 00:19:35.285
And if you do have'em, talk with those folks regularly so that they know you're on the case and that you can help each other.
00:19:36.005 --> 00:19:40.464
It's more brains and more hands helping with the project.
00:19:41.015 --> 00:19:48.352
Share the load, share the work, and take advantage of multiple angles of expertise and perspective.
00:19:49.115 --> 00:20:01.305
I can tell you from personal experience and from clients all over the country that I've worked with, who have been focused and intentional about the monitoring piece that follows a big policy win.
00:20:01.755 --> 00:20:20.035
That when you do this and you're consistent with it, the results you get out of that policy are so much bigger, so much more impactful, than if you finish the advocacy phase where you got the policy passed and then you walk away hoping that someone else will make sure that it gets done right.
00:20:20.888 --> 00:20:39.788
If you think about the investment you've already made of your time and your energy and probably some money into getting your policy enacted, it is a hundred percent worth continuing that effort into the monitoring phase to make sure that you get the full benefit of all that original work.
00:20:40.419 --> 00:20:46.598
And that the people the policy was intended to benefit get the full benefit.
00:20:47.288 --> 00:20:49.054
'Cause that's really what it's all about.
00:20:49.981 --> 00:20:54.751
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.
00:00:03.109 --> 00:00:10.339
In today's episode, we share three big mistakes that can turn your great policy win into a bust.
00:00:10.699 --> 00:00:12.050
So, stay tuned.
00:00:18.480 --> 00:00:27.390
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.
00:00:27.989 --> 00:00:41.009
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.
00:00:41.640 --> 00:00:54.179
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.
00:00:54.240 --> 00:00:57.030
Bringing opportunities and resources to you.
00:00:57.630 --> 00:00:59.759
This podcast will help you do just that.
00:01:00.210 --> 00:01:03.240
Welcome to the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
00:01:08.944 --> 00:01:09.634
Hey there folks.
00:01:09.634 --> 00:01:11.674
Welcome to the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
00:01:11.974 --> 00:01:13.293
I'm your host, Kath Patrick.
00:01:13.653 --> 00:01:21.350
I'm so glad you're here for today's episode because I know how much work it is to score a big policy win.
00:01:22.156 --> 00:01:24.856
If you're working toward one right now, I am cheering you on.
00:01:25.524 --> 00:01:29.123
And I'm affirming that you're gonna get that policy win.
00:01:30.084 --> 00:01:40.691
So the last thing I wanna see happen is for you to make one or more of three common mistakes that can wind up greatly diminishing that win.
00:01:41.492 --> 00:01:43.337
That's what we're gonna focus on today.
00:01:43.757 --> 00:01:48.587
And I'm gonna help you make sure that your big wins, stay big wins.
00:01:50.581 --> 00:01:53.012
Whatever you're working on that's a policy change.
00:01:53.581 --> 00:01:57.391
Typically legislative policy at whatever level of government.
00:01:57.391 --> 00:02:01.412
Sometimes administrative policy, also usually in government.
00:02:01.912 --> 00:02:11.486
Getting that legislation or other policy that you've advocated for, getting that done, getting that to the finish line is a huge win.
00:02:11.986 --> 00:02:14.866
And it's worthy of a ton of celebration.
00:02:15.257 --> 00:02:16.606
It's a really big deal.
00:02:17.500 --> 00:02:21.000
And, it's only the beginning of your advocacy work.
00:02:21.500 --> 00:02:28.740
Because now you need to make sure that policy gets implemented the way you intended.
00:02:29.240 --> 00:02:34.395
The bottom line is that implementation is a critically important piece.
00:02:35.085 --> 00:02:42.754
If you want your policy to be implemented as you intended, it will take a lot of advocacy work to make sure that happens.
00:02:43.534 --> 00:02:44.254
And here's why.
00:02:44.754 --> 00:02:47.935
First of all, policy is never perfect.
00:02:48.435 --> 00:02:51.604
Whatever the process was for getting the policy in place.
00:02:52.034 --> 00:02:59.564
Whether you wrote it all yourself and the decision makers adopted it wholesale, in which case congratulations.
00:03:00.164 --> 00:03:07.215
Or more typically, if there were many hands in the drafting, and lots of compromises along the way.
00:03:07.715 --> 00:03:13.435
Whichever it was, the truth is there are holes in the policy.
00:03:14.179 --> 00:03:16.218
Those holes can take a couple of forms.
00:03:16.848 --> 00:03:28.318
There'll be things you didn't think of, little details that didn't get written down, or things that you thought were obvious and so didn't get spelled out specifically.
00:03:29.155 --> 00:03:35.185
And if it's been a compromise heavy process, then there are gonna be gaps as a result of the compromises.
00:03:35.685 --> 00:03:37.305
So there's always holes.
00:03:38.262 --> 00:03:43.663
The second thing is that policy writ large has inherent limitations.
00:03:44.163 --> 00:03:50.304
You simply can't write policy for every possible eventuality and have it still be workable.
00:03:50.973 --> 00:04:03.337
If you get too in the weeds and too detailed, it winds up being so cumbersome as to be kind of unworkable and it doesn't leave any room for people on the ground to make it work well.
00:04:04.230 --> 00:04:11.360
There's always gonna be stuff that you envision happening, but that you can't necessarily write down every last thing.
00:04:12.177 --> 00:04:18.927
And beyond that, if again, you're in a situation where there were a lot of compromises in the development of the policy.
00:04:19.680 --> 00:04:26.100
It's likely that there are some significant escape hatches for those who don't wish to follow the policy.
00:04:26.600 --> 00:04:31.190
And those can get built in in ways that are hard to detect sometimes.
00:04:31.690 --> 00:04:40.000
And that leads me to the third thing, which is that not everyone will be interested in complying with this new and wonderful policy that you helped make happen.
00:04:40.781 --> 00:04:45.550
There will be people who are being made to do things that they don't wanna do.
00:04:46.511 --> 00:04:47.891
And they'll resist that.
00:04:48.130 --> 00:04:50.321
Shocking human behavior.
00:04:51.187 --> 00:05:03.317
That resistance can take a lot of different forms, but a lot of times, folks just kind of ignore the new policy and continue business as usual and wait for somebody to slap their hand.
00:05:04.247 --> 00:05:06.408
And I'll tell you a little secret.
00:05:06.437 --> 00:05:09.048
A lot of times that hand slap never comes.
00:05:09.918 --> 00:05:10.187
Now.
00:05:10.247 --> 00:05:13.677
In addition, if there are government agencies involved.
00:05:14.177 --> 00:05:16.083
Let's say you've gotten some legislation passed.
00:05:16.083 --> 00:05:24.872
Whether it's city council, county board, state legislature, there's some agency that probably is charged with implementing that policy.
00:05:26.065 --> 00:05:33.956
And the reality is there may be some people in those agencies who are resistant to the policy and don't really wanna follow it.
00:05:33.956 --> 00:05:35.516
They kinda like things how they are.
00:05:36.016 --> 00:05:40.125
You can imagine how that would create a whole bunch of implementation problems.
00:05:40.516 --> 00:05:44.675
If the agency charged with carrying it out is like, eh, maybe not.
00:05:44.675 --> 00:05:45.216
I don't know.
00:05:45.396 --> 00:05:46.656
I don't know if I wanna do that part.
00:05:47.526 --> 00:06:02.495
So those are the reasons that focusing on implementation details is so important to ensuring that the fantastic policy you worked so hard to get in place is actually gonna do what you wanted it to do.
00:06:03.247 --> 00:06:07.267
And make the changes and improve things in the way that you designed it to do.
00:06:08.384 --> 00:06:24.999
The three biggest mistakes that advocates often make that will really undermine and possibly completely torpedo successful implementation of your great policy are: Number one, assuming that the policy will automatically be implemented as intended.
00:06:25.449 --> 00:06:28.329
It's like, well, we wrote it all in there, now go do it.
00:06:28.829 --> 00:06:29.639
Our work is done.
00:06:29.639 --> 00:06:31.413
We can go back to providing services.
00:06:31.442 --> 00:06:40.673
'Cause we worked really hard on this thing and now let's just let the people who have been assigned the responsibility in the policy, let'em go do their thing so we can get back to doing our thing.
00:06:41.392 --> 00:06:43.463
That is a super common mistake.
00:06:43.463 --> 00:06:52.144
And given what I've just explained about why there are hazards waiting to trip up your policy when it goes to be implemented.
00:06:52.797 --> 00:07:01.396
You can see how walking away from it once the policy's done and assuming it'll take care of itself would be a huge mistake.
00:07:02.319 --> 00:07:07.439
The second big mistake is expecting the policy to do more than it's capable of.
00:07:07.939 --> 00:07:15.293
And what I mean by that is, again, going back to how there are very likely some gaps and holes in the policy.
00:07:15.293 --> 00:07:21.564
There may be some things that, you know, got a little watered down in compromise process or what have you.
00:07:22.254 --> 00:07:29.769
There's a big difference between the spirit and intent of a policy, versus the letter of the law.
00:07:30.430 --> 00:07:37.815
When you either initiated this policy change yourself, or you got on board with a larger movement making it happen.
00:07:38.656 --> 00:07:42.396
You were really clear about what you were envisioning, what the change would be.
00:07:42.396 --> 00:07:44.615
That's the spirit and the intent of the policy.
00:07:45.485 --> 00:07:50.466
But then there's the what's actually written down, the letter of the law, as it were.
00:07:50.886 --> 00:07:53.245
And there's often quite a bit of gap between those two.
00:07:54.216 --> 00:08:04.896
we have to be realistic about realizing that our grand vision is probably not fully represented in the letter of the policy.
00:08:05.495 --> 00:08:08.795
And so we're gonna have to be attentive to how that's going to play out.
00:08:09.577 --> 00:08:18.369
If we're not on top of it, we could go along thinking that we got the thing passed, the spirit and intent are gonna happen.
00:08:19.184 --> 00:08:24.764
And then we get really disappointed when a year later we realize, oh, that's not happening at all.
00:08:25.983 --> 00:08:29.934
The third mistake, and these are all obviously connected to one another.
00:08:30.834 --> 00:08:37.614
Is not having a plan and defined roles for how advocates will monitor implementation.
00:08:38.427 --> 00:08:45.524
A corollary mistake to this that's closely related is thinking that implementation monitoring is somebody else's job.
00:08:46.323 --> 00:08:48.844
This can come up in a number of different ways.
00:08:48.844 --> 00:08:55.443
If it was a coalition or alliance that helped make a policy change happen, there were a lot of advocacy players involved.
00:08:55.894 --> 00:09:03.611
And it's not uncommon for members of the coalition or alliance to think, oh, well, such and such organization spearheaded this.
00:09:03.611 --> 00:09:07.572
So they'll obviously, you know, take care of any monitoring that needs to happen.
00:09:08.381 --> 00:09:13.892
But even if it was just your organization that worked with a policymaker and got this done all on your own.
00:09:14.392 --> 00:09:28.884
There still needs to be, just like there was an advocacy plan to get the policy enacted, there now needs to be a plan for monitoring the implementation and addressing enforcement issues if those are built in.
00:09:29.794 --> 00:09:32.254
I probably don't have to explain why that's so important.
00:09:32.735 --> 00:09:36.995
Because generally speaking, if there's not a plan, things tend not to happen.
00:09:38.125 --> 00:09:39.894
Those are the mistakes we wanna avoid.
00:09:39.995 --> 00:09:43.914
So basically, we need to do the opposite.
00:09:44.414 --> 00:09:49.034
The three major things that advocates need to do once the policy has been enacted.
00:09:49.815 --> 00:09:55.875
Well, four things because the first thing you do is celebrate like crazy'cause you just did awesome work and that is great.
00:09:56.284 --> 00:10:08.985
But beyond the celebration, the three big things that advocates need to have on their agenda are: Monitoring for how even really well designed policy plays out on the ground.
00:10:09.956 --> 00:10:11.875
And there's two reasons for this.
00:10:11.875 --> 00:10:16.566
You wanna make sure that it's working as intended or as closely as possible to that.
00:10:17.427 --> 00:10:20.366
But this is also an opportunity to make it better.
00:10:21.328 --> 00:10:24.070
Because we know there are inherent limitations in policy.
00:10:24.070 --> 00:10:28.331
You can't put everything in there, especially not in the first iteration.
00:10:29.172 --> 00:10:41.081
And because there are lots of players involved in actually implementing the policy, there are gonna be things that unfold that might have been really difficult to foresee.
00:10:42.010 --> 00:10:49.421
But once they happen, you can go, oh wow, I never imagined that anybody would interpret that that way.
00:10:49.841 --> 00:10:58.181
Or, huh, well that's another way to do that, but that's not the best way and we probably ought to go clean that up.
00:10:58.928 --> 00:11:06.509
So as you begin to observe how things are being implemented, you get to identify the stuff that's working great.
00:11:07.423 --> 00:11:08.864
And the stuff that's not.
00:11:09.254 --> 00:11:15.104
That's kind of not quite clicking or is just being misinterpreted consistently.
00:11:15.313 --> 00:11:24.875
All kinds of things can happen that even with well-designed policy wind up being a little funky once things actually start being rolled out.
00:11:25.456 --> 00:11:36.176
The more you can pay attention to that and take really good notes on that, then you can go back to your policymaker allies who helped you get this thing passed in the first place and say, Hey.
00:11:36.596 --> 00:11:38.216
You know, here's some stuff that's working great.
00:11:38.216 --> 00:11:39.265
We did a good job on that.
00:11:39.265 --> 00:11:43.131
But oh, we're noticing some things that aren't being implemented as intended.
00:11:43.402 --> 00:11:45.322
Let's talk about how we shore that up.
00:11:46.162 --> 00:11:49.042
And maybe the answer will be through amending the policy.
00:11:49.341 --> 00:11:55.341
Maybe the answer will be through issuing additional guidance or creating some regulations, what have you.
00:11:55.642 --> 00:11:57.172
It depends on what the problem is.
00:11:58.011 --> 00:12:01.782
But if you don't do the monitoring, you won't ever know.
00:12:02.471 --> 00:12:08.302
And you won't have an organized way to go back and fix the inevitable holes and problems that will occur.
00:12:09.501 --> 00:12:18.231
Another thing that is really important to monitor for is whether the key players are doing their part fully.
00:12:18.966 --> 00:12:23.797
And this is where when I referenced government agency people or whoever else is involved.
00:12:24.277 --> 00:12:30.157
And sometimes there are a lot of different types of players who each have a role in the implementation.
00:12:30.657 --> 00:12:37.590
They've all gotta be doing their job and doing it sincerely to make the policy actually come to life.
00:12:38.429 --> 00:12:39.570
You gotta have eyes on that.
00:12:40.409 --> 00:12:50.458
And it's a judgment call that you will make within your own context as to whether for any key players who may not be fully doing their part, what's the reason for that?
00:12:50.729 --> 00:12:58.558
Sometimes it's that they really don't understand what they're supposed to be doing, because maybe part of the policy wasn't clear or didn't get communicated clearly to them.
00:12:59.428 --> 00:13:03.058
Sometimes it's because they're genuinely resistant and are sandbagging.
00:13:03.418 --> 00:13:05.009
Sometimes it's something else.
00:13:05.369 --> 00:13:13.244
So you may have to have some conversations with those folks before you go back to your policy makers to talk about how to fix it.
00:13:14.234 --> 00:13:21.734
The other thing that can happen is there may be something in their way that nobody thought of while the policy was being crafted.
00:13:21.734 --> 00:13:23.953
But when they go to implement it, they go, oh, wait a second.
00:13:23.953 --> 00:13:33.403
There's this huge boulder in our path, and we're having to figure out how to get around that because it's not addressed in the policy and we're not sure.
00:13:33.403 --> 00:13:38.083
We've got conflicting orders, we've got conflicting priorities, whatever it is.
00:13:38.563 --> 00:13:41.293
Again, those are things that can be cleaned up.
00:13:41.671 --> 00:13:48.221
But you've gotta be paying attention and talking to people about if stuff isn't getting implemented, what's going on, what's in the way.
00:13:48.941 --> 00:13:52.721
And then going back and working with your policymaker allies to improve it.
00:13:53.778 --> 00:13:59.018
And then the third thing, which is never fun, but may be necessary.
00:13:59.618 --> 00:14:05.990
And that is to push for enforcement where there is genuine non-compliance.
00:14:06.410 --> 00:14:10.941
Whether it's determined non-compliance, like I don't want it, and you can't make me.
00:14:11.780 --> 00:14:19.821
Or whether it's kind of passive non-compliance of, oh yeah, here's another directive from so and so, such and such source.
00:14:19.910 --> 00:14:21.020
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:14:21.020 --> 00:14:22.520
We always ignore all their stuff.
00:14:22.520 --> 00:14:24.740
We'll just ignore this and see if anything happens.
00:14:25.553 --> 00:14:35.856
So whether it's forceful or passive, non-compliance means your policy isn't getting implemented at all in that little corner of the world.
00:14:36.336 --> 00:14:37.807
And that has to be addressed.
00:14:38.557 --> 00:14:42.397
Hopefully your policy built in some remedies for that.
00:14:43.057 --> 00:14:49.927
But if it didn't, then that means you've now identified a hole in your policy, which is that there's no enforcement for compliance.
00:14:50.379 --> 00:14:54.940
And you may have to use more carrots than sticks if that's the case, until you can fix the policy.
00:14:55.809 --> 00:15:01.899
This is really a situation in which you're a little bit the traffic cop and you're flagging violations.
00:15:02.399 --> 00:15:08.399
Because the other thing that is always operating here, and that I haven't said up to this point, but I wanna flag it.
00:15:08.490 --> 00:15:14.799
Is that for the most part, once policymakers have enacted a policy, they're kind of done with it.
00:15:14.860 --> 00:15:16.000
They're on to the next thing.
00:15:16.500 --> 00:15:23.870
If it's their baby and they really fought for it and really wanted to make it happen, then maybe they're also paying attention to implementation.
00:15:24.169 --> 00:15:36.940
But a lot of times, policy makers are not that focused on implementation, and it's up to the advocates to bring implementation issues to their attention so that you can work together to find the solutions.
00:15:37.927 --> 00:15:50.706
A couple other things to be aware of around monitoring is that if it happened that in the crafting of the policy, no monitoring role was assigned anywhere.
00:15:51.364 --> 00:15:56.620
Sometimes it's assigned to a government agency or a quasi government agency.
00:15:57.364 --> 00:16:07.573
If there's no monitoring role assigned to one of those, then it absolutely falls to the advocates to monitor how well things are being implemented.
00:16:08.413 --> 00:16:14.384
And very importantly, it's not just about implementing the technical details.
00:16:14.413 --> 00:16:17.293
It's about whether the desired impact is happening.
00:16:17.744 --> 00:16:24.913
Are they being implemented in a way that's producing the results that caused you to wanna have the policy in the first place?
00:16:25.844 --> 00:16:36.254
Now, if a government or quasi-government entity was assigned a monitoring role, don't assume they will do that monitoring well or thoroughly.
00:16:37.048 --> 00:16:42.198
They might, but advocates really need to monitor the people doing the monitoring.
00:16:42.769 --> 00:16:46.729
Again, to make sure that things are being implemented as intended.
00:16:46.729 --> 00:16:52.129
And very importantly, that the policy is resulting in the impact it was designed to create.
00:16:53.024 --> 00:16:58.943
And if it's not, then it's time to talk to those officially assigned monitors.
00:16:59.427 --> 00:17:05.509
And if they're not responsive, then it may be time to escalate that back to the policymakers to address that further.
00:17:06.537 --> 00:17:11.787
I would kind of expect that about now you're thinking, that sounds like a lot of work.
00:17:12.287 --> 00:17:16.037
And we barely had enough bandwidth to get the thing passed.
00:17:16.037 --> 00:17:17.926
Now you want me to monitor it too?
00:17:18.267 --> 00:17:19.576
Ugh, this sounds horrible.
00:17:20.076 --> 00:17:28.836
This is where if you had a coalition or an alliance that did the work to get the policy passed, then the monitoring work should also be shared.
00:17:29.166 --> 00:17:33.366
And that's where we go back to how important it's to have a plan with assigned roles.
00:17:33.936 --> 00:17:36.007
You're gonna follow up on this, you're gonna follow up on that.
00:17:36.007 --> 00:17:39.007
We're gonna meet once a month or once every two months or whatever it is.
00:17:39.336 --> 00:17:41.346
And we're just gonna keep checking in with one another.
00:17:41.960 --> 00:17:44.720
I've done this at both the state level and at the national level.
00:17:44.779 --> 00:17:55.809
And at one point when I was working at the national level, I was part of the leadership for several different coalitions, monitoring several different pieces of federal legislation.
00:17:56.259 --> 00:18:01.269
And we were able to do that with not a huge number of core members of our coalitions.
00:18:01.758 --> 00:18:03.617
The coalitions had different compositions.
00:18:03.617 --> 00:18:08.208
So it's like Coalition A, coalition B, coalition C, and some overlap, but not a lot.
00:18:08.613 --> 00:18:13.982
Because like one thing was in workforce development and one thing was in healthcare, and one thing was in education.
00:18:14.605 --> 00:18:23.806
There were different things that we had to pay attention to and different sets of expertise that needed to be at the table to inform the monitoring.
00:18:24.405 --> 00:18:37.506
So this is absolutely doable, but it goes a lot easier, and actually better quality monitoring, when you have multiple perspectives and multiple sets of expertise contributing to the project.
00:18:38.006 --> 00:18:48.501
And even if you put that policy in place all on your own, it's probably a good idea to recruit some other individuals or organizations to help you with the monitoring.
00:18:49.282 --> 00:18:57.769
The other thing is that although I highlighted the possibility that there could be people in those government agencies who are resistant.
00:18:59.039 --> 00:19:06.029
Chances are very good there are also a number of people in those agencies who really love your policy and want to see it implemented.
00:19:06.029 --> 00:19:09.900
They agree with your intended result and they really wanna see that happen.
00:19:10.200 --> 00:19:13.410
So they're your allies and they can help you a ton.
00:19:13.650 --> 00:19:17.250
They can give you all kinds of inside information about what's really going on.
00:19:17.400 --> 00:19:22.230
They can help point you to what levers to pull to help make things work better.
00:19:22.696 --> 00:19:26.416
So you absolutely wanna build those relationships if you don't already have them.
00:19:27.255 --> 00:19:35.285
And if you do have'em, talk with those folks regularly so that they know you're on the case and that you can help each other.
00:19:36.005 --> 00:19:40.464
It's more brains and more hands helping with the project.
00:19:41.015 --> 00:19:48.352
Share the load, share the work, and take advantage of multiple angles of expertise and perspective.
00:19:49.115 --> 00:20:01.305
I can tell you from personal experience and from clients all over the country that I've worked with, who have been focused and intentional about the monitoring piece that follows a big policy win.
00:20:01.755 --> 00:20:20.035
That when you do this and you're consistent with it, the results you get out of that policy are so much bigger, so much more impactful, than if you finish the advocacy phase where you got the policy passed and then you walk away hoping that someone else will make sure that it gets done right.
00:20:20.888 --> 00:20:39.788
If you think about the investment you've already made of your time and your energy and probably some money into getting your policy enacted, it is a hundred percent worth continuing that effort into the monitoring phase to make sure that you get the full benefit of all that original work.
00:20:40.419 --> 00:20:46.598
And that the people the policy was intended to benefit get the full benefit.
00:20:47.288 --> 00:20:49.054
'Cause that's really what it's all about.
00:20:49.981 --> 00:20:54.751
Thanks for listening, and I'll see you in the next episode right here on the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
