The Non-Profit Barriers to Advocacy

Non-profits have a corner on the passion market, but often miss their opportunities to harness those passions.

Let’s start by acknowledging the simple fact that non-profits have it tough. Constantly scrapping, chasing grant dollars and donors to just scrape by. Despite the overwhelming generosity available in the world, there’s never enough to go around for every organization.

Now add to that pressure the actual delivery of services, communications, personnel management, et cetera, et cetera and you land in a precarious position: how do you advocate for the bigger issues when you’re stuck in the minutiae?

I believe there are some key points of failure where non-profits are falling short in the advocacy game. Unless an organization is prepared to address these, I fear they’ll struggle to break through to their memberships and move them toward political engagement.

Other Duties as Assigned

This is a biggie. It’s consistent across small and medium sized non-profits alike. Regardless of mission and resources available, predominantly local charities struggle to treat advocacy as a primary area of responsibility – let alone have a staffer singularly focused on making it possible. Instead, they’re forced into a scenario where someone on the team has a secondary role, an other duty as assigned, to work on advocacy. Separate from their primary role, its often an afterthought.

Frankly I get it. On the inside of a small team, you’re constantly chasing your core mission and reacting to the ephemera occurring around your operation. With few on hand, who’s going to take on that long term role of relationship building so key to successful advocacy?

What do you do if you can’t afford the cost of a dedicated advocacy staffer? First I’d recommend creating a core team of advocates within your board leadership who can take the charge on relationship building. Even without a thoroughly developed action plan, those community movers and shakers are well positioned to bump the right elbows. As they get exposed to the decision makers over time, they’ll help identify areas where the organization can improve by contracting the services of a public policy firm.

By enlisting such a firm, you can bring targeted resources to your weaker areas. Need help planning an education day at your statehouse? Public policy firm. Need assistance identifying the key legislators you need to engage to move a bill? Public policy firm. Need new ideas on how to communicate your priorities? You guessed it – a good public policy firm can build out custom resources to meet your needs.

But There’s a Bigger Issue

It’s one thing to not have a focused effort on public policy. It’s an entirely different hurdle when your organization believes it doesn’t need to engage in issue advocacy at all.

Sadly I see this as a growing trend.

Groups that have a great story to tell about their mission are doing so – to their donors and volunteers. But to many, it seems there’s a reticence toward sharing those same messages to policy-makers. For whatever reason, they’re staying out of the political fray.

Sure, the big organizations get it right. The organizations with national support structures drive agendas because the show up. But a shockingly low number of local organizations are taking the time to reach out to their elected representatives to simply tell them about the good work happening in their back yards.

I’ve said it here before: decision-makers and their staffs reach out to the folks they know. It’s simple human nature. There’s only so much time in a day, and it’s unreasonable to expect public servants to stumble across your website. If you want those decision-makers available to you, you have to make yourself available to them.

It’s not easy. If you’re struggling to keep your head above water already, you’re going to be hard pressed to put the energy into effective advocacy. But if you’re wanting some ideas on how you could get over that hurdle, there are pros who want to help. Message me on luke@partofthepossible.com and I’ll help point you in the right direction.