The frustration I hear most often from the nonprofit leaders I work with, is that the money and policy decision makers in their world don't seem to get the value of what they do. And that comes In a lot of forms and flavors. ...
Has this ever happened to you? You go to engage a decision-maker. There's something specific you want from them. And you start laying out your case and you can tell you're losing them. They're not engaging. They're kind of gl...
There is no question about the significance of the 2024 elections from the presidential race on down to every single local race. I'm pretty sure I don't have to convince you on that front. Nor do I have to convince you how mu...
Opportunity is everywhere. But too often, we miss those opportunities because we didn't know about them at all, or we didn't find out about them in time to capitalize on them. The truth is most nonprofit CEOs are pretty good ...
What if one or two changes in your leadership behavior could transform the way you feel about the work, inspire your team, and achieve new levels of success? I spend a lot of time with nonprofit leaders of all different sizes...
None of us has gotten where we are alone. And none of us are going to get where we're going alone. We always have others who are helping and supporting us, whether we realize and acknowledge it or not. Whether it's a formal a...
The energy you bring to an encounter with a decisionmaker has a huge impact on your ability to engage and influence them. You can be as prepared as you want to be with all your facts and messaging. But if you don't bring an e...
Tell me if this sounds familiar. You have some key pieces of data that you know should speak to your decision maker. It's obvious to you that these data points basically scream, our stuff solves your problem, and it solves it...
One of the frustrations I often hear from nonprofit leaders is, yeah, we got a handful of great allies and champions, but we can't seem to grow the bench. We'd love to build even more of those powerfully influential relations...
One of the biggest challenges nonprofit leaders face is engaging decision makers around the information and data that we know make a compelling case for the policy or money decision we're asking for. But we know from experien...
On this 4th of July week, it’s a good time to pause and reflect. Democracy has always been messy, always imperfect, and always a work in progress. If we’re paying attention, we know that democracy is an ongoing project. What’...
Pilots can be a great strategy for setting the stage for sustainable funding. Many nonprofits have successfully leveraged a pilot project to unlock millions of dollars in funding and to achieve key policy changes that ensure ...
One of the most underappreciated and overlooked factors that go into successfully engaging decision makers is identity. Identity is so powerful. It shapes how we see the world, and ourselves. It shapes how we relate to the wo...
As a nonprofit leader, you probably have a lot of experience with public policy that often fails to serve the best interests of the people you serve, and the work you do to help them thrive. And when the time comes that you ...
Almost every aspect of a nonprofit's work is touched by public policy in some way. And sometimes we come to the realization that the way to achieve a particular goal or to solve a particular problem is that we need a new or d...
As advocates and leaders, a big part of our job is to successfully engage both decisionmakers and members of our own teams to join us in pursuit of a goal. And when we’re at our most effective, we can feel that we’re operati...
Even when you've figured out the most effective messaging in the world, sharing that with the rest of your team and helping them to use it to produce the results you want can be a huge challenge. What definitely does not work...
Tell me if this sounds familiar. You've identified what you want from a decision maker and you're ready to make your case. You got your facts all lined up. Your logic flow is great. You’ve got your slide deck and your one-pa...
If your nonprofit receives any sort of program-specific federal funding, you are likely subject to at least three levels of decision-making about that money and possibly more. If you don’t know exactly what the decision-makin...
The right wing is generating and amplifying a lot of fear-based, demonizing messaging that is driving polarization. And for many of the purveyors of this messaging, polarization is part of the point. It's one of the strategic...
One of the most underrated and underappreciated tools in the toolkits of the most effective nonprofit leaders is vision. The truth is whether it's in nonprofit land or anywhere else, nothing big ever happens without a vision....
You probably already know that client voices can be a key part of influencing decision makers. But it's not automatic. How that messaging is structured has a huge impact on how effective it is and whether it helps cause decis...
Having a strong cadre of powerfully influential champions is a huge asset that can dramatically accelerate your advocacy success. And when you have a key decision maker themselves operating as your champion, that takes things...
Anyone who's been part of the coalition knows that it can be a complicated set of relationships. Some coalition experiences are fantastic. Others not so much. The best thing is when you and your coalition partners are fully a...
