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You're listening to the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
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In today's episode, we reveal how to craft public policy that actually does what you need it to do.
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So stay tuned.
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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.
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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.
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To have them seeking you out as an equal partner.
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And to have them 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 another episode of 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.
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Almost every aspect of a nonprofit's work is touched by public policy in some way.
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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 different public policy around that.
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But here's the thing.
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The landscape is littered with well-intentioned policy that did not succeed at doing what it was intended to do.
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Because the language was not crafted in such a way as to generate the desired result.
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Sometimes that's because the policy is a product of so many cooks in the kitchen and so much compromise that the final product is unrecognizable relative to the original idea that was behind it.
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And sometimes it's because the policymakers didn't have enough clarity about how the thing would work on the ground.
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You don't want any of that.
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You want policy that will actually do what you need it to do.
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Getting there takes a lot of things from you as an advocate.
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And the theme of it all is the devil is in the details.
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The reason most advocate-led policy initiatives wind up yielding disappointing results, is that the advocates didn't go deep enough into the details and they didn't embed themselves in every step of the policy development process.
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The reality is that throughout the process, language is constantly being added, I changed and subtracted, based on input from a lot of different stakeholders.
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I've seen many instances where initially great language was undermined by a last minute change that advocates didn't catch.
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And all their work was rendered null when the final policy was approved with language that wouldn't do the job of getting the results they were seeking.
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Like it or not, you need to have your hands in this process from beginning to end if you really want to see public policy look the way you want it to look and do the things you need it to do.
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And you're going to need some specific skills.
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So we're going to go deep on how you can make sure that when you go to advocate for better policy, you get the results you really need.
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As I began to lay out all the stuff we need to cover here, I pretty quickly realized it is too long for a single episode.
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So this is going to be a two-part series.
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We'll do the first half this week.
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And then the second half will be at next week's episode.
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Just to give you an overview, let me share all the pieces you're going to need to get your end result.
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You start with your big idea.
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The problem you want to solve with policy.
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Or the new thing you want to do with policy.
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And then you get really detailed about that.
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You need to understand the existing policy landscape relative to the thing you're trying to do.
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What are the applicable policies already in place?
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You clarify in detail what about the existing policy is working well for you and what is not.
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It's rarely just one or the other.
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It's usually a mixed bag.
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So you need to be super clear about what's already working well, that you want to keep.
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Get into deep detail about all aspects of the thing you do want, whether it's to create a new policy or to change a bad or inadequate one.
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And identify all the places existing policy will need to be changed.
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That's a tricky one because there'll be the main home for that piece of policy and there'll be all kinds of related policy hanging around.
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That if you don't change those too, you may wind up not having the impact you wanted.
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Needless to say, you need to describe in detail what the new policy will include.
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That's kind of basic.
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But critically important and often not done in enough detail in order to be effective.
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Want to identify the best home for any new policy.
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And sometimes there's a choice.
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And that is very often a strategic choice more so than a logical choice.
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So we're going to talk about each of those and how you make the decision.
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Once you've done that you engage the policymakers armed with all this information and perspective and strategy that you've already put together.
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So that you're operating from a position of knowledge and strength.
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Then you have to anticipate and plan for, and have a strategy for how administering agencies will react to any changes, and how to get them to engage cooperatively.
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And that's both as an agency and then down to key individuals.
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You will need to work with the legal team that is part of any legislative or administrative entity of any size.
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Their job is to craft the legalese version of the policy and make sure that it is structured correctly for satisfying legal requirements.
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So you've got to be able to work with those legal teams and know how to do that very effectively.
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As part of your work with that legal team, you're going to make sure that any place within the overall legislation or administrative policy that the issue might come up, you're addressing it in each of those spots with relevant language.
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And then.
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This is key.
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You have to stay on top of the entire process once the policymakers and the legal teams are involved.
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To make sure that your intended result stays front and center throughout the process.
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And that the result you get at the end is the thing you wanted.
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When you put all of that together, then you've got a really solid winning approach to getting policy to really work for you.
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So in this first episode, we're going to tackle all the stuff that you do before you go and seriously engage the policymakers.
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And then in next week's episode, we'll tackle the second half, which is what you do once you're engaging with the policy makers, the legal teams, and the various administrative entities that may eventually be involved.
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So first thing.
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What's your big idea?
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What are you trying to make happen?
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You trying to solve a problem?
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Create something brand new?
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It seems obvious, but you do want to be clear on that before you go any further.
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And then a key second piece to that is, why does it matter?
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It's going to be important for your ultimate messaging all of these policymakers and other folks you're going to have to deal with.
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But it also matters for you and for your team because, as you may have gathered from what I just laid out, this can be a pretty long and intensive process.
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It generally is a lot of work.
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And there can be times when it feels slow and frustrating and aggravating and all the things.
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And in those moments, being able to reconnect to your why is really, really important.
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To be able to come back to, yeah, this is a pain, but boy, if we get the results we want, if we really get this policy to work right the way we know it can.
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That will change all these things.
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They will have such a big impact.
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And then you are clear about what that big impact is, and you just reground yourself in that vision for the impact that will ultimately be the result and that'll help keep you going.
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So you've got your big idea, you know, what you're trying to build or change.
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You know why.
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You know the problem you're solving, the thing you're creating.
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So.
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The first thing you got to do is analyze the policy that's already there.
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At this point in life, there are very few concepts around which there does not already exist at least some public policy.
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Whether it's legislation or administrative policy.
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So we have to understand the policy environment we're working in.
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We have to know what that policy looks like now.
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And we have to know that in quite a bit of detail.
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You're going to hear that detail word a lot.
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And as I said, that's where all the success or failure generally lies, is in how well you nail the details.
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So until we do that, we can't have a coherent conversation with policy makers or anybody else about what's needed instead of, or in addition to what is already there.
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So the vast majority of the time there's going to be policy already in place that touches on the thing you're concerned about.
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And there may be a lot of existing public policy.
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It really just depends on what you're trying to make happen.
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And it could be legislative policy, it could be administrative policy, or it could be some of each.
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And it could also be language accompanying appropriations.
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If you're doing anything that has to do with funding of a particular service or initiative, there will very likely be appropriations language that will also be necessary.
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And so you're going to need to familiarize yourself with the existing appropriations language that covers the thing you're talking about.
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So there's three places to look and you want to be attentive to all of them.
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Part of this understanding the landscape process is ultimately you're going to need to be able to read and analyze the policy language that already exists.
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To understand exactly which parts of that language are causing the problem or are missing the thing that you want to create.
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Now, if you're coming up with something that is brand new, which does happen from time to time.
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You've got a great idea and you want to do something that is new.
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Even so, chances are good that this thing will have a home somewhere in existing policy infrastructure.
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If you're already really familiar with that existing infrastructure, you can probably figure out on your own or make a pretty good guess about where your things should live.
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But if you're not sure that's going to be one of the first questions you'll need to answer.
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And I'm going to assume that we're not talking about federal policy for purposes of this conversation, because when you do that, you are then working with national organizations, you're engaging people across the country to make something like that happen.
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There are very few instances in which one organization in one state is going to change federal policy on their own.
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So I'm going to assume we're talking about state and local types of policy, whether legislative or administrative.
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So I just mentioned that one of the key skills you're going to need is to be able to read and interpret policy language.
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And that comes up right away at this initial stage, and it's going to be true throughout the process.
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Because at every point, any time new language is proposed, language is changed or tweaked or added or subtracted.
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Every time that happens you have to be able to know, how is that going to translate on the ground?
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What's that really going to mean?
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And there are a million considerations that go into that.
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So this is a skill that you're going to want to develop or improve.
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Wherever you are on the skill development process with this.
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The good news is that there are fairly standard formats in which policy language tends to be constructed.
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It does tend to be dense and somewhat obtuse at first exposure.
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But once you become more familiar with how that language is structured and how it works, you'll start to recognize that there are patterns to it.
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Once you learn the patterns, it's much faster to read and ultimately interpret the policy language.
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And you go from being confronted with a really long piece of policy, maybe a couple hundred pages in some instances.
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You want to be able to get through that fairly quickly and find the parts that matter.
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So that's part of the skill is knowing which pieces are going to likely be relevant to you.
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And then to be able to read the actual language and know how to interpret it.
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And again, once you learn some basic patterns and key quirks, if you will.
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This gets a lot easier.
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But it is an absolutely necessary and fundamental skill.
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You just won't be in a strong position working with policy makers, if you don't have it.
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And we're going to talk in this episode a little bit about how you begin to develop that skill or improve it as you go.
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And I'm going to give you a lot of tips for how to come at this, but you know, really the best teacher is practice.
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And working with somebody who already is really good at this is really helpful.
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You can do a first cut and then they can come behind you and say, oh, you didn't catch this.
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Here's why this is important.
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So definitely get mentors for this locally because it's super helpful.
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It will take quite a bit of repetition before you get really good at this.
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If it's your first major foray into policy analysis.
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It helps to start with a policy that's already related to one of your funding sources or that governs a chunk of your services.
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And you know what those are.
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If you get state money, there'll be state policy attached.
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If you get city or county money, there'll be policy attached.
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And remember that if you have federal money, the way most of these programs work, there will also be state and local policy that are part of that administrative structure, because they tend to set it up so that there is state and local decision making authority as well.
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Start with this thing that you already have a working relationship with.
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And then read the heck out of the key sections of policy that govern your stuff.
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And if there's appropriations language that governs your stuff, you should read that too.
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Go through those key sections and make notes all over the place about stuff that doesn't make sense to you.
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Stuff that looks problematic, stuff that you have a question about.
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Stuff that you think is really good.
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And you'll probably need to read it multiple times if you're not already pretty skilled at this.
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But repetition and recognizing patterns is the fundamental ingredient to getting good at reading and interpreting policy language.
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It will help.
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If you can be a little bit patient with the learning curve on this.
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So let's come back to your big idea.
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You're thinking about an area of policy that impacts your work.
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A key question for you to answer is, what about that existing policy is working well for you?
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And what is not?
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And that's really a question you want to answer from two perspectives.
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There's what is and is not working well for your organization, and your ability to deliver the services at the level of quality that you care about and to be compensated appropriately for that.
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And then there's what is and is not working well for the people that you serve.
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Because the sets of problems can be way different.
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And you want to be alert and attentive to both.
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So when you're looking at how things are working for the people you serve, you're looking at things like ease of access.
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And that includes are the rules clear and simple without a lot of friction to accessing the services?
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Or do folks have to jump through a lot of hoops.
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Do they have to reapply on a regular basis and do they automatically get kicked off the service if they don't go through the re application process?
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There's all kinds of hurdles and barriers that often exist for our clients to be able to consistently access our services or to even qualify for them.
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And I'm sure you're very familiar with it, because you're experiencing it on your end.
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And you're also hearing about it from your clients.
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But you want to really drill down into that.
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Ultimately where we're headed is you're going to be crafting actual proposed policy.
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And so you want to be really clear on, of what's already there, what's working and what's not.
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From your client's perspective, what about the existing policy makes it easy and wonderful and great.
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And what about the policy makes it difficult and full of friction and frustrating and problematic.
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And, you know, it's usually some of each.
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Very rarely is a policy so bad, so poorly constructed that it just sucks for everybody all the time.
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Usually there's some stuff that works at least okay, and some stuff that works really well.
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So you want to be able to speak to that too.
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There's a lot of reasons for that.
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Partly, it makes you a more credible partner with the policymakers you're going to be working with.
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To be able to say, Hey, you know, this piece over here is working great.
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We want to build on that.
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This over here, not so much.
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This is a problem we need to address.
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That goes over a whole lot better than the whole thing is terrible.
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We need to replace it wholesale.
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So when you're looking at how things are working for your organization.
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I mean, I probably don't even need to tell you this because you live this every day.
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But you're looking at things like, how easy is it for you to provide the services that you know are necessary for a client to succeed and thrive?
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Is it that you can only provide some of the services and get paid for them, but not others that are equally critical.
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Is it that you can provide all the services, but the rate at which you are compensated is unsustainable.
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It could be that there are administrative issues with record keeping that is overly burdensome for your organization.
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Or that would require you to go out and purchase massively expensive software in order to be compliant with a set of rules that may or may not really need to be that stringent, where you're concerned.
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And don't forget, if there's stuff that's working well, that you are happy with, you want to enumerate that as well.
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And it's more than just becoming a credible partner with the policymakers, although that's very important.
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But it's also, once you start going to change existing policy.
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If you're not careful, sometimes the stuff you like that's already in there could inadvertently get disappeared.
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Or watered down or made to work less well.
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So you need to have your eye on both.
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It's not just about how do we make this work better?
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It's how do we keep the stuff we have that's working well.
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And when you're doing all this, it's important to be aware of a potential blind spot.
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There can be areas of policy that are really problematic that you've been working around for so long that you've kind of lost sight of how bad the policy really is.
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For example, there could be policy that creates a lot of barriers and friction for your clients.
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But your organization, in order to make clients' lives easier, has constructed an elaborate set of support to take as much of that burden off of the clients as possible.
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That's awesome.
00:19:45.232 --> 00:19:52.425
But then what that means is your team is dealing with all those barriers and friction to try to minimize the burden on the clients.
00:19:52.846 --> 00:19:56.603
But it's still a serious policy problem if you're having to do that.
00:19:57.236 --> 00:20:00.635
The policy should be frictionless for everybody.
00:20:01.056 --> 00:20:05.796
For the organization that is providing the services and for the client, who's receiving them.
00:20:06.786 --> 00:20:15.066
So just be super attentive to that because especially if it's something you've been doing for a long time, It's kind of baked in to your services at this point.
00:20:15.066 --> 00:20:25.056
And you're not necessarily even thinking about, yeah, but the only reason we have to do all this stuff over here is because the policy is set up in a way that's really problematic for our clients.
00:20:25.736 --> 00:20:34.736
And, so then if you wanted to write your ideal policy, you would change it so that you didn't have to do that work because the barrier is removed.
00:20:35.655 --> 00:20:38.296
No friction for the client, no friction for you either.
00:20:38.355 --> 00:20:39.105
That is the goal.
00:20:39.593 --> 00:20:40.942
So check that stuff.
00:20:42.282 --> 00:20:51.323
Now, similarly, if there are barriers and friction in policy that are specific to just your organization and don't necessarily have as much impact on the client.
00:20:51.746 --> 00:21:01.195
There could be barriers in policy that you found a work around organizationally by developing relationships with key players in those systems.
00:21:01.855 --> 00:21:13.219
So for example, you know, you were having a problem accessing funds in a timely manner because of policy, but then you made a friend in the administrative agency who makes sure you get paid on time anyway.
00:21:13.818 --> 00:21:16.818
But then you've got to think about, well, what if that person left their job?
00:21:17.385 --> 00:21:21.016
You'd be back to being stuck with a policy that really doesn't work well.
00:21:21.368 --> 00:21:22.645
And you want to fix that.
00:21:23.766 --> 00:21:28.986
So that, believe it or not, is just sort of the surface level of what's not working.
00:21:29.385 --> 00:21:32.746
Then you go deep on the details of what's not working.
00:21:33.296 --> 00:21:39.669
So, for example, if there is an aspect of policy that makes it difficult for the clients to access services.
00:21:40.256 --> 00:21:42.625
You could stop there, but that won't help you.
00:21:43.455 --> 00:21:47.326
Difficulty in accessing services is a category of problem.
00:21:48.226 --> 00:21:52.726
But underneath that you want to enumerate exactly what that problem looks like.
00:21:53.236 --> 00:22:00.915
So that you will ultimately be able to change the policy in all the ways it needs to be changed to make it work properly.
00:22:01.756 --> 00:22:07.425
So let's say for example, clients have to reapply every six months to be eligible for a service.
00:22:07.846 --> 00:22:17.385
And in order to demonstrate eligibility, they have to bring to a physical location, multiple documents, and go through an on-site process to reestablish eligibility.
00:22:18.169 --> 00:22:22.068
Another problem might be there's a lifetime limit on the amount of services they can receive.
00:22:22.068 --> 00:22:26.179
Or there could be a limit on how many months of services they can receive in a year.
00:22:26.653 --> 00:22:29.353
But the reality is they need the service 12 months a year.
00:22:29.923 --> 00:22:31.512
And the need doesn't go away in a year.
00:22:31.512 --> 00:22:32.532
That's a problem.
00:22:32.863 --> 00:22:33.373
And so on.
00:22:33.969 --> 00:22:42.645
You want to drill down in as detailed and specific a fashion as you can, because policy language is extremely specific.
00:22:43.365 --> 00:22:49.546
You have to be specific in defining the problem in order to craft policy language that will actually fix it.
00:22:50.489 --> 00:22:54.358
And you also go deep on what is working well.
00:22:54.868 --> 00:22:57.449
Because again, you're going to want to protect this.
00:22:57.972 --> 00:23:03.946
So let's say that in a particular situation that you're interested in improving policy.
00:23:04.421 --> 00:23:11.651
The policy is currently written in such a way that the system allows your organization to provide the full spectrum of services that the client needs.
00:23:11.951 --> 00:23:12.520
Great.
00:23:12.941 --> 00:23:16.990
And there is adequate financial support for the provision of those services under the policy.
00:23:17.141 --> 00:23:17.681
Also great.
00:23:18.294 --> 00:23:28.631
Then when you've got good stuff like that, go ahead and enumerate all of the services that are covered that are essential and that are part of your wraparound service profile.
00:23:29.104 --> 00:23:35.326
Get that captured so that you make sure that continues to be what is covered going forward.
00:23:35.901 --> 00:23:39.201
A lot of the times, part of the battle is keeping the good stuff.
00:23:39.901 --> 00:23:42.990
And you want to have detail on what the good stuff looks like.
00:23:43.740 --> 00:23:51.361
Similarly for clients, if there's a simple, easy process for demonstrating and maintaining eligibility currently in place, make a note of that.
00:23:51.750 --> 00:23:53.161
You want to keep that.
00:23:53.636 --> 00:23:55.750
And then detail the specifics of that.
00:23:56.153 --> 00:24:04.391
For example, the eligibility requirements are such that eligibility can be determined through an interview without the client having to supply any documents.
00:24:04.931 --> 00:24:07.510
And that interview is part of your intake process.
00:24:08.381 --> 00:24:15.280
If that ease of access is rooted in policy, want to write down the details of that and why it works so well.
00:24:16.186 --> 00:24:17.836
Once you've detailed, all that out.
00:24:18.101 --> 00:24:26.020
Then it's time to take a look at how can the policy be improved so that it will work even better for your organization and the people you serve.
00:24:26.846 --> 00:24:29.307
So you kind of do this in two pieces.
00:24:29.884 --> 00:24:32.433
First you go back to the things that you said are a problem.
00:24:32.951 --> 00:24:33.611
Start there.
00:24:34.104 --> 00:24:39.644
And you kind of triage the problems because If it's pretty crappy policy, you might have a really long list.
00:24:40.191 --> 00:24:44.060
But the truth is some of those are more impactful problems than others.
00:24:44.594 --> 00:24:52.993
So you want to kind of triage the problems and identify, you know, starting from, which is the very worst, most problematic.
00:24:53.233 --> 00:24:57.054
To which is down in the category of annoying, but not major.
00:24:57.993 --> 00:25:08.630
And for each of them, go through and clarify, what would need to be in place in order for this thing to work perfectly, to have zero friction and do a really good job.
00:25:09.319 --> 00:25:09.980
In the world.
00:25:10.460 --> 00:25:11.869
We're not doing policy language yet.
00:25:12.333 --> 00:25:12.722
Okay.
00:25:13.173 --> 00:25:19.442
Now when you do this, you're going to find that for some of the problems, it would take a major overhaul.
00:25:20.012 --> 00:25:26.252
And for others, it would be like, gosh, if we just did this one thing a little bit differently it would probably take care of it.
00:25:27.153 --> 00:25:28.593
You're not in policy language yet.
00:25:28.593 --> 00:25:33.559
You're just thinking in terms of, from a practical standpoint, what would make this work better?
00:25:34.076 --> 00:25:37.467
What if we had a system that did it this way instead of that way?
00:25:37.767 --> 00:25:38.757
And then you detail that out.
00:25:39.176 --> 00:25:40.017
You describe that.
00:25:40.126 --> 00:25:41.777
What all would have to be in place?
00:25:42.440 --> 00:25:47.339
And so, for example, you don't just say clients wouldn't have to supply any documentation.
00:25:48.119 --> 00:25:54.240
You would say in detail, what would be a process for determining eligibility that would be frictionless for the client.
00:25:54.883 --> 00:25:56.413
And then you lay that out.
00:25:56.532 --> 00:26:02.782
Whatever those details are that in your situation would make this just easy peasy for our client.
00:26:03.430 --> 00:26:10.119
And hopefully not create massive extra work for your organization because you don't want to just shift the friction from one place to another.
00:26:10.930 --> 00:26:16.156
You also want to be aware that there's probably more than one way to make something better.
00:26:16.967 --> 00:26:17.267
Right.
00:26:17.926 --> 00:26:19.997
And if you're finding that's the case.
00:26:20.400 --> 00:26:23.460
That there could be multiple solutions to this problem.
00:26:23.730 --> 00:26:27.839
You want to write down all the possible solutions that you think would be pretty workable.
00:26:28.467 --> 00:26:31.287
Because again, that's going to give you a negotiating room.
00:26:31.797 --> 00:26:47.874
There might be one of your proposed changes that would make things work better that would make some stakeholder somewhere completely freak out and say, under no circumstances can we do it that way! And you might have another one of your solutions that they'd be like, yeah, we could do that.
00:26:48.451 --> 00:27:01.107
Well, obviously if they're both reasonably equal in terms of solving the problem, you'd go with the one that doesn't cause the freak out on the part of a stakeholder, who then either will try to stop the change from happening in policy.
00:27:01.167 --> 00:27:04.171
Or, and we'll talk about this next week.
00:27:04.820 --> 00:27:11.163
As you know, Administrative agencies and the people who work there, if they don't want to do something, they will find a way not to do it.
00:27:11.614 --> 00:27:17.258
So, if you can create a situation where it's easier for them to buy in, by all means you're going to want to do that.
00:27:17.874 --> 00:27:24.124
So in situations where there is multiple ways to come at a fix or at a way to do a new thing, write them all down.
00:27:24.988 --> 00:27:31.864
It's also good to have a conversation with your team internally about okay, there seemed to be a couple of ways we could do this.
00:27:32.340 --> 00:27:34.500
Is one or the other of these better for us?
00:27:35.028 --> 00:27:43.993
Because if it affects multiple aspects of your operation, You might be really aware of some aspects and less aware of how another department might think about that.
00:27:44.173 --> 00:27:51.570
So you want to run it by your own team so that you don't inadvertently create a problem for an aspect of your work that you hadn't totally thought about.
00:27:51.961 --> 00:27:55.651
This isn't as big a problem for relatively small staff organizations.
00:27:55.651 --> 00:27:57.778
But if you have a hundred people working for you.
00:27:57.958 --> 00:27:59.938
You know, you don't know what everybody's doing.
00:28:00.390 --> 00:28:00.720
Right.
00:28:01.183 --> 00:28:02.683
You have a management structure for that.
00:28:02.683 --> 00:28:04.324
So you want to check in with people.
00:28:05.054 --> 00:28:09.753
And obviously, if it's something that's going to affect your clients, be sure to ask them.
00:28:10.084 --> 00:28:11.884
What would work best for them?
00:28:12.693 --> 00:28:15.153
Don't just assume that you know the right answer.
00:28:15.636 --> 00:28:17.376
You probably have a pretty good idea.
00:28:18.009 --> 00:28:19.809
But it is always good to check.
00:28:20.200 --> 00:28:25.569
Because I promise you they will have additional insights and perspectives that you're going to find valuable.
00:28:25.839 --> 00:28:29.064
And that should be part of this process, for all kinds of reasons.
00:28:29.804 --> 00:28:30.134
Okay.
00:28:30.374 --> 00:28:31.183
So you've done all that.
00:28:31.906 --> 00:28:32.537
Then.
00:28:33.017 --> 00:28:33.886
After all that.
00:28:34.284 --> 00:28:40.284
It's time to begin crafting an actual proposed policy solution to the things you're concerned about.
00:28:40.849 --> 00:28:42.446
But I see this all the time.
00:28:42.960 --> 00:28:51.586
What usually happens is, advocates will go from I see a problem, I'm going to propose a policy solution., And they skip everything that I just talked about.
00:28:52.124 --> 00:28:53.864
And they go right to, here we go.
00:28:53.864 --> 00:28:56.894
I'm going to rough out a one pager on the policy we need to have.
00:28:57.584 --> 00:29:05.009
But now that we've walked through all this, you can see why, while that is a way to go, it's probably not the most strategic.
00:29:05.069 --> 00:29:06.750
It's definitely not the most strategic.
00:29:07.079 --> 00:29:07.890
Spoiler alert.
00:29:08.549 --> 00:29:22.609
And you would also be so much less prepared to have a really deep conversation with policymakers, and then ultimately administrative folks and the legal team who are actually turning this into real policy language.
00:29:23.119 --> 00:29:23.720
So.
00:29:23.737 --> 00:29:24.636
Now you're ready.
00:29:24.737 --> 00:29:26.346
You've done the deep analytic work.
00:29:26.826 --> 00:29:30.140
And deep work of crafting your answers to critical questions.
00:29:30.656 --> 00:29:32.967
And it's time to actually propose a solution.
00:29:33.686 --> 00:29:38.666
Not surprisingly, your proposed solution should be as specific as possible.
00:29:38.936 --> 00:29:41.126
Because we are all about the details here.
00:29:41.769 --> 00:29:44.763
So, for example, we've been talking about the eligibility issue.
00:29:45.003 --> 00:29:54.355
So let's say your recommendation might be, change the current requirement for eligibility, which calls for five separate documents to be submitted at least once a year.
00:29:54.767 --> 00:29:59.386
Change that to eligibility criteria that are answerable without documentation.
00:29:59.777 --> 00:30:03.916
And that can be collected in an interview with a client, to be conducted at intake.
00:30:04.470 --> 00:30:10.259
And then you go further and you lay out what those eligibility criteria should be and you list them all out.
00:30:11.079 --> 00:30:18.616
And you might go further to say that renewing eligibility can also occur in an interview conducted by phone.
00:30:19.099 --> 00:30:20.660
You give that as an option.
00:30:21.084 --> 00:30:23.334
It can be conducted either in person or by the phone.
00:30:24.157 --> 00:30:25.778
Now, these are just examples.
00:30:26.198 --> 00:30:29.228
You'll know what the best fix is for the challenge at hand.
00:30:29.673 --> 00:30:39.492
but I'm giving these examples so you can see the level of detail you need to be prepared to supply, so that they can become the new policy that will actually work.
00:30:39.865 --> 00:30:41.066
And get the results you want.
00:30:41.898 --> 00:30:42.288
Okay.
00:30:42.593 --> 00:30:44.393
Once you've done all that.
00:30:44.903 --> 00:30:49.558
Then you're ready to go engage policymakers and start talking to them.
00:30:49.888 --> 00:30:51.358
About your idea.
00:30:51.749 --> 00:30:55.878
About the problem you're trying to solve or the new goal, the new ambition you're trying to make happen.
00:30:56.393 --> 00:31:07.058
And part of what's so great about your role as a direct service nonprofit leader and advocate is that you bring to the policy conversation an incredibly valuable perspective.
00:31:07.628 --> 00:31:09.939
You are close to the problem on the ground.
00:31:10.323 --> 00:31:13.143
Far more so than policymakers ever will be.
00:31:13.202 --> 00:31:15.573
Far more than administrators will ever be.
00:31:16.153 --> 00:31:22.873
Your organization is providing the services directly to the folks who need them and who are the beneficiaries of the policy.
00:31:23.383 --> 00:31:25.482
Or the victims of it, depending on what's going on.
00:31:26.353 --> 00:31:31.873
You have a very clear and detailed view of how well a given policy is working, or isn't.
00:31:32.292 --> 00:31:36.792
And your ability to share that with policymakers is tremendously valuable.
00:31:37.782 --> 00:31:49.893
When you come to policy makers not only with details, but having thought through strategically all aspects of the problem and the solutions that would truly make things markedly better and more impactful.
00:31:50.432 --> 00:31:54.573
You are showing up as their dream problem solving partner.
00:31:55.542 --> 00:32:04.615
Already that is going to shape how they deal with you and how seriously they take you, and how much they want to invest in working with you on this policy proposal.
00:32:05.375 --> 00:32:13.566
In next week's episode, we'll get into all the pieces of working with policymakers and their staff to make sure you get an end result of policy that does what you need it to do.
00:32:14.148 --> 00:32:14.929
But for now.
00:32:15.153 --> 00:32:22.603
Go ahead and, even if you don't have a policy proposal in mind, I would encourage you to just go exploring a little bit.
00:32:23.202 --> 00:32:27.732
In a piece of policy that is directly relevant to the work that you're doing and the people you serve.
00:32:28.333 --> 00:32:30.123
And go poking around in there.
00:32:30.709 --> 00:32:39.982
And take a crack at just reading it through a couple of times and going through that exercise of finding stuff that you think looks good.
00:32:40.313 --> 00:32:42.413
Stuff that looks possibly problematic.
00:32:42.623 --> 00:32:45.501
Stuff you don't understand or have questions about.
00:32:45.952 --> 00:32:47.272
Stuff that doesn't make sense.
00:32:48.063 --> 00:32:49.999
And just see what you come up with.
00:32:50.472 --> 00:32:53.292
It's kind of nice to do that in a totally low stakes environment.
00:32:53.949 --> 00:32:58.175
Now I know you're busy, so you don't have to spend hours at this.
00:32:58.625 --> 00:32:59.766
But play with it a little bit.
00:33:00.276 --> 00:33:05.046
And certainly if you have anything either current or on the horizon.
00:33:05.726 --> 00:33:20.103
If you use this process that I've laid out, you will be setting yourself up to have an absolutely fantastically productive and engaging conversation with policymakers, and they are going to be super excited to be working with you.
00:33:21.145 --> 00:33:22.016
Thanks for listening.
00:33:22.496 --> 00:33:26.276
And I'll see you in the next episode right here on the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
