1. Integrating Advocacy into your Organization Using Your Whole Team

2. What do we mean by ‘advocacy’?  Advocare: “to call to aid”  Rally around a cause  Engage stakeholders  Promote social change  Address root causes

4. AUDIENCES OUTCOMES ACTION WILL AWARENESS Voter Outreach Public EducationPolicymaker Education Influencer Education Political Will Campaigns Litigation Media Advocacy Regulatory Feedback Public Forums Champion Development Model Legislation Policy Analysis/Research Demonstration Programs PUBLIC INFLUENCERS A Broad Advocacy Landscape: One Framework Community Mobilization Coalition Building Community Organizing Public Will Campaigns Communications and Messaging Leadership Development Advocacy Capacity Building Public Awareness Campaigns Public Polling Lobbying 4 DECISION MAKERS

5. AUDIENCES OUTCOMES ACTION WILL AWARENESS Voter Outreach Public EducationPolicymaker Education Influencer Education Political Will Campaigns Litigation Media Advocacy Regulatory Feedback Public Forums Champion Development Model Legislation Policy Analysis/Research Demonstration Programs PUBLIC INFLUENCERS Where are you working? Where could you, if you used your whole team? Community Mobilization Coalition Building Community Organizing Public Will Campaigns Communications and Messaging Leadership Development Advocacy Capacity Building Public Awareness Campaigns Public Polling Lobbying 5 DECISION MAKERS

6. What would this look like in your organization?  How do you assess your advocacy capacity today?  What are your goals for the types, amounts, and arenas of advocacy in which you want to engage?  What is your theory of change for how and why advocacy makes sense, as a way to drive toward your vision?  Who is ‘on your team’, and how could you be using them differently, to increase your capacity?

7. Clients  How do you currently honor clients’ voices and cultivate their sense of leadership and empowerment?  What are the benefits or impacts of these efforts?  If you were to do more to empower your constituents, how might you restructure an existing program to achieve that goal?

8. Direct-Service Staff  How do you currently incorporate advocacy opportunities into direct service staffs’ job responsibilities?  How can advocacy responsibilities currently held by the CEO/executive staff be diffused to other employees?  What learning opportunities could you access to build staff capacity?

9. Volunteers  Think of the last time you volunteered at an organization:  What questions did the organization ask you to consider?  What did you wish you knew more about?  How do you engage volunteers in your organization?  What questions might your organization ask in order to collaborate with the broader community in confronting social problems ?

10. Donors  What motivates people to contribute financially to your organization?  How could conveying information about your cause(s) and the need for advocacy invite donors to feel more deeply invested in your work?  Where would your donors’ voices make a particular impact?  What types of strategies/arenas lend themselves well to engaging your donors?

11. Examples: Building Capacity with your Whole Team  Service Participants  Direct-Service Staff  Volunteers  Donors

12. What do you need to make these shifts?  Board buy-in and how to get it  Technical assistance—around what?  Staff capacity—to do what? How to cultivate it?  Partnerships/mentorships—where are there organizations positioned to guide you?

13. Resources  Building Movement Project and the 5% Shift  Bolder Advocacy  Center for Lobbying in the Public Interest  Case studies for the Advocacy Capacity TA Project (available from Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City)  Case studies on nonprofits and social change, available from California Endowment  Center for Evaluation Innovation, on advocacy evaluation  Innovation Network

14. Melinda Lewis, LMSW melindaklewis@gmail.com 816-806-6094 www.melindaklewis.com