We need to talk about an emerging reality that virtually all of my clients are telling me is their number one challenge right now.  

Everyone is already dealing with multiple threats to federal funding. But now there’s the additional reality that all the chaos and uncertainty at the federal level – from budget craziness to wildly fluctuating tariff policies – is destabilizing other funding sources. State and local government funding, foundation grants and corporate funding are all affected.

As nonprofit leaders we're fighting for our federal funding, and now we’re realizing that many of our other funding  sources are facing headwinds as well.  This has some very specific implications for our advocacy strategy. We need a way to get all of our funding decisionmakers to commit to continuing their full support for our work. And we have to deal with all of that at once.

In this episode, we share:

• The number one strategic imperative in the fight for your federal funding in particular
• What’s on all funding decisionmakers’ minds right now, and why we need to shift their perspective
• The two perspective shifts we must get decisionmakers to make
• Why your usual approach to messaging is unlikely to get the job done
• The three-part messaging equation that will help you succeed with every type of funder

I'm preparing to launch a group coaching program that will focus specifically on helping you craft messaging that will shift decisionmakers’ perspectives and get them on board with sustaining and even expanding your funding. This will be a coaching opportunity for a limited number of people to come in and be part of a group. There'll be some training, but most of it will be coaching and helping you to get your messaging dialed in so that you can address this pressing need.  

What I'm seeing right now is there's nothing more important than this. If that sounds like something you'd like to be a part of, message me through the podcast website or on LinkedIn. I look forward to hearing from you!

We’re about to enter a period of opportunity to have a lot of influence over our Members of Congress. They'll be home in their districts/states twice in the next seven weeks for “district work periods” to connect with their constituents. You should expect to be seeing quite a bit of them in late April and then again in late May.  

These district work periods represent a significant opportunity for nonprofit leaders to engage substantially with your Members of Congress, and to drive home the absolutely critical messages around the impact that the administration's actions are having right now, at home in the district, in the state, on their constituents’ lives.  

It's also an opportunity to tell our Members of Congress what we expect to do about that! It's a great time to be communicating with them about both pieces at once. And there's no better place to do that than at home, on the ground, where there's an opportunity for them to see the actual impact for themselves. And we as nonprofit leaders have a key role to play in helping them make that connection.

In this episode, we share:

• Exact timing of the next two district work periods for Congress (House and Senate)
• The two most valuable strategies for engaging Members of Congress while they’re back home
• The three different types of town halls and how to make the best strategic use of each of them
• Specific messaging strategies that work best for town halls
• How to get on your Member of Congress’ schedule to visit your program while they’re home
• The key elements of a high-impact program visit
• How design a program visit that deeply engages your Member of Congress

As you participate in town halls and bring Members of Congress to your program for high-impact engagement, I would love to hear how that's worked out for you, and what kinds of key messages you were able to drive home using each of those two strategies.  

And if you've got a story you're particularly proud of, I'd love to have you on the show so we can amplify that and help other nonprofit leaders see how leaders are leveraging these opportunities to really make a huge impact!

Reach out to me on the podcast website or on LinkedIn and share your wins!

Links:

Episode 31: How to Get Maximum Results from a Decisionmaker’s Visit to Your Program

Moveon.org

Indivisible.org

We all know how valuable community building is, but we often don't understand just how powerful it is.

And right now it might just be that nonprofit leaders' superpower as community builders could be one of the keys to making sure that we are able to fight off the right wing attacks on our funding and on the work that we do and the people we serve.

In this episode, we share:

• Understanding the strategic goals of the forces of division 
• How to disrupt the forces of division through community building
• How you and your team can develop intentional community building actions
• The secret power of tapping into shared values, and how to weave that into your community building strategy
• How to integrate community building into your advocacy strategy

Help spread the word! If you found value in this episode, please share it with other progressive nonprofit leaders.  Thanks!

This is a time when we need all hands on deck. There's so much need for nonprofits to advocate aggressively for the work that we do, and specifically for the government funding that supports our work. And nowhere is that more true than at the federal level. 

I’ve shared a lot of thoughts recently about the number of ways that federal funding for safety net services is under attack, and the importance of engaging members of Congress to get them to do the right thing.

I'm also hearing from a lot of regular podcast listeners and the folks in my coaching programs that they're feeling pretty overwhelmed. And like, could you just keep it really short and simple? Gimme some tips. Tell me what I can do that will help me be more effective right now. 

So I am answering the call. Today's quick tips are around how you can most efficiently, with a minimum of work, and a maximum of benefit and impact, engage your existing supporters to help them become effective and powerful advocates on your behalf.

In this episode, we share:

• The most effective ways to engage your supporters and ask for their help
• The simple messaging framework you can use to craft a short script for your supporters when they call their members of Congress
• The most important fact to understand about how members of Congress receive constituent calls
• The two things you must get right when engaging your supporters via text message
• How to ensure your supporters take the action you requested
• How to build your cadre of supporters who are excited about taking action 

Links:

A Comprehensive Guide to Texting for Nonprofits

This article is a very useful source of information for how to run an effective texting campaign as a nonprofit, as well as the rules that govern texting campaigns. Note: this article was created by a third-party vendor that facilitates texting campaigns.

Help spread the word! If you found value in this episode, please share it with other progressive nonprofit leaders.  Thanks!

Nonprofit leaders have a lot going on in terms of advocacy we need to be doing with Congress. And I’m hearing from a lot of my clients and the folks in my coaching programs, saying “Just strip it down for me. What's the messaging we need to be using? Give me a framework so that I can keep this simple.”

I totally understand the need for that, and I'm right here with you. We’ve got so much coming at us all the time that sometimes the best thing is to just keep it short and sweet and simple. So I’m sharing a very simple set of elements that go in a messaging framework for just about anything you'll be advocating with Congress for in the near future. Because pretty much all eyes are on your federal funding, trying to make sure that we maintain federal funding for safety net programs, and specifically for the funding you get to do the work you do. 

You can take that five-piece framework and build 99% of your messaging to your members of Congress around that right now. This doesn't have to be complicated.

In this episode, we share:

• The three things we need our members of Congress to understand about our work
• What belongs in your core story of your impact
• The essential dots you need to connect in your advocacy messaging
• The two sides of the investment coin that you need to communicate to your Member of Congress
• How to effectively embed critical counters to right propaganda throughout your messaging
• The two core asks to focus on with your Member of Congress

Links:

Episode 84 – How to Deal with the RIght Wing's "Waste, Fraud & Abuse" Propaganda

Questions? Reach out to me at the podcast website, or on LinkedIn   

Help spread the word! If you found value in this episode, please share it with other progressive nonprofit leaders.  Thanks!

It can be really hard right now as a Nonprofit leader to know where to focus your attention, what to be spending your advocacy energy on and what's going to have the biggest impact.

For the vast majority of direct service nonprofits, federal dollars make up at least some part of your total funding. And for any nonprofit in that situation, most of the critical action that's going to determine the long-term wellbeing of our organizations, our programs, our services, and the people we serve is happening at the federal level. 

So even if you're not normally focused primarily on federal advocacy stuff, now is the time. That's where the biggest policy decisions are being made that are going to have massive ripple effects for years to come. 

For an immediate case in point, I'm sure you're aware that the House just passed their disastrous budget bill. There’s a lot we can do to make sure that the worst aspects of that bill get turned around, and that we protect vital safety net services.  To do that, we have to navigate a hyper-partisan environment, and find a way to engage every member of Congress. And that means using some strategies that may be new to us, but that are proving to be effective right now.  

In this episode, we share:

• How to understand the House budget bill and what it means for your services
• Where the best advocacy opportunities lie in this still-ongoing budget process
• Exciting evidence of what’s working right now to influence Congressional decisionmaking
• Best ways to get the attention of your member of Congress 
• Why your supporters are craving the opportunity to advocate on your behalf
• How to create easy advocacy action opportunities for your donors, volunteers, board members and clients
• A simple advocacy messaging framework you can use today

Help spread the word! If you found value in this episode, please share it with other progressive nonprofit leaders.  Thanks!

The right wing's "waste, fraud, and abuse" propaganda is being used to justify massive and indiscriminate slashing of federal funding for anything and everything. That propaganda is hurting nearly every nonprofit in this country right now, and it's hurting every single community that is served by those nonprofits. 

The good news is, propaganda only succeeds when it's not being countered effectively. So we have to find ways to counter it. The problem is, all the normal messaging we use with policymakers in the normal course of advocating for our stuff? Those messaging strategies don't work against the "waste, fraud, and abuse" propaganda. 

So It's time we dealt with that. It's an urgent situation and we need strategies that are actually going to work. In this episode, we’re sharing a set of core counter-propaganda strategies that will help you craft messaging that has a solid chance of accomplishing what you need. Which is breaking, disrupting and rendering ineffective the propaganda narrative of waste, fraud, and abuse. And replacing it with a narrative that tells the real truth about federal funding of the vital services you provide. 

In this episode, we share:

• Why your regular messaging strategies with policymakers don’t work against propaganda
• How to understand the strategy behind propaganda, that shows us the keys to breaking it
• Five essential propaganda-busting strategies that you can adopt right away
• The tonal shifts that are key to countering propaganda (it’s not just what you say, it’s how you say it)
• The two most common mistakes that many leaders are making right now in their anti-propaganda messaging
• Specific messaging techniques that work against propaganda
• Where your anti-propaganda messaging needs to happen to have the greatest impact

If you found value in this episode, please share it with other progressive nonprofit leaders.  And I’d be grateful if you would leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts, which will help even more people find out about this podcast.

Thanks!

There is so much more still to discuss about how we can defend against ongoing attacks on your federal funding.  In this week’s episode, we're focusing on the second key piece of the strategy, which is shaping public opinion and getting members of the community to start raising their voices in support of your funding. 

We need to make it deeply unpopular to cut funding for our work. To do that, we’ve got to influence public opinion about that work. We need the members of our community to grasp the full impact of our work and value it deeply. And we need them to see why federal funding is needed to make that impact possible. Once they’re with us on that, and especially when we help them raise their voices, it becomes a lot harder for the right wing to strip away that funding.

In this episode, we share:

• The two most important lessons from recent events that tell us how to win this fight
• Three things community members need to internalize about your work 
• What motivates members of the community to raise their voice against funding cuts
• How to craft messaging that triggers that motivation
• The four most important sentences to include in your messaging to the community
• Two common mistakes to avoid in your public opinion-shaping messaging
• How to offer easy but effective ways for community members to raise their voices on your behalf

If you found value in this episode, please share it with other progressive nonprofit leaders.  And I’d be grateful if you would leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts, which will help even more people find out about this podcast.

Thanks!

We have a lot to talk about with all of the threats that are aimed at federal funding for a critical array of safety net programs. We've had quite a rollercoaster ride in the last couple of weeks, but I believe that there are some very powerful lessons available in that experience, if we are willing to pay attention to them. And if we can sift through the chaos and the stress to get clear about what actually happened and how there is a hidden message in there that is really encouraging. Plus a roadmap for how to successfully defend our federal funding.

In this episode, we share:

• The most important lesson to take from the last week’s events
• Two main avenues to pursue to defend your federal funding
• The three people in your world who have the most powerful direct influence on keeping federal funding intact
• How to be effective in a highly partisan situation while remaining nonpartisan
• Specific strategies for engaging both Democratic and Republican elected officials
• The most effective core messaging to use with your members of Congress on this issue
• Messaging elements that feel essential, but that you really need to leave out 
• How to get local and state government officials to work with you to defend your federal funding
• How to magnify your power as a local leader in this fight

If you found value in this episode, please share it with other progressive nonprofit leaders.  And I’d be grateful if you would leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts, which will help even more people find out about this podcast.

Thanks!

It feels like we're having a crisis about every 20 seconds, and this week is no exception. Just at the beginning of the week we had another sudden, chaos-inducing announcement from the new administration that they were going to suspend all federal grant money for unspecified things for an unspecified period of time. 

I noticed that a number of nonprofit leaders started posting to social media almost immediately when this announcement was made, and they used words like “panic,” “terrified,” “this is doom.” There’s no question that it's bad. It is objectively, verifiably terrible. But the critical thing to understand is that the fear and the panic and the uncertainty are part of the strategy. 

The strategy is to create chaos as much as possible all the time. That strategy has multiple purposes. First and foremost it's designed to disorient, to demoralize, and to disable the opposition. 

It’s time for us to realize that this is going to be the daily reality for the foreseeable future. So one of the most strategic things we can do is to stop being surprised by this behavior!  Expect chaos, expect disorder, expect disruption, expect outrageous behavior. Understand that fear and panic and worry and stress are the goal.

The other thing we can do is become far more strategic and adept at responding to crisis. The truth is, a lot of times we focus on the wrong things when crisis strikes. There are three main things we need to do first, if we want the rest of our response to go well. 

In this episode, we share:

• What to do first when you get blindsided by a crisis situation
• The single most important decision we make as leaders when faced with a crisis
• The critical messages you’re sending to your team (and to the opposition), with your response to crisis
• How to identify your default modes of crisis response, and shift any that aren’t serving you
• Keys to leading your team effectively through a crisis
• How getting good at responding to crisis gives you a strategic advantage

If you found value in this episode, please share it with other progressive nonprofit leaders.  And I’d be grateful if you would leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts, which will help even more people find out about this podcast.

Thanks!