Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Advocacy for Impact

An April 2005 report prepared for the Aspen Institute, by the Center for Nonprofit Strategies, highlights six bold advocacy campaigns that have greatly enhanced the United States' contribution to global poverty reduction and health promotion. Some of the key findings include:

• Legislative success usually results from a combination of good planning, execution and pure luck.

• Building coalitions with broad, bipartisan reach helps advocacy campaigns: gain increased attention and support and often results in more politically feasible policies. Although managing ideologically diverse coalitions can be difficult, skilled and passionate leadership coupled with transparent decision making processes can help quell divisive bickering.

• Most organizations within this study: followed reactive and flexible agendas which allowed key players to act according to their best hunches, instead of inhibiting individual actions.

• Creatively reframing and repositioning issues to create a perceptual shift amongst indecisive or overly skeptical audience members helped all six advocacy campaigns introduce fresh ideas, which eventually led to increased levels of support.

• Knowing how to play the "lobbying game" and understanding the political feasibilities of proposed policies, as well as having access to key decision-makers (or at least having an ally in the decision making circle) greatly affects an organization's ability to achieve success.