Despite your best intentions, your advocacy campaign has the potential to get derailed or go in the wrong direction. Whether it’s wasting resources or accidentally causing more harm to the community you are trying to help, you need to know how to recognize early on when you’re going off the rails, and how to get back on track. This week, Joe and Martín will break down the difference between good and bad advocacy and share some best practices that will keep you on the right track. This episode’s guest is Katie Belanger, an advocacy professional who will share some personal experiences with advocacy going wrong.
Advocacy work often means dealing with sensitive or personal issues for vulnerable communities on a daily basis. That’s why we need to be extra cautious that we’re doing advocacy right, and not inadvertently causing extra burdens or difficulties to arise for the very communities we’re fighting for. Tune in to learn how to know whether your advocacy is going in the right or wrong direction, and what you can do to recover if you’ve gone off the rails. Joe and Martín also dispel some myths about advocacy that might be pushing you in the wrong direction and they explain how planning and goal setting can keep you from going off track in the first place. Martín chats with Katie Belanger, an advocacy pro who will discuss the importance of recognizing your biases and how your advocacy should be upsetting people (the right way).
Resources
Advocacy Strategy: Planning and Winning
Advocacy Plan: Where Do I Begin?
Connect with us!
If you have campaign questions or want to learn more, reach out to us using the contact information below.
Twitter: @cmpwrkshp
Instagram: @TheCampaignWorkshop
Email: marketing@thecampaignworkshop.com
Joe Fuld
Twitter: @joefuld
Instagram: @joefuld
Martín Diego Garcia
Twitter: @gmartindiego
Instagram: @gmartindiego
Presented by The Campaign Workshop
(Intro Music)
Joe Fuld (00:08):
Hey folks, you're listening to How to Win an Advocacy campaign where you'll get an insider's perspective that teaches you not only how to fight for what you believe in, but how to win. I'm Joe Fuld.
Martín Diego Garcia (00:19):
And I'm Martín Diego Garcia, and you can find us @CMPWRKSHP on Twitter or @thecampaignworkshop on Instagram. Welcome, and thanks for listening to episode 10 of How to Win an Advocacy Campaign.
Joe Fuld (00:31):
On the last episode, we spoke to Joe Sangirardi about advocacy fundraising. So if you haven't listened yet, make sure to go check it out. Martín, what are we talking about today?
Martín Diego Garcia (00:43):
So today we're talking about a really fun topic about what happens when advocacy goes wrong, or what happens when your campaign goes off the rails and what you can do to get it back on track. We'll also give you some, hopefully some tips on how to make sure it actually never evolves into a bad situation in the first place, but first I want to start out with defining what is good advocacy versus quote-unquote, bad advocacy, right? I think good advocacy for me, there's a difference between channeling energy or anger into constructive efforts and having a plan, having a strategy, having goals, right, and, and really having the moral high ground, right? Like you're doing community-based organizing work, that is really for the betterment of your community, and you have a plan that you're following in order to do that. That to me is good advocacy. You're putting in the time you're putting in the effort you're putting in the energy to actually have a constructive outcome. I think bad advocacy is channeling that anger, right? You're pissed as hell. And you just start throwing everything at the wall because you're mad. And there, there has been no sort of time or energy set up to build relationships, to have a plan, to have a goal. And really you're wasting people's time and energy potentially money with, without following any kind of structure to get any particular kind of outcome. Right. Good advocacy usually is a longterm, has longterm goals that you're trying to get to. Whereas bad advocacy is sort of a one-off thing that you're just mad because some piece of legislation, something is affecting you personally, and you get a bunch of people sort of riled up to start protesting or sitting in or sending things that there's really no structured outcome. Right? Joe, anything else you want to add to that?
Joe Fuld (02:21):
Well, I'll just say bad advocacy of if, if not kept in check could go on for a long time. You could just like feed your anger and try and do something and like not go anywhere. So I think they really, what we're trying to get people to do is think about planning and do this in a thoughtful way that involves the community and gets that engagement and so you are successful.
Martín Diego Garcia (02:45):
So as organizations are needing to think about how to set up their programs from the start and to avoid some of these things that may get them off the rails, Joe, what should they be thinking about?
Joe Fuld (02:55):
Well, first I want to say we have plenty of information on this, on the website, check it out at thecampaignworkshop.com, lots of stuff on the blog about advocacy goals, setting an advocacy funnel, building an advocacy plan, all the elements of an advocacy program, all that is there. But some of our top tips when you're thinking about building and planning for advocacy is to get buy-in first, really have a conversation with organizations that you want to work with, that you are working with, that you think could be a part of your greater coalition and get buy-in understand your budget and know your resources. Those are two different things. Sometimes you might have more resources than you have money, or you might have more money than you have resources. So really think about what that is again, really important. Then you want to put together what we call an MOU or a community agreement, and really make sure that you get in writing what people are going to be giving to the cause. Whether that is their time, their volunteer power or money, whatever that is. You want to put that in writing and have goals, primary and secondary goals set for what you're trying to do. These advocacy campaigns can go on for a long time. So you really want to get things in writing. You also want to make sure you're thinking about strategy versus tactics, right? Tactics can be, Hey, we need some mail or we need some phones. We should do some patch through calls. Those are tactics. Those are not a strategy, right? Those things do not, you know, say, Hey, we want to collect data. It's still not a strategy. A strategy is the overarching goal and how you get to that goal. That's what a strategy is. And then the tactics are the implementation of like, here are the little ways we get there, but again, you want to make sure you think about strategy first and then match the tactics to the strategy. Then write it down, create a written plan. Don't leave things to chance, make sure this is in a written document and that you look at and work with all the time.
Martín Diego Garcia (05:00):
Yeah. I think those are some great tips, right? Like you don't, you want to make sure that everybody is on the same page. And I think that's where that written plan or at least some sort of shared document, right, is out of your brain, right? Whether you're working as an individual organization or you're working in coalition with folks, whether it's the MOU, the goals, their strategy, right. Have all of those pieces centrally located so that everybody is on the same page talking points, messaging, right? All of those pieces are going to be really, really helpful to make sure everybody's working toward the same thing. And, and, and everybody's sort of not going rogue and doing their own thing, thinking that they're working toward the same goal. The other piece that I think is really critical in terms of building your advocacy program is being super thoughtful about choosing your target audience, right? You don't want to be wasting your time and your energy and your resources sending your message to the wrong audience, right? So you may have the moral high ground. You may have your goal set out. You may have a plan written and know what you want to do, but that doesn't mean then you then turn that around and sort of just send it into the universe and send it to everybody who would listen, right? So you can't just go target the media or go target legislators or go target community members if they're not the actual person who has the power to make the consequential decision to fix the thing that you're trying to achieve. Right? So you really have to do spend that time choosing a target audience. That's going to help you achieve the goals that you have set out at the beginning of your campaign. So really take that time to think about who that audience is. I think another thing that we often talk about in our training spaces is myths surrounding the advocacy space. And a lot of these thought processes that people may potentially try to bring into the campaign planning process that may lead to throwing you all off or derailing you a little bit from what you actually are trying to achieve. And so I want to go through a couple of them and Joe feel free to add in yours as well. To help you recognize them as you're planning out your campaigns, to make sure that you see them for what they are, right. The first one is that only rich people or people that elected officials have relationship with red donors, et cetera. These high insiders can have meetings with elected officials that's completely wrong, right? The elected officials are there to serve the public. The public are their constituents, is the communities in which you're working with. And therefore those folks actually probably have the most amount of power. And the most at stake, really when meeting with these elected officials, because it's the legislation that these legislators are making decisions on, pushing for, fighting for pushing against right, the community or the people who are going to be directly impacted by those things. So they're probably the most important. So don't just assume that because you have donors in your, in your network, that they're the ones who should meet with these elected officials. The other one is that advocacy campaigns don't matter, right? That they, that they're a waste of time. That they're a waste of energy. That's not true. We, Joe and I have worked, been able to work with a number of groups, organizations who have run some really amazing advocacy campaigns, where there was in the public smoking anti-smoking, free smoking, what was the campaign Joe?
Joe Fuld (08:03):
We did a lot of smoke-free campaigns. We've done a lot of campaigns where we're taking an issue and making it a priority. It's not that people aren't thinking about that issue, but these days you're competing. One issue is competing with another on what is going to get done first. And so a good advocacy campaign can put your issue to the top of the ledger, where it might be there as something people agree on, but not something they're going to do something about.
Martín Diego Garcia (08:31):
Which I think leads to the next one, which is around having a good lobbyist, but don't get tripped up into thinking you only need a lobbyist, right? So you lobbying is a really great advocacy tactic for you to employ, to do what Joe just said, right? To, to move up your issue in the list of priorities that your legislators are thinking about and that the bills they are trying to move. Right. But don't assume that you can just rely on having a lobbyist as the end all be all for what the work that you all are doing. It is a good tactic to loop into and, and work in concert with a lot of the other efforts you were layering,
Joe Fuld (09:03):
Right? And having a public facing campaign is a great tool for the lobbyists to use, right? They can engage constituents with their legislators and you're able to, to get those elements working together. So a lobbyist doesn't work on their own. If you have a good public facing campaign, it just amplifies what a lobbyist is doing.
Martín Diego Garcia (09:23):
Definitely. And last one, we'll talk about and Joe I'd love to hear yours right is that the more you contact a legislator, the less likely they are to vote with you, right. That is absolutely wrong, right? There are a million and one things that are on this legislator's agenda, as well as their staff's brains. Right? And so you want to make sure that your issue, your campaign, the thing that you are fighting for is constantly at the forefront. And so you want to be really smart and tactical about calendaring out all of the different ways in which you work, making sure that your issue, your campaign, your piece of legislation is constantly at the forefront of your legislator's mind. So don't think that calling them or talking to them too much will lead to them voting against you. Cause it absolutely won't.
Joe Fuld (10:04):
Yeah. I mean, a couple other myths, right, is that legislation will somehow take care of itself. And that grasstops, advocates are impossible to find right? To me like legislation doesn't take care of itself. You have to actively mentor it, grow it, push it along. Grasstops, advocates, it can be challenging, but it's not impossible. Right? You have to build a program you're, you're reaching out and frankly, moving your grassroots to be grass tops. We talk a lot about that, but it's important. And we are super excited to have Katie Belanger on the show to talk about this more, right? She's a leading strategist and she knows what it takes to create a good advocacy campaign. And she'll walk us through what are the mistakes to avoid. So looking forward to hearing what she has to say.
(Music)
Martín Diego Garcia (11:08):
And we're back uh I am here with a dear friend of ours Katie Ballenger, who is the owner of Katie B Strategies, where she helps leaders change the world. Katie has consulted for both nonprofits and for-profits coalitions and campaigns, to help orient groups around a shared vision by implementing strategic planning and development. She has worked in grassroots organizations and elected offices as a trainer, spokesperson, lobbyists, fundraiser, and organizer. But of the many hats she has worn from CEO to Executive Director to board chair, perhaps the descriptor she is most proud of is, in her own words proud geek as she consistently keeps up with all things, tech, productivity systems, cloud collaboration, tools, photography, and of all things, Apple products. Welcome Katie.
Katie Belanger (11:49):
Thanks Martín. I'm happy to be here.
Martín Diego Garcia (11:51):
It's so lovely to hear your voice. To jump right in here as a proud geek, what is one of the most recent tools or tech things that you're totally geeking out over right now?
Katie Belanger (12:00):
Well, the thing is, it's not so much even about geeking out. It's the thing that is saving me right now is Calendly. It is an online scheduling tool and I've used it off and on for a long time, but right now I've got a lot of different projects going on and a lot of meeting schedules, you know, and so it's really helpful to be able to send someone a link where they actually have access to put things on my calendar, where they can compare when they're available with, when I'm available, you can do different kinds of meeting formats. I can set up specific pages for different clients and it can get all really personalized, right? With personalized Zoom link, reminders, everything, and it cuts down on so much email back and forth. Scheduling emails are one of my pet peeves. So this has been really helpful.
Martín Diego Garcia (12:52):
That sounds amazing. It's called Calendarly.
Katie Belanger (12:54):
Calendly.
Martín Diego Garcia (12:55):
Calendly, alright, I might have to check that out because agreed as somebody who also doesn't like scheduling things particularly on time zones, I have the hardest time with time zones for some reason now that I'm in California. So in this episode of the podcast, we are talking about what happens when advocacy campaigns go wrong and thinking through to help our listeners think through troubleshooting, think through how to have those difficult conversations to sort of get back on track. And so to start off here, what are some misconceptions folks may have about running advocacy campaigns?
Katie Belanger (13:31):
Well, I think, you know, one of the things that's really hard about advocacy campaigns is that we're doing this work in an imperfect system. And so a lot of the times that we build these advocacy campaigns, we end up replicating, what's already wrong or broken about our systems. And we think we have to do that in order to win. And what we're really doing is playing somebody else's game on somebody else's playing field with somebody else's rules. And I think that, you know, one of the things that that shows up is like how we concentrate power and hierarchy and how we often like really control the information flow and try to hold tight to our campaigns really, really closely.
Martín Diego Garcia (14:20):
Let's talk a little bit about what it means to be going in the wrong direction. How do you define going in the wrong direction or what are some questions that our listeners should be asking themselves to really know whether they're going in the wrong direction?
Katie Belanger (14:31):
You know, it's sort of like, are you compromising with yourself? I think that's one of the, one of the ways we end up, you know, we are so pragmatic so often, particularly as progressive, right? Like we do our landscape assessment and we're like, what's possible? And then we start from, and that is, that's not visionary and that's not transformative. If we only ever work at what's possible at this moment in time, we're never really moving the needle. And, and that's really unfortunate. We have to start with where we really want to be and then work back from it.
Martín Diego Garcia (15:08):
Could you give an example and you don't have to name names here, but maybe an advocacy group, organization, or campaign that may be going in the wrong direction.
Katie Belanger (15:17):
Yeah, no, I'm, I can spill a little tea here. You know, one of the things and it's, it's something we turned around. But there is a habit that we have, especially as progressives to think about our issues in silos. You know, if you're working on minimum wage, it's all minimum wage. If you're working on public health, it's all that. If you're working on, you know, plastic bag bans or right, it's, we feel such a sense of purpose in the expertise within individual fields. And we end up missing out on the broader context, the broader narrative and the opportunities to really build more connection across community and constituency because that's actually how real people think and operate, right? They see all of these things impacting them and they don't pick necessarily. And so, you know, one of the, one of the clients that I work with is called the Local Solution Support Center. And we work to counter the abuse of state interference in local policymaking. And one of the things that we know is that the proponents of these kinds of policies are the corporate special interests through ALEC who are trying to undermine our democracy. That's part of the corporate deregulatory agenda. It's part of how systemic oppression is being upheld in this country. And we, as advocates are out there fighting issue by issue when our opposition is fighting a values war, and we have to like pull together and think about the work differently that like housing is an economic justice issue. Public health is an economic justice issue. Economic justice is public health. Having a higher minimum wage is actually directly impacting the quality of our lives and our health. Right. And so thinking more holistically about our work is an opportunity to have a greater impact.
Martín Diego Garcia (17:12):
Right. I mean, everything is woven together. I mean, as humans are complex beings, right? With so many problems and things running through their brains and different parts of their lives, that intertwine as does everything else. Right. And as it does the advocacy space, and for those who don't know, ALEC is a conservative lobbying organization. It's the American Legislative Exchange Council that sort of writes the legislation and bills in a conservative manner and basically hands it to legislators to pass that often doesn't benefit the people we are fighting for.
Katie Belanger (17:43):
I would say more than often, I would say all the time, but.
Martín Diego Garcia (17:48):
Always not on our side. Yeah. Dream big. And then, and then go for it. Right. And, and don't fall on the like, does the, does the ends justify the means, right? Like, do you get there by cutting all these corners, compromising your values to get there.
Katie Belanger (18:06):
Right.
Martín Diego Garcia (18:07):
And that's also not transformative, so how are we rethinking how to get there so that we get there in a way that is not compromising the work that we're doing.
Katie Belanger (18:16):
Right.
Martín Diego Garcia (18:17):
As we, as our listeners are thinking, okay, maybe we are going a little off the rails or maybe we're totally, totally off the rails. How do you stop it from happening in the first place? And, and how do you start realigning yourself to get yourself back on track?
Katie Belanger (18:31):
Yeah. Well, I think the first thing you know, a lot of folks I've noticed who work in the advocacy space or campaign space are brilliant tacticians and strategists. And so we often start there. But that is like four steps ahead of where you need to start. You really have to start with, and this is what I do in strategic planning processes and really, you know, any sort of project or program or campaign planning is first, you have to start with your vision. What is your definition of victory? And then it's, you know, it is the outcomes it's, how will, you know, you got there? How will you measure your success? And then it's the strategies and approaches and tactics from there. It's like, we don't exist to do lobbying. Lobbying is a tool to get through the policy changes that we need, but we don't exist to do policy change. We exist to create the world that we all want to live in. Right. So it's like taking those steps back. And I would say also scenario planning is a really good way to avoid missteps. It can take the guesswork out of emergency situations. You know, your, if then statements, you might have many of them, but you know, it sort of helps you in that moment of crisis when you're really, you're not able to think clearly, right. It's fight or flight. And, and so being able to take some of the guesswork out of those situations, like we've already decided these things, so that's what we're going to do. And same thing with deal-breakers.
Martín Diego Garcia (20:10):
Yeah, what are your hardlines?
Katie Belanger (20:10):
The coalitions, yeah, the coalitions I work with, like to have those conversations when things are calm, not when things are crazy because when you're calm, you can listen and you can hear and you can learn and you can have agreements. And then when you're in the heat of the campaign, you can still be nimble and move fast.
Martín Diego Garcia (20:31):
Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about scenario planning for folks who maybe haven't heard about it? What, what does that process look like for you?
Katie Belanger (20:38):
Sure. I mean, look like when you're passing a bill, there's always going to be deal cutting. Right. there's always going to be amendments. There's going to be compromised. There's going to be it's that sausage making of, of politics. But you know, when you're walking the halls of the Capitol or you're in that meeting with the legislator, there may be times where you have to make quick decisions about, you know, that this is the thing we have to change to get this many more votes. And those things can be really tricky. They can also, you know, be used to divide us against each other. You know, I think a lot of the, a lot of the bills sort of preempting local worker protection laws are prime examples of this and what we're seeing around the country. And it goes back to these Alec bills where they're preempting a whole wide swaths of worker laws, minimum wage paid sick days, predictive scheduling all of these things all at the same time. They're also preempting non-discrimination ordinances. And so what can really happen is that you end up dividing your sort of traditional worker rights groups, your labor unions, right? Your minimum wage campaigns from the LGBTQ community, then that non-discrimination issue becomes the wedge, the make or break issue for the bill. So how do you hold the coalition together? Because at the end of the day, non-discrimination ordinances are not the only LGBTQ issue, minimum wage and paid sick. And all those worker issues are absolutely LGBTQ issues as well.
Martín Diego Garcia (22:16):
Out of curiosity, have you ever worked on any failed advocacy campaign and, and if so, was there a lesson that you took out of it that sort of changed your perspective, your the way that you worked on future campaigns?
Katie Belanger (22:29):
Yes. I mean, I think first of all there is an example that I want to get to, but I think failure and victory, first of all, is always up for debate and you can, you can fail forward. You always can learn things from a failure and, and be better. So, you know, I don't think that that should ever stop anyone from trying to advance their issues. And, you know, I'm thinking about many, many moons ago. I was working on a campaign to passage, domestic partnership registry in my home state of Wisconsin pre-marriage equality. This was like 11, 10 or 11 years ago at this stage. And it was my first time as a lobbyist. It was my first sort of bill that I was running. I was very excited and we had trifecta democratic control in the state for the first time in a very, very long time. So both houses of the legislature and the governor's office. And and we had really started to build those majorities through a lot of the work around an anti-marriage amendment. Anti-Marriage equality amendment. So we thought this is going to be great. We're coming in with like 25 of the most basic protections for couples, hospital visitation, things that pull tested really well, right? Like common things that folks really needed. And we had to put it in the state budget, but we couldn't pass it as a standalone bill at that stage because of the politics and it really showed me and we did pass it and it, it did end up being a victory, but it really showed me that you got to know who your team is and you really have to, it's not just about party affiliation. I learned the very hard way through that campaign that I don't wake up every morning, just trying to get Ds in office. Um that's not my purpose in life. My purpose in life is to get good policy passed to support people doing transformative work. And it's not enough just to be affiliated with a certain party. We really need to develop leaders and focus on who's going to get stuff done, but also who are we electing in office? Who's going to listen to their community advocates and really be partners in the trenches and, and you know, how do we build that kind of collaboration? And, you know, there's a lot of talk going on right now about co-governance that I think is really exciting. And I think we've been on a journey to that kind of model of leadership where we're really all in it together. Our elected officials are right, are shoulder to shoulder with advocates. And one's not pulling or pushing the other that we're devising strategies together.
Martín Diego Garcia (25:15):
Yeah. Let's dream big. We can get there and, and in an ethical and moral and value forward driven way. Right. Well, I hope our listeners got as much out of, as I did out of your insight and your brilliance, so thank you. Thank you, Katie, for joining us for this episode.
Katie Belanger (25:32):
Thanks for having me. This is wonderful.
Martín Diego Garcia (25:34):
Oh, of course. Of course. Well we will be right back and we will put some of the things that Katie talked about in the episode description. So please check that out, we'll be right back.
(Music)
Joe Fuld (25:43):
And we're back. So that was so great to hear Katie. I mean, she's awesome. And she has a ton of experience to help folks as you're building your program. Some of the things that Katie talked about is this idea of creating guardrails for your advocacy, having a clear definition on the front end of what the right direction and the wrong direction is, think of this as like bumper bowling, right? You want to have those bumpers to make sure that, you know, you're able to increase your score, and you're not like sending your bowling ball into three other lanes, right. And that can happen. So really have an understanding of where you're trying to go. If your campaign is headed in the wrong direction, you need to be able to ask yourself, are you compromising with yourself? Are you negotiating with yourself, understand what your vision is and make sure all the coalition partners understand it too, and have the same view of where this is going. Again, that idea of starting with a community agreement or an MOU that is critically important to have in writing where you want these things to go. And when the campaign ends, where those resources go, when the campaign is over, and you also need to understand what your definition of victory is, understand when you've achieved it and how you're going to know that you've actually achieved victory set those primary and secondary goals. Martín , what are some other signs your advocacy may be going in the wrong direction?
Martín Diego Garcia (27:29):
Yeah. So before jumping into that, right, I think just to put a finer point on what Joe said is you really want to ask yourself, what does success look like? And we ask this to all of the partners that we work with to really help them hone in. What does victory look like, right. Is it passing the piece of legislation? Is it building relationships? Is it working with your community? Is it passing the ballot initiative? Right? What does the win for you and your team look like? And then making sure that everybody on your team, whether it's internally in your organization or throughout your coalition also have agreed to that definition of victory. It's a really, really important step that I think should not be, be looked over. But in terms of some other signs that your advocacy is going in the wrong direction, right. As Katie mentioned, sometimes your advocacy campaign or your efforts are going to upset some people. Right. And they should, they should be upsetting some people because very often we're, we're going against the flow here. Right. There is something that has traditionally been happened that, that we are noticing now is, is actually harmful to groups and communities. And so you're pushing against that, but you really want to pay attention to who you're upsetting and what are they upset about, right? Like what are the reasons? And do they, do they flow with what you're going with or not?
Joe Fuld (28:41):
Yeah. I mean, sometimes when you're, as you've said, when you're running a program, you're going to get elected officials, that'll call and say, stop calling me, or you're going to get like appointed officials, right. When you're doing patch through calls to legislative offices, you're going to get, if you're doing it right and a legislator is getting 50 calls a day and they normally get zero, they're going to call you and say, have your people stop calling,
Martín Diego Garcia (29:06):
But it could be as simple as right, like there, whether you're working in your community. Right. And they're looking at giving out more permits for outside seating right now during the pandemic. Right. And they're there as a business owner, their interest in that is making sure that their business stays afloat. Right. But that also means maybe less parking, maybe more outside noise for the neighborhood. Right. And so you have to balance who are you upsetting in that scenario? And for what reasons are they upset?
Joe Fuld (29:33):
Right. And if you're running an active campaign, you need to make sure that your partners know you're doing these activities, you're doing these calls. And when the elected official does call and say, stop calling, they're able to say, well, this is why we're calling you. And this is the conversation we want to have with you. Will you have that conversation with us instead of being on the defensive? No. Then what to ask for, to say, we're what we're calling you, because we want the minimum wage raised a $15 an hour. Will you do that? Right? Have people know, have your partners have the people that might be the front lines of this, know that they're going to get these calls. So they're ready to have those important conversations.
Martín Diego Garcia (30:18):
Absolutely. Absolutely. I think one of the other pieces that Katie touched on that was really important is understanding your inherent biases. Right. And making sure that you understand how these biases are affecting your work to make sure that you're helping more than you are hurting your cause. Right. So we don't know what we don't know. And so constantly checking yourself and asking the folks within your coalition, your community members, your community leaders, right. It is the way that we are framing. This is the messaging. And the talking points that we are coming up with is the tactics that we're using. Do they sit well with you, do a gut check, right. Constantly be questioning to make sure that you are not overlooking something that then will ultimately hurt your cause. Right. Are you collecting the right data? Are you talking to the right folks? Have, has everybody involved been considered and gotten their input in so that we're not adding more parking spaces and realizing that it's affecting communities of color worse than it's affecting, right. The business owners or we're right. Like people are getting disproportionately affected by it in a, in a, in a not good way
Joe Fuld (31:18):
And make sure you have the right people in the room to assess this, right. Sometimes we're in our own little bubble and that we really don't have the right coalition partners there. Right. To assess those biases. And so making sure you're really looking at that, who's around that virtual table to make sure you really can have an understanding of your role.
Martín Diego Garcia (31:40):
Definitely. And some real quick tactics that you could possibly use that Katie touched on, right. Scenario planning. Right. How do you have conversations about what could potentially happen and, and create plans for those potential scenarios to make sure that you're not caught off guard, right. Thinking about what are those difficult conversations that need to really happen during an advocacy campaign and likely try and have those on the earlier end, right? In order to mitigate any potential challenges that may come later it's a really great way to build strong communication from the jump as well as trust. And then then needing to know who your team actually is, right? It's not necessarily your party affiliation, right? It may not often be those folks, but who are the leaders that you need to be listening to within the community to ensure that their input is heard while you all are doing your planning, but Joe, what should organizations understand about potential failure?
Joe Fuld (32:31):
Well, first of all, just to not be afraid of it, right for failure can and will happen. Even if you do everything. And when things go quote-unquote wrong, that actually might be when you're on the path to moving things forward, you just need to take a breath and asked informed questions. How do you retool? How do you pivot back to where you really want to go? And remember that failure and victory are up for debate. We've seen that happen. You can fail forward and learn from it, right? So you want to think about how you leverage those smaller victories or failures into larger victories. You don't need to solve all the problems at once. You just need to make sure that you don't let the small failures put you off track or explode your coalition. Right? Well, that was awesome. And it's a wrap. Thanks for listening in. If you have any specific questions or comments about good versus bad advocacy, contact us using the social media and email addresses in the description, drop us a note, a link, anything you can. We look forward to hearing from you.
Martín Diego Garcia (33:38):
And on our next episode, we're super excited to talk to a dear friend of ours, Courtney Snowden, who is also a fellow trainer with us about lobbying for advocacy and how to work that into your campaigns
Joe Fuld (33:46):
Until next time. This is Joe Fuld
Martín Diego Garcia (33:49):
And Martín Diego Garcia, breaking down how to win an advocacy campaign.
Joe Fuld (33:53):
How to Win an Advocacy Campaign is Joe Fuld, Martín Diego Garcia, Hope Rohrbach, Daniel Lam, Heidi Job, and Elena Veatch. Music by Mike Pinto. Sound editing by The Global Startup Movement. Special thanks to the team at The Campaign Workshop. Remember to review, like, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
(Outro Music)