Winning advocacy campaigns have clear goals. In this episode, Joe and Martín kick off S2 by breaking down why you need to set goals, the differences between primary and secondary goals, and how to set strategic goals for your advocacy work. Former Chief Advocacy Officer of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network Molly Daniels discusses who you need to get buy-in from and how you can leverage smaller successes to set your campaign up for bigger wins.
Setting goals may seem like an easy task, but it’s easy to make them too broad, too specific, or too ambitious. Tune in to this first full episode of S2 to learn how your organization should be thinking about goals. Joe and Martín will explain primary vs. secondary goals and the importance of having both long-term and short-term goals. Martín chats with former Chief Advocacy Officer of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network Molly Daniels to better understand how goals should fit into your organization’s planning and partnerships. Molly shares with us how she leveraged one of the largest advocacy networks in the country and talks about her brief stint in the rock and roll business.
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Joe Fuld
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Martín Diego Garcia
Twitter: @gmartindiego
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Presented by The Campaign Workshop
(Intro Music)
Martín Diego Garcia (00:08):
Hey folks, you're listening to How to Win an Advocacy Campaign, where you will get an insider's perspective that teaches you not only how to fight for what you believe in, but how to win. I'm Martín Diego Garcia.
Joe Fuld (00:18):
And I'm Joe Fuld. And you can find us @CMPWRKSHP on Twitter or @thecampaignworkshop on Instagram. Welcome and thanks for listening to episode one of How to Win an Advocacy Campaign. Today we're kicking off our second season on advocacy. The first episode is on setting advocacy goals. Why are advocacy goals important, you may ask? Well, advocacy campaigns can drive a lot of outcomes for groups and organizations that are beyond just winning or losing. And we're really excited to talk about it. Goals, help guide your effort and focus your time and your resources and your people and what you're going to do. I know this sounds super basic, but it is super important and we're going to dig deep.
Martín Diego Garcia (01:11):
Yeah, you would be surprised how many organizations we've had conversations with who don't know what their goals are, or they are not as widely spread as they may have assumed they were. So when you're setting your goals, you want to make sure that you're setting them early so that they really help you keep you on track throughout the campaign. They'll also help ensure that you don't waste time, right? So we have limited resources most of the time. So time, money, people, energy, et cetera. So that's not to say that your goals can't change as things develop and you get more information. However, in order for your goals to change, you have to have them set in the first place. There's, they should be your North star and guide all of the different efforts in which you are doing every action or tactic or money that is being spent should be fueling and feeding into you achieving that goal.
Joe Fuld (02:00):
Yeah, I mean, so let's jump into, you know, some like, first of all, some like broad goals for an organization could be things like just general growth, visibility, fundraising. Those all could be goals that are a part of advocacy and could be super important for the future of your organization. Again, a lot of groups and organizations have shied away from advocacy because they, might've not been the initial reason why an organization got started. But thinking about these bigger measurable goals can help bring you into advocacy and help you make change in your community while also growing your organization. So you have to have an understanding of your short and long-term goals. You need to write them down. You need to make sure you just not just keep your goals to yourself, but also get buy-in from the rest of your team, your board, maybe coalition partners, and that will really help you keep yourselves accountable, but also help you bring in other partners to get your message out there.
Martín Diego Garcia (03:03):
Definitely. And you're going to have a number of different types of goals, right? So depending on what you're doing, you will have a large organizational goal, right? You may, your organization may be trying to end homelessness or solve world hunger, right? Those are very large goals. But as you think about the individual efforts, campaigns, et cetera, that you're running, you'll also have goals set for those. And what you want to understand is the difference between your primary goal and your secondary goal. Your primary goal is the main objective. What is the thing that you are actually trying to achieve? And your secondary goals are what are other things that can help as Joe mentioned, right? Grow your organization, help with fundraising, help with visibility that will also impact your organization positively. As you continue to move. For example, you may be trying to apply pressure for a certain legislator to vote with you on a bill that is your primary objective, to get that legislator to vote with you. A secondary goal may be you also want to be building your email list or your supporters list as you were doing these efforts. So you may want to think about choosing a tactic that can do both of those things like an online petition, where you're both applying pressure to the legislator, but also collecting emails and information to grow your list and your supporters.
Joe Fuld (04:15):
Yeah. And understanding how goals might be different for different types of advocacy campaigns, for issue advocacy for legislative advocacy, also is going to help you think about what you're trying to do as a group or organization. Right? So going back to the earlier example that Martín gave about list-building, if you're doing legislative advocacy, and let's say a state legislature, you might want to do list building in specific legislative districts. It might not matter at all that you have a list of supporters in big cities. When the chair of the committee that you're trying to move lives in a small rural town. You have to make sure that you're building a list of advocates in the place where it matters. It might be that you're looking for storytellers that you want to put out on video across the country to get more people who care about this issue. So there's lots of different ways where the type of campaign is going to really impact the kind of resources you build and the kind of advocacy you do. When we come back, we're super excited to chat with Molly Daniels who'll share her insights into setting your advocacy goals. Molly and I have known each other for a long time. And she is the expert in getting started with advocacy and helping build advocacy power. We'll be right back
(Music)
Martín Diego Garcia (05:54):
And we're back. And we are super excited for the first guest of our advocacy series podcast to be Molly Daniels. Molly is the president of Daniel's advocacy group, a strategic consulting firm that helps nonprofits harness the strength of their volunteers to advocate for policies that matter. She's also a strategic partner with Advocacy Smiths in Washington, DC. Prior to that, Molly was the Chief Advocacy Officer of the American cancer society cancer action network, where she led a grassroots movement of 1 million advocates and over 500 volunteer leaders in every congressional district. And before that, Molly actually was the head of AARPs national grassroots program, the volunteer advocacy program of the Older Women's League and ran legislative campaigns for Long Term Care campaign. And even earlier than that, Molly had a legal career and a stint in the rock and roll business. So a ton of experience we're going to pull from, thank you, Molly, for joining us.
Molly Daniels (06:49):
Glad to be here.
Martín Diego Garcia (06:50):
Um so to jump right in here, can we talk a little bit about the rock and roll music industry and, and did that prepare you for any of the work you're doing now?
Molly Daniels (06:59):
It didn't. I haven't had that question before. It did not prepare me. And I'll tell you what the music business now is streaming and iTunes is a much different world, but back in the day, people would buy their music in stores. So my role was helping get product in those stores and doing campaigns with, with big companies who would put the new Steely Dan album everywhere so that when you'd walk into the store, you couldn't miss it. That did not prepare me for the work I do now, except to the notion that I would go home. And it was, you know, it was very glamorous. You get to meet lots of rock stars and go backstage, but at the end of the night, you didn't feel very good about your work. And I just, I realized pretty quickly in that I wanted to do something that felt a little more contributory to the world. And that's when I decided to go back to law school and I got quickly drawn after law school to organizing
Martín Diego Garcia (07:55):
Well, hopefully that means you ended up with a really great music collection.
Molly Daniels (07:58):
I'm embarrassed to tell you this, and this is a, this is going to be really important to your listeners. But I had about, I moved every time I moved, I was moving about a thousand albums and I finally got rid of them. I just couldn't stand it. And as soon as I got rid of them, my partner and I rehabbed one of those old stereo consoles. So now I go back to the record store to buy LPs. So life has come full circle. I did have a great collection. I don't anymore.
Martín Diego Garcia (08:25):
Well, hopefully you'll start building it back up again, but.
Molly Daniels (08:28):
$45 at a time.
Martín Diego Garcia (08:29):
Exactly. Exactly. So with the plethora of knowledge you have and experience you have in the advocacy space, as our listeners who are in organizations that are starting to venture into the advocacy arena, what should they be thinking about right now before they jump fully in?
Molly Daniels (08:45):
I, I actually get this question a lot, Martín, because organizations that have never done much advocacy, they get overwhelmed. They see my background and they say, well, you only help these big organizations. What can a small organization like us really do? And I just, I spent a lot of time helping them think through what their capacity is, what their assets are. And I'm not even just talking money. I'm talking about, do they have good volunteer assets? I'm working with one organization right now, for instance it's it's an organization for, for people with a certain illness. And it's a very small advocacy staff, but their volunteers are incredible. And the stories of those volunteers are so powerful. So I think one of the messages is, is that you don't have to be a huge organization to make an impact on lawmakers. But what you do have to do is have very strong, strategic planning, have very strong communications and really analyze what your capacity is. And don't try to get ahead of yourself or you'll get frustrated and give up, but a smaller organization can make a big difference by getting those volunteers with those impactful stories in front of legislators. And that's what I, I try to help them see.
Martín Diego Garcia (10:00):
Yeah, I completely agree with you, right. That no matter how much change you make, right? If you change the world for one to two people, right? Like that's a huge impact in those people's lives and the people who they interact with. And so depending on how you measure big, right? Like everything can be as success as long as you're making the world a better place. You talked a little bit about right, strategic planning and communications. What types of structures or processes should folks be thinking about to have in place to be successful?
Molly Daniels (10:26):
Well, I'm a big believer in the Midwest Academy of Strategic Planning, I've I you know, they, they have at the center of their work, a strategy chart, and it really does force an organization to think through what are they trying to do? What are the assets they bring to that campaign? Who are their targets? Who else can they bring in? What other allies can they bring in? And what obstacles are they going to have, whether it's internally or externally and only then should you start talking about tactics? So the first thing I talk to organizations about is kind of, I do a lot of audits if you will, especially with smaller organizations helping them think through who are the people that will get involved, who are the people that will spend a lot of time on it? What are the internal challenges to that organization? You know, it's always ideal when the leadership of an organization is on board with advocacy, but I find too many times that you almost need to start having advocacy successes before you can bring the organization on board. And then you can point to those and say, look, look at how this impacts mission. This organization I was talking about earlier, when they can pass these state laws, it has a huge impact on the members of their organization. And so they can use those successes to, to say to their, to their board and to their executive leadership. If we can put some more resources and advocacy, we can make a big difference. We can, we can have a huge impact.
Martín Diego Garcia (11:54):
Yeah. I mean, I think it's really about right. Connecting those dots for those folks. So you mentioned some of the folks you need to have buy-in from, right? Like your board, your donors, right. Are there other folks that they should be thinking about in terms of getting buy-in from them to make sure that they're on board before jumping fully into the advocacy space?
Molly Daniels (12:10):
Yeah. One of the, one of the key constituents constituencies always see as communications and there are communications folks in every organization and some of them may have advocacy experience. Some of them may not, they become really key to success because it's great to have these accomplishments and these successes, but if you can't trumpet them both internally and externally, it's, you know, that old adage about a tree falling in the forest. So I do see, I do see communications as a key piece of this.
Martín Diego Garcia (12:42):
Yeah, absolutely. It's getting, getting all your people on board, particularly if their expertise, their experience or the work they've been doing is not in the advocacy space. There may be some, some training up that needs to happen. What kind of vision do you need to have? Should we be thinking short-term, long-term, both? Should we be thinking sort of really big picture versus individual fights and battles? How do you normally advise folks to start?
Molly Daniels (13:05):
Well, if I'm pretty convinced that an organization wants to build an advocacy program and not just win on a certain campaign, then you have to have a long-term vision because it's great to win this campaign, but how do you set it up for the next campaign? Because you may have to be defending that bill you got passed. So I always think in terms of long term. Most organizations don't have the resources to build a volunteer structure. I was lucky enough to be at two very large organizations who did, and we had people that weren't around just for a particular campaign. As you mentioned in the introduction, we had volunteers in every congressional district in, across the country. When I was at ACS CAN, we pledged to those volunteers, if they made a commitment to us that we would train them, that they would, that we would keep in touch with them, that we would, that they would understand how campaigns worked and when they needed to be most active. And they in turn, they pledged to us that they would be there campaign after campaign. We did lose a few volunteers here and there when they didn't like the position we were taking on an issue, but people tend to think that can only work for large organizations. And I just don't agree with that. Even smaller organizations can, can have well-placed volunteers in 10 or 20 districts, or in 10 key States, they can have a huge impact if they are building those relationships with state legislators or with members of Congress. I was always excited when I would hear from a congressional office that they wanted to talk to my, one of my volunteers, because I knew that that volunteer had succeeded in building that relationship and that they wanted to check in with her before they went out big on an issue. So it can happen even in smaller organizations.
Martín Diego Garcia (14:51):
Yeah. You, you're speaking my language when you talk about leadership development of even your volunteers, right. But the volunteers are not an ATM machine. You don't just need them to show up and do exactly what you tell them to do. It should be a two way street, right? They show up cause they're passionate. But if you continue to provide them opportunities where they're also learning and growing, it's not a ton of resources in terms of money, right. Or, or budget, but you are offering them time and experience and something that they're also learning that hopefully keeps them coming back.
Molly Daniels (15:18):
And I think, and I'm always surprised when there are organizations that just don't get that, that they just don't. They just aren't quite clear why volunteers are useful. And I'm just like, okay, I'm not sure I not happy how to help you then. Because you think about, let's take members of Congress, specifically those members and those staff every day have these 15 minute conversations with constituents over and over and over and over. And those, you know, I, my experiences at the successful constituents are not the ones that bring in reams of paper and lots of statistics. But instead the ones that come in and say, I want to tell you about my story. I want to tell you why this bill would affect me or my children or my mother. Those have an impact. Those are the stories that remain. And again, small organizations like the one I referenced earlier, when you have powerful volunteers like that, and you give them the tools to be successful, you can, you can have an amazing impact.
Martín Diego Garcia (16:22):
So getting back to the, the, how to start in the advocacy space. We have a vision, right? We've gone through strategy. Can you talk a little bit about setting goals? What does, and what people can do in terms of making sure that they're achievable and measurable as they're starting out?
Molly Daniels (16:38):
Well, I think that when I'm advising an organization and this was true of the big organizations that I was at, we spent a lot of time developing goals. And I think you have to distinguish between your primary goals and your sort of side goals, your ancillary goals. And I see too many organizations that have a policy list of 10 or 20 things I have yet to see the organization that can do that. And maybe they're, they're organizations with bigger resources than the ones that I worked at. I find the most effective organizations are the ones that really hone in on two or three big issues. And they really focus their volunteers on that. That those, that to me is one of the biggest elements of success. But I think equally important is building in metrics. It can get really your volunteers can get really discouraged if you set it up at the very beginning that we're going to get this bill passed this year. If that's their expectation and you don't get it out of committee, then they're disappointed and they're discouraged. So it's really important in the training to, to explain how long the process can take, how long it might take. And what some, some interim stories are. Getting introduction, getting it out of committee, getting a floor vote. You know, I can think of bills that we spent years working on, and it's hard to get volunteers to keep coming back again and again and again you know, they, they can get bored with it quite frankly, but I think the best organizers are the ones that can help volunteers see the light at the end of the tunnel. The tunnel may be very long and there are successes along the way. And that's helping people understand at the end of the day, how a bill becomes a law, you know, for a little cartoon character,
Martín Diego Garcia (18:23):
There you go back to Schoolhouse Rock, but I agree, right? Like setting, setting very specific goals where like honing in on like, here's what we can achieve. And then putting little successes in between to keep them motivated, I think is really important.
Molly Daniels (18:36):
You know, that strategy chart I talked about earlier where you spend the, the initial time talking about goals, that's always in my experience that always, we always spend much more time on that than any other part of the strategy chart. And it's identify the long-term goals, intermediate and short-term.
Martín Diego Garcia (18:54):
Definitely, definitely. Right. Because then, then you know that everything else, all the tactics or whatever, you're choosing funnel into that. Right. And they're all feeding into that.
Molly Daniels (19:01):
Yep.
Martín Diego Garcia (19:01):
So you talked a little bit about this, but so we've set our advocacy goals. How can you ensure that your work is staying consistent with those goals throughout your campaign and any tips you have for keeping both ourselves and our teams accountable to meeting said goals?
Molly Daniels (19:15):
Well, and this, this is not always popular with staff, but I think it just means a lot of checking in with staff and, and having regular weekly, you know, in the, when we were working on the affordable care act campaign at ACS CAN, we were right in the middle of that. We had meetings every morning and sometimes they only had to be five minutes, but having your staff know that there's a place that they're going to be able to check in and holding them accountable and, you know, making sure everybody's clear on who has what piece of it. And I know that sounds so obvious, but it doesn't always happen. I see way too many organizations who just kinda throw it out there and they don't hold their staff accountable and check in with them to make sure things are getting done.
Martín Diego Garcia (19:58):
Any last words of inspiration as folks or, or, or words to temper their fear about jumping into the advocacy space?
Molly Daniels (20:05):
I've been really excited the last few years to see the organic grassroots coming out of so many movements, especially on the progressive side. I, I've been really enthusiastic about that, but I still think there's a place for big organizations and small organizations who provide direction and leadership. And I think, I think there's a place for those all to co-exist and I think you need both. And I just, I feel like in this time, we're in getting people out there sharing, you know, sharing their stories, using their voices. It has never been as important as it is now.
Martín Diego Garcia (20:41):
Could not agree with you more. Well thank you, Molly, for joining us and for all of your insights,
Molly Daniels (20:47):
My pleasure.
Martín Diego Garcia (20:48):
I know that I learned a lot and was reminded a lot of things. So thank you again for the experience that you shared and the insights that you gave our listeners. So listeners stay tuned. We'll be right back to do some recap and some key takeaways from the interview.
(Music)
Joe Fuld (21:18):
And we're back. I'm super excited to go over some of Molly's big takeaways. So the first is that small organizations can have an impact. It's really not about the size of the organization. It's about that. Organizations have a presence on the ground that corporations and other entities that are fighting an issue will likely not have you, as a small organization, can have an impact on the issue. And this goes to setting measurable, achievable goals. You have to harness the power of your membership that will really make up for limited resources. You want to offer to train folks. You want to give them an opportunity to make an impact. And you want to really keep in touch with them. These folks who you've connected with will now be there for you. They will be there when you have a compelling story to share, or they could be the face of your next campaign.
Martín Diego Garcia (22:14):
Absolutely. And as many of you probably already know there's going to be a lot of competing forces here in terms of what goals take priority. And so whether it's fundraisers asking for more money or your executive director and your board having different goals from your coalition members teasing a little bit about what we may talk about in a later episode, I like to do a goal criteria checklist. And as Joe mentioned, right, you want these goals to be measurable, achievable. You want to understand your primary and secondary goals. And so the more you know about what you need your goal to achieve, then you get your solutions, right? What are the ways in which you can achieve that goal, the line them up against your goal criteria and in a very easy check box, check across the lines there to see which ones actually, which solutions actually check off more boxes to help you achieve your goal. You want to spend your time, your money, your resources honing in on the solutions that are going to do more for your organization. So understand what your goal needs to achieve, and it'll help you direct what solutions and tactics and strategy you'll do later. So also remember that you really needed to be thinking about what are your short and long-term goals as Molly mentioned, right? You need to have both because you should not just be thinking about winning this specific campaign, but how it's setting you up to win the next one as well. And just to note on the training, when you're training volunteers, remember to explain to them how long the process can actually take and that if they don't see immediate results not to get discouraged, it is the little wins that's going to help us continue to move and build momentum. And so you want to continue to tell those, to get folks, to, to stay with you.
Joe Fuld (23:59):
Yeah. I mean, so Martín. So tell me like what you think one of your core like tricks for getting people started with advocacy is. I know Molly talked about it, but you've been doing this a long time, too. What is one of your favorite parts?
Martín Diego Garcia (24:14):
Know what you want to achieve. And I think this goes back to what we've been talking about, about a goal. And as you mentioned, whether you're a small organization, right? If you are a nimble little team, figure out what is a something that your organization is uniquely positioned to do and make change with, is it, you have a relationship with a specific community that you want to get them civically engaged, or are you a larger organization? And you have a good bit of funding that you can really do some change on the federal or statewide level figure out what is that specific thing that you are, that is your lane in the advocacy space that you can, that is your niche that you can fill that isn't being filled by anybody else. But that's where I would definitely say to get started.
Joe Fuld (24:57):
Yeah. And what I would say, one of my favorite pieces of this that I think where small organizations are undervalued is in relationships. I think organizations have been involved in the community. They know people, they know people who know people and those close personal relationships matter so much in starting a movement. And that to me can make the difference and make huge change because they know the pastor, they know the funeral director who knows everyone. They know so-and-so's kindergarten teacher who can pick up the phone and call a US Senator. Right? Those are all things I've seen happen because of local organizations, just because of relationships.
Martín Diego Garcia (25:41):
Absolutely. Making that one different or that one change in somebody's life. Somebody recently just told me that the way that they look at that, look at it is you're actually changing generations, right? If you better, the life of one family of one individual, you are bettering the generations that come after that life and that family. Right. And so the more you think about it in this, in this inch by inch centimeter, by centimeter away, you're actually making yards and miles leaps and bounds of improvement in the world as time goes on. Right? Well, that's a wrap for this episode. Thanks for tuning in. If you have specific questions or comments about setting advocacy goals, please contact us using our social media handles that are in the description or via our website at thecampaignworkshop.com.
Joe Fuld (26:27):
On the next episode, we'll be talking with advocacy research and polling expert Anna Greenberg. Tune in to find out how research can help you develop your message and set you on the right track
Martín Diego Garcia (26:39):
Until next time. This is Martín Diego Garcia.
Joe Fuld (26:42):
And Joe Fuld breaking down how to win an advocacy campaign.
Martín Diego Garcia (26:47):
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)