150 – Launch a Community-based Advocacy Program in Six Steps

February 20, 2025

Episode #150: Launch a Community-based Advocacy Program in Six Steps 

In this episode of the Volunteer Nation podcast, Tobi focuses on nonprofit advocacy, emphasizing the importance of advocacy in uncertain times. Tobi outlines a detailed six-step plan to launch a community-based advocacy program, tailored for organizations that rely on volunteer and community support. 

She discusses the importance of defining goals, recruiting and training the right volunteers, providing necessary tools and resources, and recognizing and retaining advocates. Tobi also shares the EPIC communications framework from Results.org and encourages nonprofits to take decisive steps to educate and mobilize their communities for advocacy, ensuring their vital role in society is sustained and funded. 

Advocacy Program – Episode Highlights

• [00:33] – Current Challenges and the Need for Advocacy 
• [01:32] – Decline in Nonprofit Advocacy 
• [03:06] – Launching a Community-Based Advocacy Program 
• [09:10] – Community-Centric vs. Organizational-Centric Approaches 
• [13:20] – Steps to Building an Advocacy Program 
• [28:20] – Volunteer Feedback and Media Tracking 
• [29:42] – Measuring Impact and Policy Change 
• [33:07] – Advocacy Framework for Communications 
• [35:48] – EPIC Advocacy Framework Explained 
• [36:10] – Personal Advocacy Stories 
• [40:49] – Crafting Persuasive Messages 
• [47:49] – The Importance of Nonprofit Advocacy 

Helpful Links

• VolunteerPro Impact Lab Community 
• 2025 Volunteer Management Progress Report – The Recruitment Edition  
• Volunteer Nation Episode #148 – Nonprofit Advocacy 101 – Yes You Can! 
• Volunteer Nation Episode #149 – Nonprofit Advocacy Strategies – A Checklist 
• Volunteer Nation Episode #127 – Volunteer Centric, Community Centric, Organization Centric: What’s the Difference? 
• Results.org 

Contact Us

Have questions or suggestions for the show? Email us at wecare@volpro.net.

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Episode #150 Transcript: Launch a Community-based Advocacy Program in Six Steps 

Tobi: Hey everybody, Tobi here from the volunteer nation podcast. 

And today I want to share our third episode in our series on nonprofit advocacy. It has been a difficult time here in the States, and I don’t know if in other countries people are feeling the pain of the economy, but here in the States it’s been particularly punctuated by some executive orders by our president, some changes in policy, some changes at government departments and federal, especially federal government, and it’s really brought about quite a bit of uncertainty here and fear and anxiety. And we’re all kind of wondering how this is going to impact us in the long term. And the only thing I can say is in times of uncertainty, you really must work through it by acting. 

And that’s why I’ve been doing this advocacy series because not all nonprofits, as I mentioned in our last episode, are engaging in advocacy. In fact, advocacy as a whole in the sector, especially in the U. S., has really been on the decline for about a decade. And only about half of the number of nonprofits who’ve been engaged in advocacy are engaged in advocacy now. 

So, it’s a muscle that we haven’t really, for many of our organizations, haven’t really exercised enough. And it’s something that even if you’re not a quote unquote advocacy organization, you do need to keep everyone educated. understanding the importance and impact of your cause. And if we don’t do that, then, like I said last time, people are down on what they’re not up on. 

You will find that when it comes to big changes in policy, people are uninformed, and therefore you feel powerless because you don’t have a large group of people helping you make these sort of arguments or business cases about why your cause exists. And we are often so busy, our heads are down, we’re doing our day to day work, we’re trying to help the people we’re supposed to help, and this is part of something we have to get back into our toolkit. 

So I’ve done work in advocacy, I’ve worked for and volunteered for advocacy organizations, so this is my gift to you, these three episodes to just help you start to think through how you might implement. So today is really about how to launch a community based advocacy program in six steps. I’m going to simplify it for you. 

Advocacy programs do not need to be complicated and many of you are leaders of volunteers or run volunteer involving organizations and these six steps are going to start to feel familiar because they’re not that different than the engaging volunteers for other roles in our organization. There’s just a few different things I want to share, a few distinctions that we need to know about. 

And then I want to share a model that an organization I know that is an advocacy organization, a model for communication. And they, I think it’s good for those of you who aren’t, don’t consider yourself a quote unquote advocacy organization to understand what those organizations who have expertise in that area are doing. 

So I’m going to share that after the break, but before the break, I’m going to go through how to launch a community based advocacy program in six steps. Also, I’ll post in the show notes, if you missed our two previous episodes in this series, check out Volunteer Nation episode 148, Nonprofit Advocacy 101, Yes You Can, where I talk about the legal implications of advocacy And many people say, well, nonprofits can’t do lobbying. 

Well, that’s not true. So, get the details there. There are limits to lobbying, but you need to know what the law says. So, I talk about it and provide a link there to the IRS guidelines. I also in Volunteer Nation episode 149, I talk about nonprofit advocacy strategies and I provide a checklist of a variety of advocacy strategies you can choose. So, there’s a whole continuum of doing social media campaigns all the way to being on the ground doing civil disobedience. Advocacy can be such a wide range. You know, often people have a certain preconceived notion about what advocacy is. I wanted to stretch that notion a little bit in the last episode and help you think through what makes the most sense for your organizational culture and your mission. 

I wanted to share that in that last episode. This episode is about, okay, yeah, we’ve decided we want to engage in more advocacy. How can we launch a community-based advocacy program? Because if you are the leader of volunteers, or you’re working in a volunteer involving organization as an executive, you are, your current volunteers are the great first round people to ask about helping, as well as your donors, and your clients, and the people that work with you. 

There’s a lot of people you can engage right away. In an advocacy effort, but I want to give you some structure so that if you want to attempt this and want to, and you should, I think now there’s no better time. We need to really get in front of this because this could have the things that are going on with policy and politics and funding could have massive impact on our organizations. We’ve got to start to think about how to turn this around through pressure. And that’s what advocacy is. It’s changing people’s hearts and minds with education, but also the pressure of a lot of people. Strength in numbers is what it’s all about when it comes to advocacy. 

Before we get going, though, I also want to mention, just remind folks that our 2025 Volunteer Management Progress Report is now ready for primetime. It is ready to download. You can get your free 52-page report. This year, we’re focusing on volunteer recruitment as well as salary for leaders of volunteers. 

So you can get all the tactics, trends, and challenges facing volunteer involving organizations. at volpro. net so go to our website volpro. net and then if you just click on research at the top of the page on the home page it’ll take you right to that page where you can order up the volunteer management progress report. 

I’ll also post a link in the show notes that goes directly to that page. So, let’s get started around advocacy and how to set up an advocacy program. So, you may be wondering right now how you’re going to survive the current administration’s funding pauses and cuts. It’s very chaotic. It’s unclear. Even when funding is unpaused, for some folks, I know especially for our science folks, the funding portals aren’t open. 

So even though the funding may, the policy may have shifted, the actual funding portal isn’t open. So there’s a lot of. A lot of uncertainty right now, and like I said at the top of this podcast episode, advocacy is the answer. We’ve got to get out from behind our desks, from the insulated walls of our organizations, whether they’re virtual walls or real brick and mortar, but we’ve got to include our Uh, key stakeholders in these advocacy efforts, volunteers, community partners, people who benefit from our work, anybody we work with, we want to invite to be part of our non-profits advocacy effort. 

And we want to join with other non-profits if there’s coalitions or groups, again, strength in numbers. Again, this is my third podcast in this advocacy series. But this, in this podcast, I’m going to share how to set up an advocacy program that is fueled by your community supporters. So, volunteers, donors, funders, clients, and anyone else who cares about what you do. 

First off, though, I want to talk about perspective, and that is a community and cause centric perspective, I’ve talked in the past about community centric versus volunteer centric versus organizational centric approaches. And what’s the difference? So, I’m going to link to that in the show notes as well. 

It’s volunteer episode 127, volunteer centric, community centric, organization centric – what’s the difference, so that you can dive a little bit deeper into this perspective taking that I want you to think about because it will make a difference in your approach. So, when we’re doing advocacy work on our behalf of our organizations. We may be and the people we serve in this time when funding cuts are directly, or threats of funding cuts are directly impacting our organization’s bottom line. My perspective is, and you may disagree with me, but my perspective is we need to lean into the impact that that will have on the people we serve. 

If we focus only on our organization’s needs, we will, I don’t think, be very effective. We will come across as self-centered. It will be more about us and less about the communities we serve. And that’s an important and subtle distinction between an organizational centric approach and a community centric approach. 

When we think about a community centric approach, it prioritizes the needs and voices of the community being served. In our advocacy efforts, we are talking about the bottom-line impact. If our funding is cut or there are changes in policy, how does that impact the people that we serve, our customers, our patrons, our clients, our service beneficiaries, whoever benefits from what you do. 

But it can also include in when we think about a community centric approach, it doesn’t ignore the impact on the local community because that’s also, it’s an economic impact. So, the impact on the local economy, employment, which is the people that work for your organization, pass through funding that you might give, you might grant to other organizations in your organization or resources you bring to partnerships. 

Those are all things that impact the local community in an economic way. So, when we talk about How funding changes in funding and shifts in funding might impact negatively or positively our organization, we want to think about it from the community perspective. So, we want to speak to the people being served, but we can also, as I said, speak to the economy, employment, pass through funding. 

So how does our organization also foster? that economy? What part do we play in the local economy? So that, that’s, for me, that’s, that’s sort of bridging between the organization’s needs and the, the local and the community needs. But again, if we only come across speaking about our organization’s needs. 

It’s not going to have a lot of impact. It has an impact when we talk about the community needs. Also, when you’re doing community centric work, you’re more aligned with the community’s real needs. You’re fostering trust and collaboration. If you want to engage. in community centric advocacy programs, you want to build a program that’s community centric; it’s got to speak to the community needs, right? 

Now your volunteers, your very major donors, your volunteers that contribute a lot of time, they might be willing to step up and speak to your organization’s needs. But the community in general, if you want to build a broad coalition, you have got to speak to the community’s needs and how your organization helps them. 

I hope that helps you with a little bit of perspective to take before we launch into how to build. So, let’s launch into how to build a community-based advocacy program in six steps. A community based advocacy program empowers our supporters and our volunteers to raise awareness, influence policy, and drive change for your nonprofit’s mission, so the impact on the people you serve. 

I’m going to provide you with a step-by-step guide in creating a structured, effective program. So let’s talk, talk about step one to building an advocacy program. You don’t first thing go out and recruit people to help. That’s not the first thing you do. The first thing you do is define your goals and your strategy. 

You want to have that fairly well understood and approved. The Objectives and goals might be what policies, practices, or cultural shifts do you want to influence? Right? What is it? What change or behavior change, or attitudinal change do you want to impact? There’s a variety of ways we could approach that. 

Your organization needs to be clear on what it is they are going to do. You want to identify your target audience. audiences. Who has the power to make change? Is it a legislator, businesses, or the public? So when we advocate to the public, we’re asking them to step up and be surrogates for us in terms of contacting there, our legislators. 

So we can go directly to legislators. We can also mobilize our community to legislators or the executive branch, the president. So there’s, there’s, but you want to make sure you understand who has the power to make change, and you want to speak directly to them. So, this isn’t like a general educational thing. 

It’s a focused strategy. The third thing in building an advocacy program is aligning and step one is aligning with your organization’s mission. So you do want to have a little bit of a litmus test here to ensure that your advocacy efforts support your nonprofit’s core work. It’s easy to have scope creep happen at this point and people want to get pulled in different directions. 

Focus on what you know about your mission. And so an example of this step in action might be a food insecurity nonprofit’s goal could be to advocate for increased funding for school meal programs to legislators, right? People who might be in an appropriations committee, also your state legislators, et cetera. That’s step one. 

Step two to building an advocacy program. Is to recruit and train volunteer staff, clients, community members, anybody who wants to help. So, step two is once you figure out your strategy, then you can engage people. Now, when you’re developing your strategy, you might engage a few leadership level volunteers in the conversation. 

Especially board members in what you want to do because the board should be apprised of any new advocacy efforts you’re launching. But when you’re in step two, you want to identify the right advocates. You’re looking for passionate supporters who are willing to engage in advocacy, but also are willing to learn. 

You’re the policies that they need to learn and learn the communications talking points. We don’t want people just kind of winging it because again, strength in numbers. You want to have a consistent message coming out of your advocates. And so we want to make sure you find people who are not only passionate, but agree with your strategy, agree with the policies you want to change or the practices or shifts you want to change. 

So, you’re not looking for everybody to be an advocate. Now, you can do sort of low-level lifts like share this social media post. That doesn’t necessarily mean small online actions. That doesn’t necessarily mean you need to find the right people. You could just ask people to share something, share content that you’ve already created. 

But If you’re getting a group of advocates together to do more than that, you need to make sure you’re choosing the right people and that they’re willing to take this on and work together as a team. You need to develop training programs as step two, uh, advocacy education, training on storytelling techniques and policy insights. 

You need to train people on policy and usually it’s a moving target. So things are changing. So, for example, with these, these executive orders in the last couple of weeks, things have changed. They’ve been rescinded. It’s, it’s a constantly moving target. So we’ve got to be able to keep our folks up and in the loop. 

And I’ll talk after the break about this organization and their framework for storytelling. It’s, and, and for messaging. Very good. Okay. Third thing is you want to, in step two, offer different levels of engagement. So again, some folks might provide, might be interested in just sharing things on social media and doing digital advocacy, writing letters online, while others might want to go with you to meet with legislators. 

And some might, if your organization’s interested in doing, attending or organizing demonstrations or other types of advocacy work. Listen to my previous podcast about all the different, the menu of things you could do, but you’ve got to decide and then figure out and, and provide that menu, whatever, whatever actions you decide you’re going to take as an organization and provide those options to your volunteers.  

An example of this might be a climate nonprofit trains volunteers to give public presentations on environmental policies that are impacting the local community. This is not super complicated, but it does take organization. Step three of this six step plan is to build your advocacy program by providing tools and resources. 

This is where you really want to work hand in hand, you want volunteer services and marketing and communications to work hand in hand, so creating advocacy toolkits which have key messages, frequently asked questions, social media templates, call scripts, whatever it is that you’re asking your advocates to do, you’ve got to give them The standard what’s what are the standard talking points, action alert and talking points clear up to date information. 

So when I worked for an advocacy organization on a weekly basis, we would get an email with a basically an action alert with talking points around each item. People you would help help your followers and your advocates really keep on top of the shifting thing. Perspective and strategy of the organization because again, it’s not it’s not a one and done thing because When you start to exert pressure, then a result happens. 

In this case, we had there was pressure exerted on the president’s executive order around federal funding, and that was called back due to some advocacy on the part of the National Council for Nonprofits, as well as a whole coalition of organizations. Pressure does work, and we’ve already seen it partially work anyway. 

And so, imagine what would happen if we had every community across the country that had any nonprofit in it. And, and, and all the community members, volunteers, board members, donors, advocating and writing letters. Imagine that tsunami wave of support for funding, continued funding, even maybe expanded funding. 

Why not? Right? It can be very powerful. Also tech platforms for communication. So you want to share this, you can share it via email, but I like two way communication that groups can. chat with one another, can share their wins, can encourage one another, can share any late breaking news, because it’s very hard to keep up with everything. 

So you can use Slack, you can use WhatsApp, you can use an email group, just set up an email group. So an example might be a disability rights non-profit provides volunteers with pre written letters to send to policy makers. It’s just that simple, right? Step four to building an advocacy program is to is engaging and mobilizing volunteers once they’re recruited and trained, you can host advocacy days, coordinating visits to legislators, or maybe there’s a local thing you need to work on like a city council meeting, there’s a local policy change you’d like to see happen. 

Organizing letter writing and petition drives, so making it easy for volunteers to take action, launching social media campaigns, and encouraging volunteers to amplify messages online, encouraging peer to peer advocacy, so volunteers can educate their communities and networks. Now again, these are only a few of the options. 

If you go back to the episode 149, I offer you a full on checklist, so go check that out. But decide for yourself what are the three or four or five strategies or tactics we’re going to use. And these are the things we’re going to create our communications around, and we’re going to make sure we’re, we’re sending that communications out via whatever communication platform. 

So an example of this step in action might be a non profit fighting homelessness organizes a digital campaign where volunteers share personal stories about housing insecurity. So, storytelling is very, very helpful, and we’ll talk a little bit about that after the break. Step five to building an advocacy program is to recognize and retain advocates. 

Like every type of volunteer involvement, it is important to celebrate wins and acknowledge when policies change or progress is made. And sometimes advocacy work takes years. It can take decades sometimes. And so we’ve got to be sort of vigilantly looking for small wins. anything and actions that we’ve taken.  

So we’re celebrating our, our actions. We’re also celebrating any small wins that any traction that we’re getting whatsoever, because sometimes it takes a while. And so we want to make sure we’re all acknowledging the work that everybody’s putting in. You also want to start to develop your leaders from within. 

So you want to invite your engaged advocates to mentor new volunteers in our. In, when I worked in advocacy, we would match a volunteer leader with no more than the number of people that they could remember their names. So that was sort of our guideline. Because people ask, how many people should a leader supervise or lead? 

Well, it depends on the experience level of the leader. And I always say, how many people’s names can you remember? And we’re going to give you a team of about that many people. And that keeps, makes it comfortable for everybody. So it’s a nice guideline to follow. You want to offer recognition and incentives. 

So certificates, shout outs, exclusive networking events to keep volunteers motivated. We did a day long training. for our volunteer advocates, and we invited guests to come speak and we did training. We provided, uh, breakfast and lunch, and we got support from our local community foundation to provide the food. 

You may think, well, we don’t have any budget to do any of this. Well, it could be a potluck. I, we used to do local organizing group meetings in person every month, and it was always a potluck. a volunteer to bring food for the next event, so, or the next month’s event, and we would just shift it around. This doesn’t have to be an expensive thing for support from local community foundations, even corporations that have similar interests as you, that have supported you in the past. 

For like, so an example might be an animal welfare nonprofit hosts a Saturday summit and awards event to educate and recognize advocates. And team wins and maybe the support came from a local corporation who provides, who sells pet supplies or pet care supplies. So it might be that you’re working with an organization, and they provide a little bit of money for the catering or for the rent on the space. Usually, you can find a space if you just talk, talk to enough people.  

But these are fantastic ways, events for advocates to get together, to feel more comfortable and confident with their talking points, and to even share stories. You can set up a storytelling booth at your event and have a video, have somebody with a phone taking videos and have people share their stories about why this means so much to them, this cause. 

And then you can start posting on social media, you can post them on your website. So there’s a lot of things you can do at these types of events. Step six and the final step. is to, in building an advocacy program, is to measure, impact, and adapt. We have to adapt, as I said. The reason advocacy, it’s, we should be seeing shifts, and hopefully towards the positive, right? 

But there’s a push and pull. We’re exerting pressure on a leader, whether it’s the president or legislators or local city council or whoever it is that that has a policy or is enacting a policy or making a funding shift that does not, that we don’t support, we have to exert pressure. That’s what advocacy is. 

So we have to get comfortable with this idea that we’re exerting pressure, and that pressure will create some changes. So, it requires us to be nimble and to pay attention to what changes are happening, right? And so, we want to track. some things and measure our impact as we’re going. So, volunteer engagement for sure. 

The number of actions taken, whether it’s calls, emails, social shares, etc. So, we want our volunteers tracking this and we want to show them and tell, share with them how we’re going to report that back to everybody. We want to monitor policy changes. So, our advocacy efforts, are they actually influencing decisions and behavior? 

So, that’s really important. We want to gather feedback from our volunteers to ask how they feel things are going in their perspective because if they don’t feel like anything’s changing, they’re going to start to drop off and not participate because no one wants to volunteer to not make change happen. 

If you ask volunteers, why do you volunteer? I volunteer to make a difference. Well, if a difference isn’t being made, then they’re going to stop volunteering, right? So we want to make sure. Some other things you can track, you can track media mentions. If you had media talk. And cover your stories or your events. 

When we did our summit, we also, when we would do events, we would also invite the media. And we’d make sure we had a backdrop of somewhere where we had some visual with our logo of our organization or our coalition or the name of the event. And then if media wanted to interview us, we would stand in front of that backdrop. 

So when you’re inviting the media, you’ve got to figure out who’s going to be speaking to the media. Okay. Where are they going to stand so that the visual is an impact, high impact visual, and it may not be a backdrop, it may be something else, but you’ve got to think these things ahead. And your marketing and communications folks should be able to help you with that. 

Events, even, you know, sending out press releases, submitting op eds to the paper, all those kinds of things can be very powerful. But we do need to make sure we’re measuring impact and adapting when we see change happening, because it may change your strategy. An example might be that a healthcare non profit tracks how many policymakers sign on to support a new, uh, bill due to the advocacy efforts of your team. 

So obviously that’s a big policy change like that. And actually if a bill is signed into law, obviously that’s a huge win. That doesn’t happen overnight and sometimes it doesn’t happen. And so we’ve got to continue to keep everybody’s eye on the prize and really like focused and also keep people’s morale up that we’re doing the right thing, right? 

You know, as, as Martin Luther King said, the arc of the moral universe is long and bends towards justice. I’m telling you, it takes a while sometimes. So, and we’re still working on civil rights. Hey, you know, we, it, but it takes everybody. If we all gave up, nothing would happen. There’s a much greater chance that something will happen if we work together. 

Let’s take a quick break from my discussion on how to build a community based advocacy program. As I said, I’ll talk about an advocacy framework for communications that you can check out and see if it works for you or make adjustments and see how you want to train your advocates so that they are positive ambassadors for you. So we’ll be right back.  

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Okay, we’re back with my tips on how to build a community based advocacy program. Let’s talk about this helpful communications framework for your advocacy program. There are three key elements to any effective advocacy program. a clear position and focus on whose mind you hope to change. So what is the position, what is the change you hope to bring about, and whose mind do you need to change? 

The second thing, a strategy for how you will get the word out and apply pressure for change. And the third thing is a group of well trained advocates that are well trained on the issue and how to communicate effectively about it. And so that’s what we’re going to talk about right now. Now, there is an organization I want to call out because they do this work so well. 

They’re called Results, and I know them because I’ve done some work with them. They are a non profit advocacy network of volunteers and staff that push for policies that dismantle poverty and inequality in the U. S. and globally. And I think they’re probably quite busy right now, especially when you think about the shutdown of international aid, it’s pretty disturbing. 

So I’m sure they’re really busy right now. They have fine tuned what they call an EPIC advocacy framework, E P I C, to offer their volunteer advocates a structured approach to crafting persuasive messages. in their advocacy work. The framework that they use, they use it in legislative advocacy, nonprofit communications, and just to make sure that their messages are clear, impactful, and drive action. 

And if you want to learn more, I’m going to post in the show notes a direct link to their results. org webpages to see how this how this experienced organization pulls off their advocacy work from the grassroots. Want to make sure you’re all able to look at a case study because they are experts in this, and they are very much grassroots to grass tops.  

So they want people speaking as advocates who have lived experience with poverty and also just people who are really care about the issue. And again, they do local and global. So I, I imagine that they are quite busy right now. around cuts to USAID or the shutdown of USAID, I don’t know what, where we’re at right now with that, but things change, who knows, by the time this airs, who knows where we’ll be at with things. 

And if you’re interested in volunteering, I know that they are always looking for volunteers, so that, if that’s a cause you care about, please, and if you’re an organization that works with poverty, I would reach out to them and see if you can get in coalition. Because, again, strength in numbers. All right, so let’s get into this communications, quickly, this communications framework. 

It’s just so focused. There’s more information on their website, but it’s, it’s EPIC stands for Engage, Problem, Inform. and call to action. So engage is capturing the attention with a compelling hook or personal connection. So when I was, I think I spoke about this last time when I was doing advocacy as a volunteer with a health advocacy, health care advocacy organization, I would start my story with my time as a student where in the summertime I didn’t have health care, I didn’t have health insurance, and so I didn’t get health care. 

And During that summer I got a kidney infection. I didn’t know it was a kidney infection, but I started getting very sick. I had very high fever. My back was killing me, and I was in bed for multiple days. At some point, I just decided I better go to a doctor and suck it up and just pay the money. And when I got to the doctor, they gave me some antibiotics, but they also said it’s probably too far gone and you may have to go to the the hospital. 

So if this doesn’t work within a day, you’re not seeing a reduction, you’re going to need to go to the hospital. I ended up needing to go to the hospital. So I went to, I was at University of Washington, so I went to their hospital, had a friend drop me off, and they checked me in. And after a couple days, I felt better and I could go home. 

I was very dehydrated, so they had to rehydrate me and pump me full of antibiotics. And in the end, the hospital bill was about 10, 000. Now, this was Ooh, many years ago, many, like 40, 40 years ago, 35 to 40 years ago, it was an expensive hospital stay. I was able to get some Medicaid to cover it. I was also, my grandmother also stepped up and paid for some of it. 

But none of that, I, it made me feel bad that I was taking money that could go to other people and that my grandmother was having to help me out. And all I needed was a 5. 00. bottle of antibiotic. And if I would have had health insurance, I would have gone to the doctor right away, I would have gotten that 5 bottle of antibiotics, and I would have been A OK. 

I never would have been in the hospital, never would have had all of that resource that I had to use to get better. I would tell that story at house parties, or when I was out and about, or when we were meeting with, I remember we had a breakfast with a local legislator, well, state legislator in our area, a federal representative from the House of Representatives. 

And we were making this case like, look, and this was when the Affordable Care Act was being considered in Congress. So my time sharing the story was sharing the story as an adult about when I was in college. And that engaged part of this communications framework is so important for us to figure out and share why this cause matters to us. 

My story had a lesson, and it was an economic lesson. Uncompensated care makes our health insurance go up as well. So, when people go to the health insurance or go to the emergency room and don’t have health insurance, then the hospital needs to pick up that cost and it ends up affecting people who are insured, what they’re paying in their premiums because the money must come from somewhere. 

We would talk about that when I share that story. So, engaging in the epic step by step is really key because you’ve got to capture people’s attention. And we do so through storytelling, but it’s not just any story. It’s, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be a personal story, although personal stories are the most powerful. 

The second step is problem. So clearly define the issue or challenge that needs to be addressed. And this can’t be 25 sentences long. It’s got to be only a couple of sentences, and we have to be very, very focused. This is why we need to have specific messaging written and we need to train our volunteers in it. 

Inform is providing some key facts, evidence, or data. So problem is, hey, this is the problem we’re trying to get solved. Inform is, here’s some evidence why we think this is a problem. And then C of EPIC is the call to action. So what is it we want them to do? What’s the action or policy change? There’s no point in having a conversation when we’re an advocate without making an ask. 

And ask always has to be made. So whether it’s, we’re educating the community and we’re asking them to step up and contact their legislators, or we’re asking them to, sometimes it’s like, hey, we’re asking you to start recycling, whatever it is, right? So here’s how, given our current context, I thought I would share. 

An epic framework for advocating for continued federal funding for non profit organizations that is tailored to speaking with lawmakers. So I’m going to read this. You can cut and paste it from the transcript. You might have to do a little bit of, sometimes our transcripts aren’t exactly. There’s a few typos here and there, but if you want to use this, feel free. 

It will be in the transcript at the bottom of the show notes page, okay? But I’m just going to read it out loud so that you can see how the EPIC framework can play out, okay? So here’s how it goes. Engaging. So we’re capturing the, the attention with a compelling story or facts. Okay, so non profits in your district provide essential services, helping families put food on the table, offering disaster relief, and supporting workforce development. 

They’re not just service providers, they are economic drivers employing millions and strengthening communities. And so this is sort of an overview of. What the economic value of nonprofits in the community. I would add to this Also, I am an advocate for this nonprofit. I’m a volunteer. I’m a board member. 

I’m a donor I’m a client and this is why I support this this particular nonprofit that contributes to this larger Economic space so you would want to add a little bit more to that When you define the part the issue clearly the problem step Two is federal funding for nonprofits is a critical investment, not a handout. 

However, proposed budget cuts threaten the stability of organizations that directly serve your constituents. Without continued federal support, many will be forced to reduce services or shut down, leaving vulnerable populations without essential aid. And so here’s where you might. Speak exactly to how that investment has helped your organization specifically. 

So these are general, you might add a sentence though and specify for your organization. So the third step is inform, provide key facts and data. Nonprofits generate 1. 5 trillion annually, employing 13 million Americans, many in your own district. We’re speaking to a federal legislator, who, a congressperson, who, who has constituents, voters, and these numbers are accurate. 1. 5 trillion annually in the U. S. employing over 13 million Americans. Here’s another accurate stat if you want to use it.  

Non-profits account for 10 percent of private sector employment. In other words, one out of every 10 workers is a non-profit employee. And you can check Bureau of Labor Statistics. These numbers come from them. You can always leave, when you leave these meetings, leave with a fact sheet with links. Federal funds support programs in education, healthcare, housing, and workforce development directly benefiting your constituents. You might add a sentence here about your own, stats about your own organization, how many people you’ve served, some impact, what the, what has been the impact of your work. 

A reduction or cessation of fund federal funding or funding in general could force thousands of nonprofits to scale back, increasing demand for government services and costing taxpayers more in the long run. So this is a really great point to make around the safety net. So if people can’t get help from us, they’re going to have to get help from somewhere else. 

And this could impact all kinds of areas could impact law enforcement, for example, could impact more people asking for funding from the federal government for health care, for example, all kinds of things. So who else would pick up the tab if you weren’t able to help the people that you help? So those key facts and data, especially. 

Choose the ones, don’t overwhelm people with data, but choose the data that specifically makes the case for the thing you are advocating for. You’re not advocating for three different things. You want to advocate for one thing, right? And then the call to action, specify what lawmakers should do. We urge you to champion continued federal funding for nonprofits and increase it in the upcoming budget. 

Supporting these organizations ensures cost effective service delivery, job retention, and stronger communities. Please commit to protecting non profit funding and advocate for its inclusion in future appropriations. Your leadership will make a direct impact on the lives of those you serve. The other So your call to action has to be one thing. 

What do you want them to do? And based on, you kind of have to follow where we’re at with things. Because again, whatever action you want them to take, it’s a moving target. So when you have these meetings with legislators or you’re writing, doing a writing, letter writing or petition, you’ve got to figure out what is the most impactful thing they could do. 

On behalf of your cause, on behalf of the thing you’re asking them to do, right? There might be an upcoming budget appropriation. It might be we urge you to urge President Trump to open up funding so that we can continue to pay our employees. and offer the pass through funding that we offer other nonprofits in our community and that we do not, are not forced to cut off services to those we, we want to serve. 

So that might be the specific ask. Really important that it’s very focused and that you’re providing key facts and data, that you’re providing a story that makes sense. And I think nonprofit workers are one out of every 10. in our economy. And if non profit workers are laid off, we are going to see an increase in unemployment rates. 

And that is not good for the economy either. And we’re going to see a community that’s unable to wield its purchasing power with companies and, and businesses in our communities. If they are not working, they will not be able to buy as many groceries. There’s just like a cascade effect, right? But you’ve got to have data and We’re not going to shout at people, that’s not, we’re not having these meetings to shout at people, we’re not having these meetings to have drama, we’re having these meetings to educate how the, this policy is impacting our organization and, and more importantly our communities, which could be our clients, our employees, our partnering organizations. 

And so you see what I’m saying, we’re focusing on community centric communications. So I’ve talked a lot about advocacy in the past three episodes. I dedicated these, this series to advocacy because I think it’s so important for us to not live in fear, to take action. Steps. And if you’re living in a country where it’s funding isn’t in a crisis, it might be at some point. 

And so this is a proactive, you know, we don’t do that. We shouldn’t be doing advocacy only when there’s a crisis. It should be an ongoing. part, and maybe we’re not doing it as often or we don’t have as much going on when we’re not in crisis, but it should be part of the cadence of our work in nonprofit organizations. 

Because if no one, if we’re not advocating for ourselves, no one else will. And so I think the lesson here is that this is something that is part and parcel of what we do, whether we’re a quote unquote advocacy organization, and that is our mission, or we’re a direct service organization, or we’re an arts and culture organization. 

I can tell you about arts and culture, from a personal story, when I went to graduate school, And I know a lot of us graduate students who are going into sciences are really worried right now if they’re going to be able to have a career when they’re done. Or folks who are in graduate school, who are about to go to graduate school. 

I know a family member who’s going to graduate school and studying sciences in sustainability. She’s a little worried about whether she’s going to have a job. When I was in graduate school, I went to graduate school for modern art history, theory, and criticism. And you may be wondering, what the heck? 

How did you get into volunteerism? Well, when I was done, President Reagan was the president at that time, and they basically cut massive amounts of funding from the National Endowment for the Arts at that time. This was in the early 90s. And repeated presidencies, repeated legislative cuts to the arts, and by the time I graduated college, there was no funding. 

So to find an ongoing job in the arts community was nearly impossible. I found one job with a graduate degree from the School of the Art Institute, which is a very well known and very reputable educational institution when it comes to the arts was nearly impossible. I found one job that lasted me about six months. 

It was a project based job. After that, I started working for a construction company because I could not find a job. So I know firsthand what happens when the federal government cuts funding for all of this important work. We are the safety net. This isn’t a handout. We are a sector that contributes to economic development. 

We employ one out of 10 workers in the U. S. We are we help people transform their lives and get back to whatever business they want to take care of in their lives. We are the safety net when the government cannot or will not step in. We are the advocate for people who do not have voices. We are. The sustainability and capacity builder in many of our communities so that the local economies can thrive. 

There’s so many things we do. We create better lives for people. And so we should not be hesitant about going forth and educating people on the incredible power of the nonprofit sector. And so I’m going to leave it with that. I’m very passionate about this. I’ve been in this business for a long time. 

I’ve seen the ups and downs. I’ve seen how it’s impacted me personally and others. I know you are probably if you’re in the US you are probably highly concerned at this point Set take action. Don’t let people roll you over Don’t let people bully you take action because if you don’t No one else will. 

And so it’s time to mobilize the people that love what we do and get them to speak and walk with us in service to the people that we serve. All right, everybody. So I hope this has been inspirational. If you think it could help somebody else, please share this entire series. Episodes 148, 149, and this episode 150. 

This is a lot of basically free training on advocacy, and I hope it really helps you build confidence. We’ll be here next week, same time, same place, on The Volunteer Nation, and happy advocating, everybody. Take care.