Nonprofit Power Podcast Kath Patrick

Almost every aspect of a nonprofit's work is touched by public policy in some way. And sometimes we come to the realization that the way to achieve a particular goal or to solve a particular problem is that we need a new or different public policy around that. But here's the thing. The landscape is littered with well-intentioned policy that did not succeed at doing what it was intended to do. Because the language was not crafted in such a way as to generate the desired result. Sometimes ...

As advocates and leaders, a big part of our job is to successfully engage both decisionmakers and members of our own teams to join us in pursuit of a goal. And when we’re at our most effective, we can feel that we’re operating from a place of strength and assuredness and confidence that others can feel and respond to. But sometimes events happen that can undercut all of that in an instant. We get pulled into reactive emotions, and suddenly we’re no longer operating from that place ...

Even when you've figured out the most effective messaging in the world, sharing that with the rest of your team and helping them to use it to produce the results you want can be a huge challenge. What definitely does not work is to simply provide all those talking points and say, here's everything in our messaging that works. Go do it. That's valuable information to have, but it is not enough. You may already have in your head all the details about when and where and how to most effectiv...

Tell me if this sounds familiar. You've identified what you want from a decision maker and you're ready to make your case. You got your facts all lined up. Your logic flow is great. You’ve got your slide deck and your one-pager all set. Your infographics are brilliant. And then you lay it all out for the decision maker. And it falls flat. They don't buy what you're selling. They don't engage. Maybe they don't even fully pay attention to your whole pitch. And you're left wondering what t...

If your nonprofit receives any sort of program-specific federal funding, you are likely subject to at least three levels of decision-making about that money and possibly more. If you don’t know exactly what the decision-making process looks like at all three levels – and how to influence it – you could be at risk of losing funding or having adverse decisions made about your funding without your knowledge or input. Here’s a case where knowledge really is power. In this episode, we ...

The right wing is generating and amplifying a lot of fear-based, demonizing messaging that is driving polarization. And for many of the purveyors of this messaging, polarization is part of the point. It's one of the strategic objectives. It can be very tempting as a nonprofit leader to say that doesn't have anything to do with us. We're a nonpartisan organization, that's all political stuff and it doesn't affect us. But the fact is it does affect all of us in a number of significant ways. And...