Jewish Women’s Fund of Atlanta – Creative Solutions & Innovations, Inc.

Strategic advocacy communication is key to my journey!

“Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world…would do this, it would change the earth.” ― William Faulkner

I am not afraid to raise my voice for honesty, truth, and compassion. I am committed, passionate and motivated when I advocate for change. Strategic advocacy communication is key to my journey!

What is advocacy?

According to Joyce Johnson, writing for Learning to Give, advocacy means to speak up, to plead the case of another, or to fight for a cause. Advocacy, she writes, describes a wide range of expressions, actions, and activities that seek to influence outcomes directly affecting the lives of the people served by the organization. Johnson further states:

“Reduced to its most basic level, effective nonprofit advocacy is about communication and relationships.“

An effective advocate influences key decision makers. This happens by moving them from understanding and empathy to action. Relationships and strategic advocacy communication underlie this movement.

Strategic advocacy communication is key to my journey!

“If you don’t know where you’re going, it doesn’t matter which way you go!” The Cheshire cat in alice in Wonderland

A plan integrates all an organization’s programs, public education, and advocacy efforts. A long-term strategy positions an organization to be more proactive and strategic, rather than consistently reacting to the existing environment.

I am a firm believer in creating a strategic marketing communications plan. Your plan ensures your organization communicates effectively and meets your organizational goals and objectives.

Elements of an effective strategic marketing communications plan:

Goals and Objectives
Target Audience
Strategies
Tactics to Engage Target Audiences
Create targeted messages
Choose channels to deliver messages
Roles and Responsibilities
Work plan
Budget
Evaluation

Communications Matters created a model designed to help communication practitioners and their colleagues build a common language and a shared understanding of the role that social change communication plays in advancing lasting social change. This communications model is built around four central pillars: brand, culture, strategy, and action.

Brand – Every social change organization, no matter its size or purpose, has three key assets that shape its identity: resources, reputation, and relationships.
Culture – Communicating organizations cultivate certain qualities that make their work compelling to others. You may not have all in equal measure, but you need a minimum supply of each to succeed.
Strategy – Successful organizations are consistently strategic (deliberate and intentional) about their communication choices, weighing several distinct, yet related, variables before they act.
Action – Communicating should never be a one-way activity. Success demands a continuous, virtuous, self-correcting cycle of sending and receiving, plus the ability to cede control.

Social Media for advocacy:

AAUW, empowering women since 1881, suggests these 6 steps to social media for advocacy:

Set your goals. Is your goal narrow (publicizing an event) or broad (building and engaging with a community or coalition)?
Identify your target audiences.
Select the social media platforms you plan to use. Make your choice based on your goals and target audiences. The most well-known are Facebook and Twitter.
Gather resources and materials to create content and share.
Find volunteers to help manage social platforms.
Be sure and integrate into your marketing communications plan.

Blending traditional and new media for advocacy:

The POST Method, developed by Forrester Research, provides a framework for blending traditional and new media. It is really simple, yet profound in that it provides a user-friendly system for using traditional and emerging communications channels. The acronym refers to the four-step approach:

P is People

Don’t start a social strategy until you know the capabilities of your audience. If you’re targeting college students, use social networks. If you’re reaching out to business travelers, consider ratings and reviews. Forrester has great data to help with this, but you can make some estimates on your own. Just don’t start without thinking about it.

O is Objectives

Pick one. Are you starting an application to listen to your customers, or to talk with them? To support them, or to energize your best customers to evangelize others? Or are you trying to collaborate with them? Decide on your objective before you decide on a technology. Then figure out how you will measure it.

S is Strategy

Strategy means figuring out what will be different after you’re done. Do you want a closer, two-way relationship with your best customers? Do you want to get people talking about your products? Do you want a permanent focus group for testing product ideas and generating new ones? Imagine you succeed. How will things be different afterward? Imagine the endpoint and you’ll know where to begin.

T is Technology

A community. A wiki. A blog or a hundred blogs. Once you know your people, objectives, and strategy, then you can decide with confidence.

Strategic advocacy communication is key to my journey with The Jewish Women’s Fund of Atlanta. We expand opportunities in the lives of Jewish women and girls via effective grant-making, advocacy, and education through a gender lens. As co-chair of the education and advocacy committee, strategic advocacy communication is the framework I use to move decision makers from understanding and empathy to action.

Do you engage in advocacy? I’d love to know if you have any suggestions for best practices with strategic advocacy communications.

Please let us hear from you!

Learning the Importance of Social Change Indicators

Learning 5 Indicators of Social Change

Social change is more than a buzz word! Social change alters the social order of a society through changes in the nature of its social institutions, social behaviors and social relations.

Proponents of social change focus on underlying causes of critical social problems such as homelessness, discrimination and poverty. Organizations develop processes to address the causes of these issues to foster justice and equality.

Social justice initiatives take place on a local community level or become social movements on a grander scale such as Women’s suffrage and the Civil Rights Movement. A specific social movement is usually composed of many social movement organizations – formal organizations that share movement’s goals.

Social change philanthropy focuses on the root causes of problems, working to improve conditions that lead to inequality. This approach is unlike traditional charity, which works to ameliorate the symptoms of societal problems.

Social indicators provide evidence that helps us assess whether or not an organization is focused on social change. These indicators may be material, such as numbers related to economic growth and/or immaterial, such as values or goals. They are forms of evidence that help us assess a present position and future directions.

I am a trustee with the Jewish Women’s Fund of Atlanta. We expand opportunities in the lives of Jewish women and girls via effective grant-making, advocacy, and education through a gender lens. Our grants provide sustainable benefits to those we serve. We look to our grantees to focus on solutions to underlying critical social problems that effect Jewish women and girls.

We were introduced to the importance of five indicators for Social Change, developed by the Women’s Funding Network. They help us discern if our grants are going toward social change. In turn these five social change indicators help organizations substantiate their efforts to create awareness and transform community through social change.

Learning 5 Indicators of Social Change:

Make New Meaning

Shift definitions – An issue or idea is given new meaning. A community or society sees the issue differently. For example, rape is understood as an act of violence with legal and civil consequences, not as an act of sexual transgression.

Empower Different Behavior

Shift behavior – An individual and/or community does things differently and for the better. This creates empowerment. For example, women seek appropriate healthcare for themselves and their families.

Life Up Collective Power

Shift engagement – More people are engaged in an idea of action. When enough people get involved they are noticed, their voices are heard and they create impact.

Ensure Just Policy

Shift policy – Policies and practices change to better serve social change ideas.

Hold the Line

Maintain gains – Work to not lose ground from previous endeavors. For example, funding for breast cancer research is saved from budget cuts.

Learning 5 indicators of social change guide donors as they work to create significant changes in social order. And, they provide guidelines for organizations to identify and explain their significant social change work.

I would love to hear your thoughts!

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