Everyone Needs ‘Skin in the Game’: Early Findings From an Advocacy Study

Nonprofits that are trying to learn how to be smarter advocates will get some crucial insights this month, when Independent Sector, a coalition of charities and foundations, plans to release a major study that will highlight the ingredients that make for successful advocacy campaigns.

Prepared with money from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the study, in the works for almost a year, examined a variety of nonprofit and corporate advocacy and lobbying efforts, for both liberal and conservative causes, as well as other research on the issue.

The results are still being analyzed, but Diana Aviv, Independent Sector’s chief executive, offered a preview of some of its findings.

She says the researchers found that successful advocacy efforts include the following elements:

• A clear vision that is shared by everyone involved. “If every other organization is going to Congress and offering a different shade of gray, lawmakers end up thoroughly confused.”
• Strong leadership, which could mean an individual working either publicly or behind the scenes, Ms. Aviv says. But it could also mean carefully crafting a message so that “the campaign becomes the face,” rather than any particular leader.
• At least one “backbone organization” that takes responsibility in a coalition for keeping the momentum going, sharing information, and overseeing the finances. But all coalition members should put some “skin in the game”—which means sending senior, not junior, staff members to meetings and exchanging information.
• An in-depth understanding of lawmakers’ priorities and ways that the advocates can help them, for example, by providing research on their pet issues. “Numerous times we were told by people on the Hill that all too often people come to tell us what their need is, they never come to tell us how they think they can help us meet our needs.”

No matter how savvy a group or coalition is, however, its ability to “move the needle” will be affected by factors beyond its control, Ms. Aviv says—for example, which political parties control Congress or the White House.

“One of the surprises for us is how difficult it was to find a coalition that on a sustained basis, year in and year out, with different issues, continues to be successful,” she says.