Government Relations for Nonprofits 101
By Puneet Luthra, Principal, PSL Consulting
Follow-up blog post for June 11 webinar
CCVO Capacity Building webinars offer participants the opportunity to submit questions to the presenter, for consideration to include in a follow-up blog post. Webinars are pre-recorded, however, participants are encouraged to ask questions via the comment box. Please note that speakers address questions submitted up to three days after the webinar launch date.
Thank you to the listeners of the recent webinar “Government Relations for Nonprofits 101”. Below is the presenter’s response to a question from one of the webinar attendees.
Question from attendee:
How do you lobby for a movement? A lot of people are lobbying for curriculum change that reflects diversity. How can you as a citizen, organization, lobby for a movement from a government relations perspective?
Response from presenter:
As many will be able to tell from the webinar, I am firm believer in the power of government relations to affect change and influence policy. Although many people believe government relations only means lobbying government representatives to compel them to take a particular course of action, organizations that have been effective with their government relations strategies have utilized more than lobbying. In fact, I would say that to truly tap into the power of government relations to influence any sort of change, organizations will be well-served to focus on three key tactics:
collection and communication of internal data,
identification of champions, and
avoid using government relations as a “campaign”.
Collection and communication of internal data
Good public policy is built on good data, and many nonprofits sit on piles of information that is useful to the government – and it’s often willing to pay for it, too. The issue, however, is often with the limited capacity of many nonprofits – namely the smaller ones – to make sense of what the data they have is telling them. In my experience, data mining does not have to be a burdensome task, and rather, can be done in a simple and practical manner. For example, I have kept summer students and interns busy over the course of an entire summer by assigning them data mining projects where they build profiles of the organization’s clients by breaking the data down by age, province, gender, employment status, and other characteristics. Of course, the handling of such data will require consideration of any privacy laws and guidelines that will have to be followed to ensure individual privacy and confidentiality are respected.
Although mining the data held by your nonprofit is critical, it will not be useful unless it is shared with government. Can you organize the data in a monthly or quarterly report back to government through your newsletter, website or by email? Can the mined data be used within a policy proposal for an issue that the government has been trying to address with little effect? In the end, the data your nonprofit provides to government officials will not only help them better understand the issues within your sector and develop policies that are evidence-based – it will also position your nonprofit as a leader in the space, and the go-to organization for the government to consult when additional information may be required.
Identification of champions
Whether your organization is a charity, association, or other type of nonprofit, having a few individuals in government who can and are willing to advance your cause is critical. Although it is an easy task to identify your elected representative, and to invite her to serve as your champion in government, she may not necessarily be the most appropriate champion if she does not have a connection to your cause. Perhaps there is an MLA who has a personal connection to your efforts or has donated/supported your organization in the past. In my own experience working with a client who served individuals with pulmonary fibrosis, we connected with an MLA whose uncle had this disease and who was very willing to support our efforts at the legislature. In another example, one of my colleagues mentioned in passing that he was a volunteer with his local city counsellor’s office. It will be these types of relationships that can help move a stalled policy proposal forward and regain any lost advocacy momentum.
Having champions in government to advance in your cause is one thing, but how do you find them? Again, this does not have to be complicated. Perhaps a board member has relationships with government representatives that he has not mentioned. Or a staff member’s partner works in government and in a ministry/department in which your issue “lives”. In my own experience, a colleague of mine once mentioned her former partner was a director in a key government ministry. After being introduced to him and having the chance to explain the work of our nonprofit, we were asked to submit a proposal for funding. Although that is a best-case scenario, this would not have happened had there not been an attempt to identify who in the organization knows someone in government who could be of assistance and serve as a champion of the cause.
Government relations is not a “campaign”
Whether it be to affect change, influence policy or to secure government funding, the success of your government relations activities will be dependent upon them being treated as a core function of your organization, rather than as a campaign with start and end date.
Although many organizations will make the decision to hold a lobby day or a legislative reception once a year to meet as many elected and unelected officials as possible, the organizations that are most successful at engaging with government are those that keep the lines of communication with their government contacts open throughout the course of the year. This will include attending government consultations, appearing before parliamentary committees, hosting government officials on tours of the nonprofit’s facility, and sharing data and the reports coming out of that data.
Government relations should be treated like any other relationship – you will get out of it what you put into it. So, if your nonprofit is engaging with government in a consistent manner, and is sharing information that can assist government in developing good public policy that meets their mandate as well as yours, the relationship between your organization and government will be that much stronger and effective.
Government Relations for Nonprofits 101 is a CCVO Capacity Building webinar. These webinars cover topics of interest to nonprofit professionals, and will include presentations on public policy, leadership, human resources, and technology - all at no cost. Listen in to learn, and build your capacity in the areas you’d like to know more about in order to be more effective in your job, for your clients, and the community. Upcoming webinar topics are listed below, and more topics will be added. Please visit the CCVO website for more information and registration details.
Questions about CCVO webinars? Please contact programs@calgarycvo.org.