Building the Advocacy Infrastructure to Win Equity Victories for Children and Families
Executive Summary
Advancing a strong equity agenda for this country’s children and families, especially for people of color, will always require a strong infrastructure to press for the solutions that communities need to thrive. Three elements are especially important: listening to community voices, advancing their solutions, and positioning community members as leaders throughout the campaign, including with policymakers. They require extra attention and resources from both advocates and funders.
Elements of an advocacy campaign infrastructure to promote equity include:
A. Time to think, develop new ideas, and plan
B. Space to create a joint agenda
C. Time to examine all the strategy options and choose a direction
D. Capacity to organize and mobilize stakeholders, especially community leaders
E. Campaign decision making and implementation structure
F. Message development and communications
G. Data research, analysis, and translation
H. Professional and organizational development
I. Candidate education and voter engagement
J. Flexible, responsive, and sustained funding, including the option to lobby
K. True funder partnerships
Policy change is hard—and even harder is winning campaigns that put local leaders front and center, and that enact policies that support communities that have traditionally held less power. But it’s the only way to address the systemic problems that funders and advocates want to solve. Staying on the sidelines is no longer an option in order to create an equitable society that supports children and families to thrive.
Whatever the outcome of future elections, one thing is clear: Advancing a strong equity agenda for this country’s children and families, especially for people of color, will still—always—require a strong infrastructure to press for the solutions that communities need to thrive. Electing a president, building a skyscraper, or running a school system are complicated endeavors that require structure and creativity, specialists and generalists. All of these complex functions have an infrastructure that supplies these roles.
Achieving policy changes is equally complex and also requires significant infrastructure to enable advocates to inform and influence decisions. Elements of this infrastructure include the ability to organize, a decision-making structure, a created sense of unity, communications capacity, the ability to find and create new data, access to sufficient, sustained and flexible funding, etc. Factions with power, such as large businesses or formal systems, have these elements in place, but not those advocating for policies that address inequities by engaging communities that traditionally have less power. Three elements are especially important: listening to community voices, advancing their solutions, and positioning community members as leaders throughout the campaign, including with policymakers. These practices are not the norm, so they require extra attention and resources from both advocates and funders.
In particular, a campaign focused on equity, and especially racial equity, needs to do its own work to embed a deep understanding of and principles for equity in organizations and individuals. This is a long and profound process. While it is beyond the scope of this paper to describe that process fully, the concept is woven throughout the elements below.
Over the past few years, more foundations have realized the need to fund policy advocacy in order to address societal inequities. Funding direct services, technological innovations or small-scale pilots isn’t enough. Fixing systemic inequities requires winning major, long-term changes. This means building the capacity to go toe-to-toe with entrenched interests for the long term. Foundations that truly want to address root causes of inequity need to contribute to comprehensive infrastructure that can support sophisticated, flexible, powerful advocacy. Fortunately, there is a role in policy advocacy for foundations of diverse sizes, interests and tolerance for risk, and many places to start.
This report outlines the major elements of an advocacy infrastructure that leaders at the local, state, or national levels need in order to mount comprehensive, sustained campaigns for equity. It calls on funders to support this capacity in their issue and geographic target portfolios. What’s most important is giving grantees flexible, sustained funding—enabling them to take action now, while also allowing them time to plan, build trust, coordinate, and align different elements.
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A. Time to think, develop new ideas, and plan
Developing new solutions takes breathing space. Envisioning broad changes that address systemic causes of inequity is not a quick process. In particular, generating ideas based on the community experience, not only professional expertise, takes time. It takes more time to develop an understanding of racial equity, embed relevant principles into campaigns, and generate solutions out of that frame.
Many groups are thinking about how to leverage the double pandemic of COVID and a national racial reckoning to build better policies and systems. The Meyer Foundation recently created the Fund for Black-led Change, to provide resources to “Black-led movements as they organize, transform power, and demand, reimagine and recreate our systems.” It will support needs such as “convening and conferencing; leadership development, operations, communications and other core functions, healing and wellness; constituent organizing, base-building, political education, and advocacy training.” The Alliance for Early Success just released a new policy roadmap for transforming child care after the pandemic that would give every child the opportunity to succeed. They created the opportunity and gave their grantees flexibility to participate in a national collaborative process, with input from many state and community leaders, to develop an ambitious plan.
B. Space to create a joint agenda
No policy is the result of one individual or group—every major advance includes people with slightly different priorities working in coalition. Environmental initiatives may include groups whose primary mission is animals, forests, air, or water. At the same time, a broad coalition needs to agree on a specific objective at a given time. Legislative bodies can’t consider every request at once, so the coalition needs to decide which priorities go forward in any given year.
Advocates need to understand the equity implications of their specific asks, especially if they need to make compromises. It’s vital for leaders to have the time and space to agree on both the broader objectives and the specific target for a given campaign. They also need time to build trust so that disparate groups can see themselves in the vision. A group whose primary objective is not the current legislative target may need to trust that its time will come.
“It’s vital for leaders to have the time and space to agree on both the broader objectives and the specific target for a given campaign. They also need time to build trust so that disparate groups can see themselves in the vision.”
For example, the Universal Preschool Now! Coalition in Oregon merged two separate campaigns and organized more than 120 diverse organizations (including some from completely outside the children’s sector), winning a sweeping pre-K measure that also includes support for infants and toddlers. ZERO TO THREE’s Think Babies Campaign supports Rhode Island KIDS COUNT and the Right from the Start Campaign, which combined previously separate advocacy efforts on paid family leave, child care, pre-K, home visiting, and doula services into a unified early childhood policy campaign.
Recently the American Heart Association’s Voices for Healthy Kids initiative expanded its advocacy scope to include not only expected issues such as nutrition but also child care. The Alaska Children’s Trust combined forces with other organizations to win a joint ballot initiative creating a local alcohol tax dedicated to supporting first responders; preventing child abuse, domestic violence, and sexual assault: and preventing and treating substance misuse and mental health. Family Friendly Action is advocating for a combined care agenda that includes children, elders, and people with disabilities.
C. Time to examine all the strategy options and choose a direction
Who needs to say “yes” to win a victory? A given policy objective might be achieved through legislative, executive, and/or judicial actions. Maybe an intransigent legislature means the best course is a ballot initiative. What is the role of the private sector or personal actions? Is the main target at the local, state, or national levels? A “campaign” can mean anything from generating a huge public outcry to using quiet persuasion with a few individuals. The campaign needs time and space to do a “power mapping” (deciding who needs to say yes and how to reach them), look at all the options, and choose a strategy—as well as room to adjust.
D. Capacity to organize and mobilize stakeholders, especially community leaders
Policy makers need to hear from constituents with direct experience with the policy being debated: parents, students, businesspeople, service providers. While people with means have traditionally had access to policy makers, campaigns need the resources to build an agenda based on community voices and get those voices in front of decision makers. In an article in Medium, Susan Sandler notes that her foundation is prioritizing “power over persuasion”: “When our government, corporate, and other societal institutions are responsive to—and, frankly, fearful of—the people who most bear the brunt of inequality and injustice, then better priorities, practices, and policies follow.” These powerful community coalitions are vital not only to enacting policies but also ensuring that implementation fulfills the promise.
It’s often easier and less resource intensive to reach people with organizations, computers, smart phones, cars, child care, and more leisure time. Building a policy agenda that incorporates lived experiences and organizing spokespeople with more complicated lives and supporting them to speak out is simply more labor-intensive and needs to be funded accordingly.
The Under 3 DC Campaign in the District of Columbia requires that every meeting with policy-makers include a community resident of color—no easy scheduling task. The Coalition pays for expenses (travel, meals, translation, child care) necessary for the community member to participate. In 2020, Parent Voices Oakland led a successful campaign to win child care funding in Alameda, California, where parents were the dominant decision makers, organizers, and advocacy voices. As with many organizations, at Organizers in the Land of Enchantment (OLÉ) New Mexico, community members—not staff or board members—are the ones who vote on candidate endorsements.
Another time-consuming aspect of building coalitions is bringing together not only the usual allies, but the “unusual bedfellows” whose joint messages can garner even more attention and neutralize opponents. While community leaders need to be front and center, it is still useful and often necessary for civic leaders to apply the influence of unexpected messengers. Council for a Strong America mobilizes an array of such “grasstops” messengers from law enforcement, business, the military, faith communities, and sports to advocate for investments in kids.
E. Campaign decision making and implementation structure
Organizing any complex initiative to accomplish a goal requires a decision-making structure with clear lines of responsibility. This structure must include support for widespread input; in particular, it must provide positions of authority for those with significant lived experiences and traditionally less power. It also needs clear lines of responsibility and the ability to make decisions, sometimes on very short timelines and in chaotic circumstances. The decision leaders need to ensure that the different elements function together. (For example, the research capacity should look for information to answer questions the advocates are hearing. The communications function needs to get agreement on a messaging strategy and must also be able to manage quick actions in response to the never-ending stream of good and bad news.)
The decision-making structure also needs to manage fundraising, budgeting, and staffing. In addition to a broad coalition, the Under 3 DC Campaign has a decision-making leadership committee, a majority of whose members must come from organizations led by people of color.
“The decision-making structure must include support for widespread input, and in particular must provide positions of authority for those with significant lived experiences and traditionally less power. It also needs to include clear lines of responsibility and the ability to make decisions, sometimes on very short timelines and in high-pressure circumstances.”
F. Message development and communications
A key element of the infrastructure is a comprehensive communications capacity that starts broadly and includes the smallest details. It needs to develop the overall themes, including equity, messages for each audience, and the actions to convey the messages. It takes time to coordinate everything from innovative social media campaigns to fast-response tweets to op-eds to radio call-ins. The campaign needs to build a database of supporters and reach them with critical alerts that will cut through all the other messages and compel action. It needs to identify the most compelling facts, which may be buried in the literature, and polish them to a shine. And it needs sophisticated graphics to gain attention on social and traditional media. To do this, staff skills need to include creativity, understanding of the community, and technical savvy.
One of the Colorado Children’s Campaign’s tactics is an extensive podcast series, “The West Steps,” to inform “outsiders” on how state laws relating to kids are made and pique their interest in getting involved. The American Heart Association provides a variety of communications materials in its Voices for Healthy Kids campaign toolkits – for example, here is a “message wheel” showing key themes on safe water in schools.
G. Data research, analysis, and translation
While stories are always powerful, there is still a need for quantitative data analysis to communicate with policymakers in compelling terms, especially when fighting for major changes and big dollars. The types of data include the scope of the problem, the impact of the proposed solution, the cost of action, the cost of inaction, and possible funding sources. It’s especially important to collect data based on race, ethnicity, and other important equity characteristics. While many advocates are very knowledgeable about policy options, some are less experienced in fiscal analysis, which is critical in working with the budget process.
It’s important to have the time to build appropriate bridges between advocates and researchers. While advocacy goals should never determine research results, they should inform research questions, in order to address decision makers’ uncertainties. Research experts can also help ensure that advocates use solid arguments and don’t inadvertently overstate claims.
Recognizing this, multiple funders have supported the Children’s Funding Project and the Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center at the University of Texas at Austin. In Vermont, Let’s Grow Kids’ Stalled at the Start report found that three out of five infants don’t have access to regulated child care. The report and related county impact profiles have become a powerful advocacy tool.
“It’s important to have the time to build appropriate bridges between advocates and researchers. While advocacy goals should never determine research results, they should inform research questions, in order to address decisionmakers’ uncertainties.”
H. Professional and organizational development
If funders want successful policy initiatives—especially initiatives run by community leaders who are people of color and from diverse backgrounds—they need to support the professional development necessary to nurture those executives. For example, conducting an advocacy campaign requires a distinct set of skills that can build on, but are different from, running an effective program. Campaigns need to hire people with lived experiences, but this must come with the resources to build their skills in a new area. Local groups also need to build their skills in bringing more impacted people to the table.
The McCormick Foundation is working with Purpose to launch the Early Childhood Lab for Illinois with the goal of building innovative and scalable approaches to organizing that the sector does not have the bandwidth, experience, or expertise to do on its own. By working closely with the sector to develop new organizing skills and infrastructure, while expanding the power base, this work has the potential to transform the field for the long term.
The W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Early Childhood and Education Systems work in states such as Texas, Ohio and Idaho supports building organizations’ capacity for advocacy so that they can pivot on goals and strategies in response to changing times, versus funding them for only targeted policy/system building outcomes. Another aspect of this capacity building is expanding the organizations’ networks so they can reach the policymakers in power, across party lines.
A particularly important area of professional development is each organization’s and participant’s own diversity, equity, and inclusion journey. Infusing racial equity into the organization’s vision, mission and actions is a long process, and foundations need to support the staff time and consultant help necessary to inculcate these values into all aspects of their work.
Separately, more sophisticated IT capacity, legal counsel (especially to ensure compliance with lobbying rules), and other internal resources also need to be included in project budgets.
The Hogg Foundation for Mental Health prioritizes building capacity for individuals and organizations to engage in effective mental health policy. The foundation supports ten policy fellows in nonprofit organizations including five fellows with lived experience of mental health or substance use conditions. The two-year fellowships are combined with a policy academy that provides significant professional development and networking opportunities.
I. Candidate education and voter engagement
Sometimes the best opportunity to get commitments from policy makers is before they are elected—when they are seeking to expand their portfolio of issues (such as attorneys general who want to become governors) or reach new constituencies. Advocates need to be able to educate candidates and voters on a nonpartisan basis, following the limits on political activity under their organization’s 501(c)(3) designation. And elections provide high-energy opportunities to build a membership base for future use.
Yet if relatively few funders will support advocacy, an even smaller number will support candidate and voter outreach, although there are rules under which the IRS allows c3 nonprofits to perform this activity. Under those rules, every election cycle, Arizona’s Children’s Action Alliance invites candidates to respond to a questionnaire about children’s issues. Their website also includes links to register to vote as well as comment on bills before the state legislature. In 2020, DC Action for Children created a Voter Guide, hosted events and met with candidates to discuss issues, on a nonpartisan, c3 basis. The Georgia Early Education Alliance for Ready Students sent a postcard to every child care provider in the state, urging them to register to vote, cast a ballot, and get others to the polls.
Even more powerful is the ability to lobby or support political candidates through creating a 501(c)(4) or a political action committee (PAC). Sometimes no amount of persuasion will reach a policy maker, and the best option is fighting for a new candidate. Even changing a single seat, including within the same party, can make a tremendous difference. New c4 groups such as the Impact Fellows Action Fund, Children’s Funding Accelerator, and Save the Children Action Network (SCAN) are providing the rare funding to make children’s advocates even more influential actors in the political arena. A case study of SCAN’s work in New Hampshire showed that funding even the opponent of the successful gubernatorial candidate revealed enough of their political power that it ultimately encouraged the winner to support early education.
“Sometimes no amount of persuasion will reach a policy maker and the best option is fighting for a new candidate.”
J. Flexible, responsive, and sustained funding, including the option to lobby
Advocates cannot do any of this without funding that reflects the challenges in winning policy victories in a system designed to support continued power for those already in charge. This funding needs to allow them to speak the truth, gathered from real communities, in powerful coalitions and persist through good times and bad.
“Advocates cannot do any of this without funding that reflects the challenges in winning policy victories in a system designed to support continued power for those already in charge.”
While advocates can go far in advancing a policy issue through non-lobbying actions, at some point, their funding needs to allow them to step over that line. Imagine a conversation with a policy maker in which a constituent is only able to describe their experience with an education program, without being able to say, “and so I’m asking you to vote yes.” Prohibiting community members from making the policy ask is not only ineffective; it’s also disempowering to people who have invested their time to get into that meeting. It puts them in a tight box that restricts their power. This dynamic exists for individuals and for whole campaigns. They need at least a little funding that gives them the freedom to make a direct ask when they choose.
“Prohibiting community members from making the policy ask is not only ineffective; it’s also disempowering to people who have invested their time to get into that meeting.”
While the primary focus needs to be on engaging community spokespeople, sometimes a campaign needs to hire a professional lobbyist who knows the intricacies of the players and process. Sometimes a high-caliber lobbyist can reach a particularly powerful policy maker at a crucial time, when advocates can’t. Matthew Melmed, executive director of ZERO TO THREE, notes that a paid expert is helpful when a needed change is highly technical, such as changing Medicaid rules. The Wisconsin Infant Toddler Policy Project used funding from the American Heart Association’s Voices for Healthy Kids initiative to hire a campaign coordinator, as well as multiple lobbyists who could reach influential policymakers.
Another inevitable characteristic of policy campaigns is change. New blockbuster data is revealed, a story grabs public attention, a political champion stumbles—and the campaign needs to be able to respond. This was abundantly clear during the spring of 2020 when advocates had to immediately pivot on everything from working from home to changed messages and goals.
For all of these reasons, advocacy campaigns need as much flexibility as possible. General operating and project support grants are well-documented funding vehicles. In addition, some funders and nonprofits are creating 501(c)(4)s, LLCs, or political action committees, which can go beyond nonpartisan candidate education to fund independent work that supports candidates.
For example, more than a decade after starting the Heising-Simons Foundation, the same family created the new Heising-Simons Action Fund, a c4, to fund advocacy activities that couldn’t be supported by c3 resources. It has recently focused on expanding public investments in early childhood education, including federal advocacy, state and city ballot initiatives, and helping small c4s build their long-term capacity. Roy Miller, president of the Florida Children’s Campaign, believes that creating a c4 will be essential to building individual membership. Bruce Lesley, president of First Focus, notes that under the current tax code, many people see no tax advantage to donating to c3s, so they can be motivated to donate to the more politically flexible c4s.
Another way to increase grantee flexibility is creating a pooled fund that eases application and reporting requirements and creates buy-in from a variety of funders. Philanthropy Advocates channels and pools the efforts of more than 50 Texas funders to support hard-hitting advocacy to improve education.
Taking advantage of legal flexibility requires knowledge of state and federal laws, which can be challenging for small nonprofits. Funders can build legal expertise into grantee budgets as well as support Bolder Advocacy’s technical assistance capacity to advise foundations and nonprofits on working within the rules. Using this flexibility also requires adequate financial systems to track and report expenditures.
Finally, sustained funding is essential for this long-term process. One-time grants or jumping in and out of an issue or site do little to build long-term capacity. Policies take years—sometimes decades—to come to fruition. Campaigns need long-term funding so they can continue to build even in tough years. While funders and grantees do need to periodically assess the indications to change goals or strategies, there should be a long-term commitment to building infrastructure. Advocates will not be able to take advantage of favorable political circumstances without the resources to build capacity even when they might not be able to win in a given legislative season. Since 2006, the Alabama School Readiness Alliance has had funding for a long-running pre-K campaign that contributed to raising the percentage of four-year-olds covered from just 2 percent to 39 percent.
K. True funder partnerships
Funding policy advocacy is different from funding direct service programs. Successful campaigns require funding from grant makers that have buy-in from every philanthropic department: the board, staff leadership, finance, evaluation, communications, etc. Foundations can measure success—but the metrics are different for policy than for programs. Risk can be managed—but it is always there. Campaigns need to show progress—but on a longer timeline. There must be funding for actions that are often hard to see or measure: building trust and relationships, centering community voices, gathering widespread input and boiling it down to a winnable agenda.
Underlying all of the elements of capacity described above is the process of building partnerships with the people who do the work, trusting them, working with them to make adjustments, and having the fortitude to keep pressing forward. ZERO TO THREE’s Think Babies campaign exemplifies these characteristics, including multiyear, flexible funding sufficient for the labor-intensive work of building sustainable advocacy infrastructure, creating coalitions, and providing flexible dollars that enable nonprofits to lobby if they choose.
“Funding policy advocacy is different from funding direct service programs, and successful campaigns require funding from grant makers that have buy-in from every philanthropic department — the board, staff leadership, finance, evaluation, communications, etc.”
Conclusion
The 2020 election gives a new opportunity and impetus to advance an equity agenda. Policy change is hard—and even harder is winning campaigns that put local leaders front and center and that enact policies that support communities with traditionally less power. But it’s the only way to address the systemic problems that hold people back from fulfilling their true potential. Funders need to support the equity infrastructure and sustain smart, effective campaigns that can compete at any level. One foundation doesn’t need to do it all—there’s a role for everyone. Staying on the sidelines is no longer an option if funders are serious about creating the equitable society that supports children and families and enables them to thrive.
Sara Watson is principal at Watson Strategies LLC. Watson is the co-founder and former Global Director of ReadyNation and author of Creating Change Through Policy Advocacy: 10 Ways Foundations Can Engage.
Kimberly Perry is Executive Director at DC Action (the views expressed are her own).
The authors can be reached at swatson.office@gmail.com or kperry@dckids.org.
The authors thank the Bainum Family Foundation for its support in writing this paper. Views expressed are the authors’ own.