Well-formulated public policy solutions can profoundly improve the quality of life for people served by charitable nonprofits. But those solutions don’t just materialize out of nowhere; rather, the best public policies arise when nonprofits and the people they serve find effective ways to educate decision makers, share their perspectives and proposals, and exert collective pressure when needed to pass helpful legislation or to stop harmful proposals from becoming laws.
This spring, the North Carolina Center for Nonprofits is launching the Public Policy Advocacy Academy to empower participating organizations with the concepts, skills, and coaching you need to develop effective public policy advocacy programs. This three-month experiential education program will provide hands-on practice:
- defining the scope and desired outcome of your campaign
- identifying who you need to convince and understanding your audience
- creating and using campaign timelines
- strategically leveraging the resources you have and getting the resources you need (including base building, coalition building, and fundraising)
- developing messaging and preparing messengers to reach your audience
- understanding what’s legally permissible advocacy for nonprofits
By the end of the program, Academy members will have crafted their own organization-specific policy advocacy campaign strategy, will have reached at least one milestone on the path toward achieving their desired public policy goal, and will have developed the confidence and skills to continue their campaigns.
The program will be led by Lisa Hazirjian, Ph.D., who founded Win Together Consulting to help nonprofits, campaigns, and social justice organizations develop strategy, build power, engage supporters, and leverage strengths to achieve their goals. Lisa brings over a dozen years of experience in the field as well as a track record of winning legislative victories at the NC General Assembly.
We are currently accepting applications from individuals at nonprofit organizations based in and serving people in North Carolina.
The strongest applicants will meet all or most of the following criteria:
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A desire to learn how to build lasting power to achieve their long-range policy goals while running a shorter-term, specific advocacy campaign
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At least one idea for a policy advocacy campaign targeting local, county, or state (not federal) government. This goal could be a budgetary policy goal, such as investment of land and money in an affordable housing proposal, or a non-budgetary goal, such as adopting a resolution to develop a plan for your county school system to become carbon neutral by 2050
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Authority to make decisions and carry out policy advocacy work on behalf of their organization, or a reasonable expectation that such authority will be granted by those who hold it (e.g., your Board or Executive Director)
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Ability to recruit at least two additional participants from your organization, such as other staff, volunteers, board members, donors, and clients (the people you serve can be highly effective self-advocates!)
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Ability to meet six times with the full Academy cohort, as well as 6-8 times for organization-specific coaching during weeks when we do not meet as a full cohort. Academy cohort meetings will take place either Tuesdays or Wednesdays for 90 minutes, starting no earlier than 10 am and ending no later than 2:30 pm. (Rather than arbitrarily picking a meeting time that might preclude involvement from many interested organizations, we are leaving these options open in hopes that one will work for everyone, but with the knowledge that we may not be able to find a time that works for all applicants)
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Priority will be given to organizations for whom it would be cost-prohibitive to get individual help, as well as those led by and/or serving members of historically under-resourced and marginalized populations
Learn More & Apply
Pay-What-You-Can pricing will apply. Review of applications will begin on Monday, January 30th and continue until all slots are filled.