In these challenging times, our policy advocacy efforts must be as successful as possible. Independent Sector orchestrated a five-part webinar series to help staff at nonprofits learn about the components of Building a Successful Advocacy Effort.

Designed in partnership with the Center for Evaluation Innovation, the webinars examined measuring the effectiveness of advocacy strategies, building internal capacity, adapting to changes in the political climate, creating effective coalitions, and using communications to enhance advocacy efforts.

These exceptional webinars are free to staff at Independent Sector member organizations. Non-members can also download the webinars, at the cost of $75 per session.  (Contact us for non-member or password assistance.)

1. Creating and Measuring Effective Advocacy and Policy Change
Presenter: Ehren Reed, Innovation Network

Opening the series was a look at benchmarks for advocacy success and at the components of a successful advocacy effort.
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2. The Organization Behind the Advocacy: Effectiveness Starts at Home
Presenter: Jared Raynor, TCC Group

Examine the key organizational characteristics behind a successful advocacy effort, including increasing internal capacity for advocacy, building short-term indicators/key measures for success, and leadership and organization culture.
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3. Assessing Political Will, Adapting to the Political Climate
Presenter: Craig Charney, Charney Research

Advocacy efforts are affected by the climate in which they operate. Learn strategies for developing organizational ability to read and react to changes in the political climate and in political will, as well as how to deal with opposition and obstacles.
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4. Creating Effective Advocacy Coalitions
Presenters: Jared Raynor, TCC Group and Rev. Patricia Watkins, TARGET Area DevCorp

Collaboration is a key to advocacy success, and one of the most prevalent forms of collaboration is the coalition. Understand coalitions from an evaluative perspective, in particularly creating and measuring coalition member capacity, coalition capacity, and coalition achievements.
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5. The Role of Communications in Advocacy
Presenters: Jon Haber, Cascade Strategy and Julia Coffman, Center for Evaluation Innovation

All communication should be strategic — but what does that mean? Explore how communications tools – from traditional media to e-communications to social networking — can be utilized and assessed as part of an advocacy effort.
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