Board Member Shares Lessons About Advocacy

In this post, an individual who both works in a nonprofit and has served on many boards shares their thoughts on the importance of advocacy, the role of board members in advocacy, and ways to make board members most effective. This post is the sixth in a series about advocacy. In my last post, I shared an inspiring story about an organization that saw advocacy as part of the solution for its population. In the previous post, I interviewed elected officials to find out what they saw as effective. In an earlier post, Judy Reckelhoff, Chief of Staff for BoardSource,… Read more

Nonprofits Must Advocate

Advocacy Is Essential to Fulfill Your Mission and Serve Your Communities Today’s post is the third in a series about board members and nonprofits advocating for their missions and the people they serve. Board members must understand how public policy impacts their organizations, the importance of educating policy makers, and the need to include resources for advocacy in an organization’s budget. In this post, I interview Judy Reckelhoff, Chief of Staff for BoardSource. She describes why BoardSource has elevated advocacy and points to resources they provide to help nonprofits and board members. In my last post, I shared an Advocacy… Read more

It Changes Everything

When Board Members Use Their Voices Today’s post is the second of a series on the importance of having board members advocate, that is, speak about how public policy and funding impacts the missions and clients of the organizations they support. In the first post, I interviewed Sonya Campion who helped found the Stand for Your Mission campaign. For this post, I interviewed eight people who have done a lot of advocacy work as board members. These individuals have different day jobs and live all over the US. Most have advocated at all three levels of government: local, state, and… Read more