Jerry L. Hawkins, M.Ed.’s Post

NPO leaders need to understand how civic engagement, advocacy and lobbying affect nonprofits. Independent Sector reports that the Return on Investment (ROI) in nonprofit advocacy is $115 to $1. Join us online on Saturday, October 21 at 1 pm to learn how to assure that your organization is a leader in civic engagement and is using these powerful tools. https://lnkd.in/eHgmS-6f

💥 Nonprofit leaders need to understand how civic engagement, advocacy and lobbying affect nonprofits. Independent Sector reports that the Return on Investment (ROI) in nonprofit advocacy s $115 to $1. Learn how to assure that your organization is a leader in civic engagement and is using these powerful tools. REGISTER HERE: https://lnkd.in/evy6Kf4M 🗓 Mon, Apr 22, 2024 ⏰ 5:30 pm - 9:30 pm 

Take a long look! Compass Pro Bono is doing great work and needs some volunteers to keep it going! Here's a way to exponentially increase your impact. Help the people who are helping the people! All of them! I'm hoping to see a line at the Compass volunteer application URL! 😁 As always, share, share, share. #executives #executivepresence #executiverecruiting #executivecoaching #executivedevelopment #executivejobsearch

The current political moment is a good reminder that nonprofits play a crucial role in shaping public policy and driving social change by amplifying voices, mobilizing communities, and holding power accountable. There are many misconceptions about the role of nonprofits in advocacy. Read our white papers to learn more about your nonprofit can engage in advocacy! https://lnkd.in/g4tPUARt

The multicultural youth GOTV guide that my colleague Henry A.J. Ramos I have been working on has been released! While it is focused on California youth-serving nonprofits, it is mostly transferable to other states. Consult the The Democracy Capacity Project voter assistance guide for your state for supplemental information. The guide is geared towards helping nonprofits turn out young voters of color, but the its recommendations are applicable for GOTV generally. If you work for any nonprofit with a client base, here are two things you can do this year to turn them out to vote: 1. Make sure they are registered to vote! Census data indicates that about 80% of persons who register to vote in a presidential election year actually go out and vote. This is likely because of all the television, radio, and social media messaging that takes place  combined with having just recently having registered. In a sense, new voters in a presidential election year have a GOTV campaign aimed at them from a number of sources. So if you can only do one thing this year, make sure your clients get registered to vote this year. (N.B., we only see this phenomenon during a presidential election year.) 2. If you can only do two things this year, make sure to remind your clients to vote and let them know that their vote matters and they are making a difference! Recent research on voter turnout shows that nonprofit clients are particularly receptive to nonpartisan GOTV campaigns supported by nonprofits they have worked with, and that their turnout rates increase significantly when they are encouraged to vote by those nonprofits. Nonprofit engagement can improve the turnout rates across all categories of voters, and has been shown to make significant improvements in turnout rates for young voters, voters of color, and low-income voters. Improving turnout rates attracts the attention of political campaigns that focus on high-propensity voters. This attention in turn engages voters further and encourages even higher turnout. It’s a virtuous cycle once folks start voting! Make sure to turn out your clients and community to vote this year! #youthvoting #GOTV #nonprofits #nonprofitorganizations #bolderadvocacy #IRPPE #elections

"Advocacy enables nonprofits to influence policy, amplify community voices, and create lasting impact. But to increase policy advocacy efforts by nonprofits, we need to invest in accessible learning, fund advocacy work, and build an understanding that compliant advocacy work can take many forms." #advocacy #awareness #education #policy #equity #systemschange #philanthropy #nonprofits #partnerships #leadership

My latest blog post, on nonprofits and the advocacy work they can and should do, featuring the work of Sam Daley-Harris and RESULTS and RESULTS Educational Fund.

📢The thing I wished people would spend their time on when it comes to working in their communities is sharing their evaluation results. 👀But what I see is they spend way too much time collecting useless information, thinking the more information they collect, the better. 🤔I get that, because you, nonprofit coalition leader, have so many people to answer to! 🌟 What if I told you that there is another approach that will help you demonstrate and communicate your outcomes and that collecting every piece of information isn’t the answer? 🎯The way I work with community coalitions and nonprofits is to start with the end in mind. 📬If you are drowning in data and funders’ reports, or maybe you haven’t even developed your evaluation process, I’d like to invite you to check out my free mini-course, Using Data to Tell Your story. https://bit.ly/3ZbZh0x Begin with the end in mind. #evaluation #nonprofits #coalition #community

“Nonprofits today are less aware of the advocacy and lobbying activities they are legally allowed to do compared to 20 years ago. … [N]onprofits can and should consider policy advocacy as one strategic approach to advancing their mission and values. As a first step, nonprofits and those who work with them should be more aware of their legal rights to engage in policy issues and nonpartisan voter engagement. We also encourage nonprofits to join collaborative groups and associations of nonprofits with similar interests, invest in DEI activities, and promote nonpartisan voter engagement. By doing so, nonprofits can increase their mission impact, promote equity, increase civic participation, contribute to democracy, and drive changes in their communities that align with their values.” The Retreat of Influence: Exploring the Decline of Nonprofit Advocacy and Public Engagement

Our first 'Legislative Watch' newsletter for the 2024 session went out this week. Take a look and bookmark the tools in the newsletter so that you can follow along this legislative session. https://lnkd.in/ge4WykG6 Why should #nonprofits engage in #advocacy? The research is clear. High impact nonprofits engage in both advocacy and direct service/programming (see: "Forces for Good" book). Advocacy work allows us to address root causes that support the long-term work of our missions across the sector. For some nonprofits, advocacy is as simple as educating the public about their mission. For others, it involves developing legislators and working toward shared solutions. So, cheers to a (hopefully) productive 2024 #Idaho #legislative session for Idaho's nonprofits.