Advocacy

What is direct employee feedback, and how can it help you? Building a cohesive, effective team requires effort and intentional communication at every level. As we strive to improve our skills and abilities, expand our knowledge, and strengthen our teamwork, we rely more and more on open and clear communication. To boost our efforts, we have instituted a new set of guidelines for giving and receiving internal feedback, and we’d like to share a bit about it with you.

Grief at work: In 2022, as part of our DEI efforts, our team started looking at factors that cause stress in the workplace. One that became apparent was grieving at work. At TCW, we define a grief event as often occurring when a friend or loved one dies, a friend or loved one becomes ill, a pet dies, or a relationship ends. These grief events are frequent in the workplace, and we estimate that a typical employee will experience this at least once, if not more while working at TCW.

Zvi Band is focused on building tools to bring folks back together. He’s currently building GoodSphere, Relatable, and The Sphere. These four projects are all resources focused on building relationships, and communities in a variety of mediums. ZVI co-founded Contactually and led it as CEO from an idea in 2011 to an enterprise SaaS company that was acquired by Compass. He served as general manager at Compass from 2019 to 2021 when he left to pursue his current projects. This week we asked him 7 questions about his experience and career path. 

Brian Johnson is the CEO of Equality Illinois, an organization that has been fighting for LBGTQ+ civil rights since 2016. However, inspired by his tenures as a first-grade teacher in Baton Rouge and a Teach for America Corps member, he has fought for equity in his leadership as the Vice President of Regional Impact at the Leadership for Educational Equity, where he recruited teachers to run for public office and launched community organizing initiatives across major cities with his leadership in, with his history of leadership in nonprofits, including as the executive director of Teach for America in Los Angeles. Brian fostered educational excellence and diversity in our public schools, drawing from his extensive social justice and LGBTQ+ advocacy experience. His book, The Work is the Work, is a testament to the ongoing fight for justice across realms like environmentalism, anti-racism, and community empowerment. It is inspired by his daughter and the next generation of change-makers. This week, we interviewed Brian.

Joe Sangirardi is involved in LGBTQ+ activism and professional nonprofit and political fundraiser. Previously, Joe served as a Director of Leadership Giving at The Human Rights Campaign and was the Director of Development at the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund. Currently, Joe serves as the Development Director for California YIMBY, California’s state-wide housing policy reform and advocacy organization. He is heavily involved in his local community as the secretary for the Eureka Valley Neighborhood Association and  Membership Co-Chair for the Alice B. Toklas LGBTQ+ Democratic Club. He also serves on the Retail Strategy Committee for the Castro Community Benefit District. Joe is deeply passionate about climate change, housing, public transportation, good government, and revitalizing the LGBTQ+ legacy of his chosen home, the Castro. This week, we asked Joe questions about his career path.

Susan Markham is a partner and co-founder of Smash Strategies. Previously, she served as Senior Coordinator for Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), director of Women's Political Participation at the National Democratic Institute (NDI), and a senior strategist here at The Campaign Workshop. Susan is a passionate advocate for gender equality and female empowerment, and advocates for the critical role that women play in politics and development. She also just recently released her new book Feminist Foreign Policy in Theory and in Practice. This week, we asked her 7 questions about her work and career path.

You can also listen to this interview with Susan Markham on the How to Win a Campaign podcast. 

Brandon Wolf is a nationally recognized gun safety and LGBTQ+ civil rights advocate and public speaker. Brandon is a survivor of the 2016 shooting at Orlando's Pulse Nightclub. After losing two of his best friends that night, Brandon set out to honor their and the other 47 victims’ legacies with action. Brandon is a co-founder of The Dru Project, a non-profit organization that helps fund higher education to empower youth and future leaders in the LGBTQ+ community. We asked Brandon 7 questions about his experience and career path.

Advocacy strategies can be time-consuming to create and difficult to execute. We have written often about the core elements of an advocacy plan, but taking the time to develop your advocacy strategy is an important step. But where do you begin? Try using strategy tools.

If you've ever worked on an issue advocacy campaign, you know that convincing a person to even listen to your message can be a difficult task. Now, more than ever, public opinion has become harder to shape when people tune out information more than they tune it in.

Organizations and campaigns have used patch-through calls for years when they need many people to reach out to elected officials. But in an era of cord-cutting and digital everything, will folks still take the time to get patched-through to a lawmaker? And will lawmakers listen? The answer is maybe.

Advocacy emails are a powerful tool. For many groups and organizations, advocacy emails can amplify their message in a positive way. As you are probably well aware, most people use their email for both work and personal use, so communicating with your supporters with this medium is a logical choice.

We have all seen the exponential rise of short, viral videos in the last few years¬–so how can we garner the same popularity for advocacy videos? As social media platforms continue to expand and become more popular, creating videos for your campaign can prove to be a worthwhile financial and creative investment.