Most associations and charities recognise the importance of some form of advocacy within their strategies. Sometimes that advocacy is for public benefit, but it is often on behalf of constituency or stakeholder interests. Quite often, representation to government involves both sets of considerations. Not all advocacy is lobbying As noted by the US Research-to-Policy Collaboration,… Continue reading Policy Analysis and Advocacy Options
Tag: policy
The Rule of 3 in your NFP
People find it easiest to remember three things: Three is the smallest number of elements necessary to form a pattern Three elements are more memorable than say, two or four We like to have a choice, but we get confused when we have too many options A selection of memorable patterns formed using three elements… Continue reading The Rule of 3 in your NFP
Rely-ability, Re-liability, and Reliability
‘Reliability’, like ‘validity’, is a term with multiple meanings. In non-profit settings (amongst others) there are several contexts in which the concept of ‘reliability’ is expressed differently. This post reflects only some of these. A dictionary definition sounds straightforward enough – ‘that which can be relied upon, fit to be depended upon, trustworthy‘. When we… Continue reading Rely-ability, Re-liability, and Reliability
The Scales of Governance: Weighing options, arguments, evidence & consequences
Evaluation – Part 1 We use the term ‘on balance’ as a shorthand way of saying that we have come to a decision or choice after considering the power, influence, or ‘weight’ of both sides of a question or issue. This invokes metaphoric reference to a set of balance scales – as in the ‘scales of justice’ (see header image). Evaluation skills, sometimes… Continue reading The Scales of Governance: Weighing options, arguments, evidence & consequences
OK to delegate?
Non-profit organisations depend heavily on volunteers to achieve their purposes. Non-profit board directors therefore have a built-in recognition of the need to delegate key aspects of the organisation’s operations to individual volunteers or groups of volunteers. Role confusion? As very few non-profit entities pay their directors, most of those people think of themselves as volunteers,… Continue reading OK to delegate?
Good and Bad Delegation
Experienced non-profit directors and managers understand that the key to effective volunteer engagement is relationship management. Having best practice policies and procedures, including a volunteer policy framework and instruments of delegation, may be necessary, but these measures are not sufficient to successfully engage your volunteer ‘workforce’. Engagement or buck-passing? Old school ‘carrot and stick’ approaches… Continue reading Good and Bad Delegation
Moral Governance – Part 2
Moral Climate and Culture When the moral climate in an organisation is the cause of moral distress, it could seem like ‘victim blaming’ to suggest that a ‘resilience bundle’ should be provided to employees or volunteers to help them to cope. As with any risk analysis, unless you identify and address the root cause of… Continue reading Moral Governance – Part 2
An Organisational Policy ‘Taxonomy’
In Carrots, Sticks and Sermons – sorting policy types, I outlined a broad range of policy categories. This provided a very simplified view of the various types of policy and policy instruments available for use in divers policy settings. Excellent analyses of public policy typologies and taxonomies have been catalogued for many years (e.g. in… Continue reading An Organisational Policy ‘Taxonomy’
Policy Models and Accounts
Non-profit advocacy work tends to focus mainly on government relations, especially regulatory measures (‘sticks’) affecting the non-profit’s stakeholders, but also policy measures which might fit the tags ‘carrot’ or ‘sermon’. (See also my earlier article ‘Carrots, Sticks and Sermons: sorting policy types’.) I often find that NFP directors and staff are unaware of the processes… Continue reading Policy Models and Accounts
Caring about the ‘duty of care’
(Part 1 – ‘Duty of Care, Skill and Diligence’ series) There are four main duties of Australian directors, all of which apply whether they are members of commercial or not-for-profit boards. As illustrated in the header image above, these are the: Duty to act with reasonable care, skill and diligence Duty to act in good… Continue reading Caring about the ‘duty of care’