Coalition Building, Public Advocacy, and Communications

This insert (The photo translated means: We are all in this together) is the result of four meetings I had regarding the public’s voice within the system. I first met with the magazine called Tercer Sector (the Non Profit Sector) (www.tercersersector.org.ar) which is the only magazine in Argentina dedicated to communications regarding the work of the social non profits in the country. In addition, I met with CIPPEC (www.cippec.org), The Center for the Implementation of Public Policy Promoting Equity and Growth, which would be considered a national think tank regarding implications of public policy on the nation. The third meeting was with Felipe Noguera, an advocacy consultant who works with one of the four primary groups that are organized and opposed to the taxes imposed on country exports. Translated into the equivalent in the United States he would be considered a strategist consultant that sometimes plays the role of advocate or lobbyist. Finally, I went to Andresito and visited with Cooperativa Yerbatera which is a cooperative of 93 associates that organized in 1982 to combine their resources and products to be able to compete and negotiate on the same level with big business.

The center theme within each of these initiatives is public voice, public knowledge and influence within national politics. In the case of the Tercer Sector, they don’t engage in any of the political debates, but they are the only measure to inform the public of the work and challenges that are happening across the nation. They focus on the positive work of the non profit sector that also talks about the real challenges that communities are facing and thereby educate the public and government officials. CIPPEC’s strategy is a little different in that they do more through analysis of existing and potential public policies and will venture to directly influence policy makers toward a specific direction. In the case of felipeNOGUERA consultants and their clients, they organize to directly advocate against certain policies and sometimes push specific agendas. In speaking with Felipe Noguera and Nicolas Ducote, General Director of CIPPEC, I realized that each of the above mentioned strategies is important and should be utilized by non profits depending upon the circumstances.

As all non profits in the United States are being encouraged to participate in the political process most do not for two primary reasons. The first being that most of their resources are allocated to serve the public and build the agency infrastructure. However, the second and probably most important is that most organizations don’t know how to participate in the political process because most were created to serve and not to advocate. I propose a model that starts with an analysis of the policy and public officials.

Based upon my interviews and observations as working as Congreso’s President I learned that for most of the cases the public official is not well versed on an issue and as a result has not given it much importance. As such, the first step in any advocacy model should be an education strategy that informs the public official about the issue. In the case, that the public official is aware of the issue but has not taken any action, it is often because he/she does not have the staff capacity to provide a thorough analysis of the issue that will lead to a position. In this case, we must engage the strategy of CIPPEC in which we provide the staff capacity to produce a report that frames and summarizes the issue to empower the public official to take action. Finally, in the case that a public official is aware and thoroughly understands an issue, but is unwilling or opposed to the issue then we must utilized the strategy of coalition building, organizing, and public support to provide enough public pressure.

Regardless of the strategy, we must always start with researching and understanding our public officials. The strategy that results should be in response to information and we shouldn’t use precious resources on a strategy that is not aligned with the correct research.

If one implements the hardest of the three strategies which is coalition building and organizing then there are some key lessons from the Cooperative Yerbatera. This cooperative has been around for 26 years and they contribute their success to two key factors: First, it was built around the philosophy of equal voice that despite the influence of an individual everyone has one vote. Second, associates need to have skin in the game and cannot view it as simply a business transaction. In other words, one has to be committed to the process and be willing to engage in the process. Over the years, the cooperative has had to deal with big business and politics trying to divide them and having to deal with internal struggles for power. They claim that their success is that they realize that they are part of a community that has relationships outside of the cooperative and that they are all working toward a better future for their entire community. They realize that they can not progress unless they all progress together. Below are two of the employees of Cooperative Yerbatera. The older gentleman is the longest standing employee and the young man moved from Buenos Aires to work here given their success and committment to principles.