Social Impact Advisory Meeting, August 2024
Rich Harrison (Panelist), CEO for Lighthouse Community Public Schools
Tracey Edwards-Moore (Panelist), Racial Equity Working Group Leader at The Bridgespan Group
Mira Weinstein (Moderator), founder and the organizer in chief at Organizing to Win.
At our monthly Social Impact Advisory Group meeting, we wanted to explore how public policy informs nonprofits. We invited moderator Mira Weinstein and panelists, Tracey Edwards-Moore, and Rich Harrison, to discuss building public policy strategies and how to implement them. The following panel presentation was edited for length and clarity in digital format.
Mira Weinstein: I like to call myself the founder and the organizer in chief at Organizing to Win. I work with social justice organizations, nonprofits, and unions on organizing strategy, organizing education, and disrupting white supremacy culture. I want to throw it to our two panelists to introduce themselves.
Tracey Edwards-Moore: My background is in leadership and JEDI: justice, equity, diversity, inclusion and belonging. I have a pretty eclectic career that spans from tech to city government, religious organizations, profit and nonprofit.
Rich Harrison: I am the CEO for Lighthouse Community Public Schools. We are a nonprofit charter school organization that serves East Oakland. We have just under 1700 students most of whom come from the three zip codes that make up east oakland and I’m entering into my fifth year. I’ve been in the public education and charter school non profit space for my entire career, and just really grateful to be here in community with you all.
Mira: Tracey, you’ve been involved in both nonprofit and for profit work for many years, and now you’re the public policy liaison for a few organizations. Can you describe how those organizations are crafting and implementing their public policy, especially given the chaos that we’re going to see this year as an election year?
Tracey: The election year throws a whole other dimension into policy. When you begin to think about public policy for nonprofits, the mission of an organization, really those that I work with particularly, drives the public policy interests. This is a nonpartisan pursuit when public policy and nonprofit come into play. This isn’t about particularly taking a side for a candidate or a person or endorsing. This is about really what is the mission of the organization.
So let me use the example of Alternatives in Action, which is a nonprofit over 20 years old here in the Bay Area that also has a public charter school. When we think about public policy, it’s really related to our mission of not only uplifting youth as leaders, but how policy can help inform either for or against our interest as a school community.
So, for instance, we may be following AB or SB bills around transportation, health care, immigration, and, obviously, things related to education and education supports — for or against those things. What that means is, really looking at who’s doing what, who’s supporting what and who’s against what.
The public policy direction should be best practice driven by the mission, right? Because you’re going to care about what’s important to your organization and who you’re supporting. For the election year, for instance, the National Coalition of 100 Black Women, were also involved with policy to unapologetically advocate for Black women and girls.
It becomes important to now think about who is doing what. Often when we think about policy, we think about what’s for us, but the picture is what’s for us or what’s against us — both of those areas.
So what does that mean for policy? It changes in election years. It becomes important to now think about who is doing what. Often when we think about policy, we think about what’s for us, but the picture is what’s for us or what’s against us — both of those areas.
How are Black women being affected? How are they represented? What does that mean? That could mean health care. It means economic empowerment and opportunities.
So when we think about nonprofits and policy and how to craft it, it really is born out of the mission and who an organization says they are, who you’re representing, and then how advocacy can look.
Mira: Rich, most people don’t realize the power that local governments, especially counties, have when it comes to dispersing funds or managing budgets, things along those lines. So in your role as CEO of a public charter school, can you tell the group why having a public policy strategy has been so critical for your organization and what results you’ve achieved because you have a strategy?
Rich: This is such an important question. Personally for me and my leadership role I operate charter schools serving 1,700 kids, TK through 12. It used to be back in the day where a school leader or a principal or a superintendent could just focus on what happens within the walls of their school. The reality is that especially here in East Oakland, there’s a bit of complexity in terms of what the community broadly needs in terms of services beyond what traditional schools or district charter schools would provide.
It really matters as to what is your core mission, vision, and what you want to accomplish. We want to make sure that all of our graduates have strong access to college and career. Because we are a school system, TK through 12, if we have students for 13, 14 years, we have to get students finishing high school, getting into a two or four year college or university with laser clarity on what they’re going to do next, or a job that is family sustaining.
We have to think about how we advocate from a policy perspective around community schools and resources, or how we ensure that we are able to sustain the livelihoods of our teachers and staff
That is how we’re going to get multigenerational community change for the families that we serve. To do that really well, we have to think about how we advocate from a policy perspective around community schools and resources, or how we ensure that we are able to sustain the livelihoods of our teachers and staff by investing in their compensation as well as their professional development.
I have 250 employees in our organization that I want to make sure stay serving East Oakland year after year. That’s challenging given the cost of living. So there has to be some unique opportunities that we have to look for and find funding for to really ensure sustainability for staff. One of the things that I’ve been leaning into most is that oftentimes nonprofit leaders participate in advocacy, which is great. What is even more important is to lift the voices of the stakeholders that the various nonprofits serve.
So, just as an example, I took a group of families to Sacramento earlier this week. We got a resolution around literacy paths. We have some parents who are really passionate about early literacy. And our parents from the community need to know how the legislative process works. What’s a bill? What’s a resolution? How can they activate their voice in layers of city or county government, but also the state government? Counties have a lot of money and funding.
The county supervisors manage a 4 billion budget each year to provide services for Alameda County. It is so important that as a nonprofit, if there’s an area of the work that you want to engage in knowing who to talk to in those various county departments or the state level departments, how to line up for grants.
I’ll just share one grant that I’m super excited about that we found out about last month. There’s this initiative called the California Youth Behavioral Health Initiative, and it’s a grant that typically goes to nonprofits and service providers. But as you know, schools are struggling with finances these days, given our budget cuts. We won this grant that allows us wellness coaches that can do some case management of students and families, connecting them with resources checking in on them. This wouldn’t have been possible if it weren’t for the lobbyists that I contract with, our relationships with the county, and putting together a proposal and telling the need of young people and their families in East Oakland to get that opportunity possible for our students.
Mira: I’m glad you expanded a little bit on the county focus. What I’ve seen when I work with organizations, the counties are sort of overlooked as places to have influence and have impact. County boards of supervisors, members, districts are bigger than congressional districts and it’s five or seven of them that control billions of dollars.
I think that’s a somewhat overlooked place where members or organizers can or students can have influence. Tracey, As a DEI consultant, what should nonprofits consider from that lens when they’re developing their public policy strategy, and what advice would you give nonprofits looking to craft one through that lens?
Tracey: Let’s acknowledge and name that we have to name that you have to do that, that there has to be that lens, right? Equity should exist naturally, but we know it doesn’t. So to say, ‘Oh, we have to have an equity lens’ is acknowledging that we don’t have it.
When you believe in justice, equity, diversity and inclusion, your policy will be automatically shaped by that understanding.
When I think about DEI and policy, I think they’re not really together. I think that you have to first believe in what JEDI means: justice, equity, diversity and inclusion. It cannot be an exercise in checking a box. When you believe in justice, equity, diversity and inclusion, your policy will be automatically shaped by that understanding.
Policy won’t work if it’s not supported by a foundational belief in the organization. So you can craft policy around DEI all day long. If it’s not really something that is a part of your DNA as an org, the wind won’t be behind the policy if it’s not real, if it’s not organic, if this is not who the leaders are, if this is not what the organization is really practicing.
I think the advice would be to first name and acknowledge where you are in regards to justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion. Do a checkup first internally on your organization. Where are we? Get some help to do a checkup. And understanding where you are and then beginning to think about how policy can help shape your organization’s beliefs and move you forward, right? It was a buzz and very popular to say, ‘Oh, we’re into DEI. We’re doing DEI. We’re studying DEI.’ And it got a little worn out quite frankly. And it got a little checkbox-ish for a lot of orgs, right? It was popular. Based on knowledge and experience, I’d be willing to say that, that steam that’s being lost is because it was never real in the first place.
Policy is, as Rich talked about, is really deeply involved in your organization’s mission. Who are you advocating for? Whose voice are you lifting up? All right. And then you will seek out policy. You will understand things that are important to you, find out who’s for it or against it, and then you begin to craft a policy that works for you, that you can stand up, that can live, that you can walk out.
Rich: Tracey, you make a really good point about a nonprofit organization’s own internal policies and practices, and for an organization to do external public policy work in a city or county or state level advocacy, you have to be really clear with your internal policies and practices as well. If there is a disconnect of experience it creates some cultural dynamics that can be really challenging to overcome.
Mira: I really loved everything that you were saying, Tracey, and I feel like we could have a hours long conversation to dive into this. To me, it goes to the culture. It goes to the building of the fundamental culture of the organization being based in equity and justice.
Tracey: Absolutely. You can’t promote something you don’t believe in. So you’ve got to inherently believe in equity as a practice. When you believe in it, your leadership is fair and equitable, inclusive and belonging, then you don’t have to apply the lens.
This is a head and heart game. This is cognitive and emotional. We are in these organizations as leaders leading them. And if we’re showing up with the wrong kind of heart in the wrong kind of spirit, crafting policy and all this kind of stuff, it’s just statements. We saw the nonprofit world go crazy in 2021. Now, all of a sudden, everybody’s making a culture statement. Everybody has a diversity message. But where were you before that? What did you believe before that? Right? Because if you believed it, it would show. It would be in everything you did.
Mira: Rich, what’s been your biggest disappointment from your perspective and implementing your public policy strategy? What advice would you have to other nonprofit leaders or board members to avoid the disappointments or avoid the pitfalls?
Rich: That’s a really great question. And I’m going to tell a little story to contextualize this because there were definitely some hard lessons that I learned.
A couple of years ago there was a local elected at the state level who was pushing for legislation that had some pretty challenging consequences for charter schools. In Oakland, there’s this existential tension, unfortunately, between district and charter schools that I’m sure many of you are familiar with.
I can appreciate the history and, and just the challenges that schools have had serving students, particularly those furthest from opportunity. There was a bill that was in play that would have made it incredibly challenging, if not prohibitive for organizations like mine to access bond financing for school facilities through the California Treasury.
And I wrote a series of op eds talking about the challenges of this bill and I was disappointed in a couple of things, right? I felt that I wrote these op eds in the spirit of lifting the voice of our organization and our community. However, my op eds had some consequences. There were folks on my board who were like, ‘Rich, great op ed, way to, way to share our voice.’ A couple of our board members called me and said, ‘Hey, you went too hard in that op ed, I just got a phone call from an elected official, pretty upset about what you wrote.’
What that got me thinking about is that at the end of the day, nonprofits are funded by philanthropy, sometimes grants through the public dollar and some percentage therein, and then also nonprofits have board members. Having a public policy strategy, does require stacked hands between the leaders of the organization, the directors within a nonprofit organization, as well as their board and their main community stakeholders.
If there is a piece of legislation that you’re going to advocate for, or a public policy stance that you want to join, just being clear on what is the process to stack hands, because if there is some disagreement that could be really uncomfortable.
If there is a piece of legislation that you’re going to advocate for, or a public policy stance that you want to join, just being clear on what is the process to stack hands, because if there is some disagreement that could be really uncomfortable. And most importantly, it could be really uncomfortable for leaders of color, who lead and do work within non profit organizations. Going back to the DEI conversation before when I moved to Lighthouse five years ago, the organization was more or less 50 percent white and today we’re about 85, 90 percent people of color. That was an intentional DEI shift because we wanted to make sure we had employees and leaders that reflected the diversity of our community.
Mira: I think building those relationships is the answer to all our problems in many ways. I’m curious, Tracey, I would imagine in all of your experience, you might have a couple of suggestions or ideas of this concept of avoiding the pitfalls of building a successful program while avoiding the disappointments.
Tracey: I think the pitfalls are good. I think you have to experience setbacks and disappointments, and that you have to walk through those pitfalls because it helps inform your response and how you go forward.
Mira: I’m more on the organizing kind of campaign side of things and that I haven’t worked so much with lobbyists, but I follow an organizer and organizing director who says that when he’s planning a campaign thinking through the strategy, the guiding question he asks is how does this campaign build our power, even if we lose. I like to think about that in terms of when you were talking about not avoiding the pitfall and learning from the pitfalls.
Lisa Salomon: I have a question specifically about the election year conversation. We know that fundraising is often very challenging for nonprofits in an election year, because people’s focus is elsewhere. I’m thinking on the positive side, how might nonprofits better leverage election years in helping to move their public policy agendas forward?
Tracey: I think that fundraising is always challenging. Let’s start there. When you think about election years and the demand on people’s time and interest. I can speak for the organizations I’m familiar with. We are nonpartisan first of all. So getting involved in campaigns is not something that we’re doing.
We’ve been able to work in advocacy around voter education and working with groups that are doing education around those areas. It’s not necessarily aligning ourselves with a candidate on either side because obviously there’s some risk there. So the position needs to be very general around advocacy or education and not campaigning.
Rich: There’s three things that I’m thinking about, right? One is the need to create coalitions vis a vis fundraising and I think there’s the short game and the long game right. In this case I’m talking about the long game, because I do think that building coalitions with other nonprofits or other organizations that serve similar or intersecting causes is really critical for a couple of reasons. One is that, when you’re off cycle and there are grant opportunities coming up, co-writing grants with other nonprofits is one way to strengthen fundraising and application or your just net fundraising.
Often, during a political season, it’s a good time to create what I would consider intersections. Coalition building is important. That leads to reciprocity. When you show up for other nonprofit organizations, they show up for you. When you, as an individual, show up for an elected official, they will also show up for your causes.
The third piece I’ll add is just being disciplined about the collateral you’re creating, whether they’re press releases or stories on your website or things on social media or your LinkedIn, because at the end of the day, you know, sometimes the public policy positions that we want to engage in can be oftentimes political in nature.
I think that being really thoughtful about managing your collateral whether there are grants you’ve written, stories you’ve told, I just think that, organizations have to be disciplined on curating that, making sure that’s tight because you want to reinforce not only your organization’s narrative, but those who have supported your causes or those who have showed up for you.
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