Santa Fe Group Advocacy Workshop

This session is tailored for CEOs, senior executives, nonprofit leaders, academic leaders, and other decision-makers who are ready to transform ideas, insights, early evidence, and organizational goals into actionable public policy strategies. Using the Executive-Legislative-Pressure Group (ELP) framework, participants will gain practical tools to drive meaningful change and advance their organization’s mission.

Here’s what to expect:

1. Introduction to ELP Principles: Discover how to use the ELP framework to identify priorities, map critical stakeholders, and develop targeted advocacy strategies that align with your organizational objectives.
2. Collaborative Brainstorming: In small, facilitated groups, explore and prioritize policy and advocacy topics that resonate with your organization, while leveraging the collective insights and expertise of peers.
3. Practical Application: Focus on one selected topic, diving deep into stakeholder mapping and strategy-building exercises to craft a comprehensive, actionable advocacy plan.

This engaging session offers a unique opportunity to collaborate with leaders across sectors, gain strategic insights, and leave with tools to effectively champion your organization’s vision.

Introduction to ELP Structured Public Value Advocacy Framework (30 minutes + 15 minutes Q&A)

• Purpose: Introduce participants to the ELP Structured Advocacy Framework, which provides a systematic approach to building and advocating for public value.
• Overview:
  • Participants will learn the three pillars of ELP advocacy:
    1. Public Policy Platform Development: Identifying key priorities that align with organizational values and stakeholder needs.
       1. PPP Primer
    2. Stakeholder Mapping: Identifying Executive-Legislative-Pressure Group (ELP) influencers and decision makers.  Categorizing them by their alignment towards your public policy goals (in-favor, neutral, or against).
    3. Advocacy Tactics: Creating actionable strategies to amplify the voices of those in-favor, convert neutrals to in-favors, and blunt those against your positions.
       1. Basics
       2. Intermediate
       3. Advanced
  • Dr. John Pournoor will explain how this structured approach works, and how it simplifies the complexity of advocacy, ensures alignment with organizational goals, and prioritizes your efforts given time, bandwidth and resource limitations effectively.
• Materials:
  • Presentation slides outlining the ELP process.
  • A sample stakeholder mapping exercise.

This segment sets the stage for hands-on application of ELP principles, ensuring participants have a common understanding of the tools they’ll use.

Phase 1: Brainstorming Key Advocacy Topics (15 minutes)

• Purpose: Encourage participants to identify major initiatives or policy topics that their group finds most relevant or impactful.
• Structure:
  • Group Assignments: Participants will be pre-assigned into three groups of 6-7 members, ensuring diversity in professional backgrounds and engagement styles.
  • Setting: Groups will collaborate at designated stations (round tables or room corners), equipped with easel pads, markers, and sticky notes for ideation.
  • Facilitation: Groups will brainstorm freely, generating a list of advocacy topics. Facilitators will encourage alignment with broader organizational goals while allowing room for creative exploration.
  • Output: Each group will create a prioritized list of potential advocacy topics for further development.

Phase 2: Applying Advocacy Principles to a Selected Topic (30 minutes)

• Purpose: Teach participants how to operationalize their ideas by applying the ELP structured process to develop advocacy strategies for their selected topic.
• Structure:
  • Introduction to Stakeholder Mapping:
    • Facilitator will present the 3x3 matrix, explaining rows (stakeholder types: legislative, executive, pressure groups) and columns (alignment levels: in favor, neutral, against).
    • Example scenarios will illustrate how to populate and interpret the map.
  • Group Activity:
    • Each group will select one topic from their brainstorming session for deeper exploration.
    • Participants will collaboratively complete a stakeholder map, identifying key influencers and strategizing engagement tactics for their topic.
    • Groups will outline a draft advocacy plan based on the tactics toolkit provided by Government Analytica.
  • Output: Stakeholder maps and an initial short list of actionable advocacy strategies for each group’s chosen topic.

Facilitated Large-Group Learning (45 minutes)

• Purpose: Demonstrate how to synthesize and refine advocacy plans through hands-on facilitation.
• Structure:
  • Groups will reconvene, and the facilitator will guide the entire group through a deep dive into one pre-selected topic chosen collectively or identified in advance.
  • Using the stakeholder mapping and ELP process, the facilitator will model how to develop a comprehensive advocacy plan.
  • Participants will provide input and refine the strategy collaboratively, reinforcing their understanding of the ELP approach.

Supporting Materials

• A double-sided one-pager:
  • Side 1: Blank stakeholder mapping template (3x3 grid).
  • Side 2: Overview of ELP advocacy strategies, including tactics for engaging favorably aligned, neutral, and oppositional stakeholders.
• Flip charts, markers, and sticky notes for brainstorming and mapping.
• Summary handouts of prior insights (e.g., pre-existing ideas or frameworks).

Expected Outcomes

1. Participants gain a practical understanding of the ELP structured advocacy process.
2. A prioritized list of advocacy topics developed by each breakout group.
3. Drafted stakeholder maps and engagement strategies tailored to each group’s selected topic.
4. A shared understanding of how to align organizational goals with practical, impactful advocacy efforts.

This structure integrates the introduction of the ELP framework with hands-on application, enabling participants to address their chosen topics effectively and develop actionable strategies.