Sunday, September 2, 2012

Regarding Direct Service & Advocacy

Despite external and internal pressures to specialize, NCLR's senior leaders stood their ground. "My thought was, you couldn't be good at either one of them if you couldn't see them both," says Yzaguirre. "Programs inform your public policy and give you the means to change it; and if you didn't have policy, you make your programs less potent."
Those who advocate to change public policy (lobbyists, protesters, politicians) are, ideally, working for the public good.  Direct service providers (the folks running food banks, thrift stores and charities) are also, ideally, working for the public good.  However, the two normally don't work hand-in-hand.
Thus, it's even more surprising that all the organizations in our book have engaged in both.  Although most groups started out as direct service providers, at some point they all realized that if they wanted to create more significant systemic change, they needed to influence the political process.

[excerpts are indented. Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits, by Leslie R Crutchfield and Heather McLeod Grant, chapter 2]

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