We are excited to launch SV2’s new three-part “Advocacy is Everywhere” Deep Dive Workshop series. Following the 2017 Strategic Refresh and Annual Partner Survey, Partners and the SV2 Board explicitly identified an interest in learning more about advocacy as a tool in the strategic social change toolkit. Three Partner Leaders, Julie Cates, Alison Elliott and Paru Yusuf, are collaborating with staff team member Lisa Van Dusen to navigate this new territory to serve three distinct audiences: SV2 Partners, SV2 as an organization, and SV2 Grantees and Impact Investees.
In this series, we will learn what advocacy is, what it isn’t, and the range of options open to social impact organizations (including SV2, our Grantees and Impact Investees) within the advocacy arena, as well as how it can be a powerful social change tool. By boosting our collective “advocacy literacy,” we aim to understand how advocacy is at work throughout the social change ecosystem. We hope you’ll join us to kick off this new series on Friday, February 2 at 9:00am (RSVP here).
For example, SV2 Partners can explore how advocacy might fit into their philanthropic and other giving, including: short-, medium- and long-term goals; local, state and federal levels; and democracy-strengthening vs issue specific. SV2 as an organization will learn about and explore how it might use its “voice” on mission-related issues, and/or shape its grant & impact investing approach to include advocacy in some fashion. SV2 Grantees and Impact Investees can learn and share how advocacy is or could be part of their work.
In the first Deep Dive Workshop at on Friday, February 2nd, we will explore the wide range of ways in which advocacy plays an essential role in social change, and help you reimagine how advocacy can be an essential element in your philanthropic toolkit. Advocacy can transcend partisan politics, and we will learn about the many ways that the social sector relies on advocacy to achieve broad scale social change, even in our own backyard. Advocacy work is directly relevant to achieving SV2’s vision of creating a more equitable and sustainable Bay Area community and world where everyone thrives. The workshop will be facilitated by Christine Sherry of Sherry Consulting, and will feature guest speakers Amanda Stanley, Executive Director of COMPASS Science Communications, and Rebekah Saul Butler, Co-Executive Director of The Grove Foundation, who will each share how advocacy informs, infuses and is included in their work.
In the second session we will dig into the advocacy do’s and don’ts for social impact organizations and explore what advocacy can look like in action.
In the third session, we will focus on our own backyard, Silicon Valley, and SV2’s specific areas of interest. By the end of the series, we hope SV2 Partners, Grantees & Impact Investees, and the broader SV2 community will be better able to evaluate whether, when, and how they want to incorporate advocacy as a social change tool in their philanthropy and work. We look forward to having you join us for the first session on Friday, February 2 at 9:00am (RSVP here). More information on the following sessions and dates coming soon.