Advocacy Essentials for Community Foundations-2026

Training Hours

• Tuesday, August 25 : 1:00-5:00 p.m. ET
• Thursday, August 27: 1:00-5:00 p.m. ET

Watch Before Training

• Webinar Recording: Rules of Advocacy and Lobbying for Grantmakers

Your Faculty

Agenda

Day 1 | Tuesday, August 25 | 1:00 - 5:00 p.m. ET

Section One: Fundamentals and Terminology

• Definitions and characteristics of advocacy, policy, and lobbying through the lens of the Nested Spheres of Influence framework. 

Section Two: Legal Refresher

• Legal refresher on lobbying with Remy Barnwell, Senior Staff Counsel at the Council on Foundations.

Section Three: Evolution of Community Leadership to Include Policy

• Exploring CFLeads Framework for Community Leadership with Sarah Aguirre Origer.
• Understand the importance of commuinty foundations engaging in public policy advocacy.

Section Four: Levels for Systems Change

• Explore opportunities for advocacy and policy engagement at the local, regional, state, federal, and global levels.

Section Five: Understanding and Assessing Organizational Influence

• Defining and assessing organizational influence, examples of activities and best practices, and recommendations of support needed to execute.

Day 1 Speakers

Day 2 | Thursday, August 27 | 1:00 - 5:00 p.m. ET

Section Six: Understanding and Assessing Grantmaking Influence

• Explore what it takes to execute grantmaking to advance policy and advocacy goals.

Section Seven: Establishing Your Advocacy Direction

• Approaches to develop or evolve your community foundation's policy and advocacy engagement by understanding your existing ecosystem and stakeholder perspectives.

Section Eight: Assessing and Mitigating Risks

• Learn about the types of risks associated with advocacy or policy engagement, and approaches to assess and mitigate risk.

Section Nine: Measuring Impact and Outcomes

• Overview of options to track and evaluate the outputs and outcomes of your policy and advocacy engagement, including grantee capacity building.

Section Ten: Stories from the Field

• Hear insights from three community foundation leaders as they share their own experiences, strategies and takeaways with public policy and advocacy work. 

Section Eleven: Assessing Capacity & Organizational Readiness

• Explore the Organizational Capacity and Readiness Assessment tool which is designed to help your foundation reflect honestly on its current capacity and readiness to engage in advocacy, policy, and lobbying work.

Day 2 Speakers

Additional Resources

• Advocacy Toolkit
• Alliance for Justice: Philanthropy Advocacy Playbook
• CFLeads: Going All In Portal
• CFLeads: Framework for Community Leadership
• Community Commons: An Introduction to Advocacy as a Change Strategy for Nonprofits
• Council on Foundation's Advocacy Homepage
• Council on Foundation's Values-Aligned Philanthropy
• Ecosystem Mapping 101 
• Organizational Capacity and Readiness Reflection Worksheet
• The Power of Board Advocacy: A Discussion Guide for Foundation Boards
• 16 Grantmaking Characteristics to Effectively Support Public Policy Advocacy

Webinar Recording - Rules of Advocacy and Lobbying for Grantmakers

Watch video prior to first session on August 25, 2026.