Advocacy is in season!

This morning, nonprofit workers representing fifteen different service providers attended the first session of Harvest Democracy, an advanced training series on services and social change at the Catalyst Miami office.

Catalyst Miami's 4-part Harvest Democracy program is designed to strengthen the understanding, commitment and skills of nonprofit staff and board members in regards to advocacy.

Thanks to the generous support of Allegany Franciscan Ministries, Harvest Democracy will help nonprofits accomplish their missions by incorporating advocacy and policy analysis into their organizational strategic planning. In addition, fundamental values for effective advocates at all levels of government will be discussed.

Participants who complete the program will:

• Understand the importance of advocacy in nonprofit leadership
• Learn to engage constituents and
• Develop leadership tools to protect their services through client engagement

Notable Results from the last Democracy series:

*100% of evaluation results show improved "aptitude as an advocate," with 75% of them rating their newfound confidence as "very good" or "excellent."

*100% felt confident in their ability to generate a strategy to engage constituents and decision-makers, while 75% had reported insecurity in this are prior to completing the program.

*88.9% reported engaging in new coalitions or alliances over the course of the program or expressed their intention to do so.

SURVIVING IN A DOWN ECONOMY… the recap

 By Bryan Troupe, Catalyst Miami Communications Intern

Today's Tip of the Iceberg roundtable discussion, hosted by Catalyst Miami and co-sponsored by Allegany Franciscan Ministries, was informative and thought-provoking. Discussions in the meeting ranged from cuts of federal funding to nonprofit organizations collaborating with one another. 

Daniella Levine, CEO and President of Catalyst Miami opened the Tip of the Iceberg roundtable discussion. During her opening she introduced a new program entitled “Nonprofit Leadership and Training Institute.” This program fits squarely in Catalyst's mission, to build individual leadership and strong organizations that work together to improve health, education and economic opportunity in all communities.The program will be launched in September 2011. 

Daniella also discussed how the attending organizations need to work together and form a platform for collaboration. 

Miguel Milanes of Allegany Franciscan Ministries gave a great quote by JFK: “When the word crisis is written in Chinese, it uses two characters. One character represents „danger‟ and the other represents opportunity.‟ He added, “This is an opportunity today to do something about this issue.”

Here is what some of the other individuals who attended said about the discussion:

“We need to continue meeting like this to bring forward nonprofit organizations--we need to collaborate more.” - Darryll Gaschler of Americorps Alums Chapter

“We need to be our own best advocate. “ - Harry Horgan, CEO of Shake-A-Leg Miami

“Participants had to think about what “real” collaboration is and how we can improve.” - Mario Coryell of NewOrg 

The second speaker, Patricia Robbins, is the Founder and Chairperson of Farm Share, Inc. Robbins is the only CBO who had increased funding in the last county budget because of the increased need and tremendous efficiency that her organization provides. However, she was just given a devastating budget cut from the state. She discussed how her foundation has given fruits and vegetables to those in need in cities around the state of Florida, including Miami Dade. Robbins also expressed, “We need to collaborate more to get a share of federal dollars. Our community is hard hit.”Robbins is referring to the state funding for FarmShare and its statewide network of nonprofit distribution affiliates. On May 26, Governor Rick Scott eliminated all state funding for Farm Share, $750,000, half the organization's budget.

“This will have tremendous negative effect on Miami Dade – up to a 50% cut,” Robbins says. The Tip of the Iceberg roundtable discussion gave great ideas for organizations to collaborate with each other in order to make an even bigger impact on specific issues. Attendees will be sure to speak of the discussions with their organizations in the upcoming days.

The Second Session of Democracy Summer

By Bryan Troupe, Catalyst Miami Communications Intern

The second session of Democracy Summer was a success! Participants discussed a variety of different topics ranging from a neo-liberalism (headed by Jake Coker-Dukowitz) to the dos and don'ts of lobbying (presented by our CEO Daniella Levine). Democracy Summer’s goal is for nonprofit organizers to be able to advocate more efficiently after completing the 8-week program.

There were several group activities that kept the members of the group interested in the opportunity to learn a lot more about each other. One of the activities, aptly named "Six Degrees of Separation", consisted of each individual making a list of things that they liked, and then finding others in the group that liked at least five of those same things.

LaRhonda Odom headed another great activity. This one aimed to show how the wealthiest 10% compared to the bottom 90% of income owners. Ten participants were seated in a line of ten chairs, when suddenly six of those seated were made to stand as their chairs were given to one person - who represented the top 10% of the wealthiest members of society. An observation that many of the group made was that those removed from their seats appeared to have a difficult time organizing themselves in order to get those chairs back that were owned by one person. This seemed to identify with the top 10% of today's most wealthy individuals being given preference in the tax system, while the rest of society are not able to properly organize themselves in order to create a level playing field.

This informative group session ended Week 2 on an incredible and positive note. The following session is titled "Organizing Concepts." Week 3 here we come!

Democracy Summer is a program of Catalyst Miami being offered by our Civic Life Academy through the sponsorship of the Allegany Franciscan Ministries.  



Official Flyer of "Tip of the Iceberg? Surviving in a Down Economy"