Advocacy Announcements: NC Partnership & Ad Hoc Committee

One of Together SC’s strategic priorities has been advocacy and public policy – both in terms of helping build knowledge within our member network and also internally as our own organization.  

We’ve made great strides in recent years, but at our August board meeting, our Board of Directors adopted a framework that will help chart a more in-depth approach to our advocacy work.  

Backed by a grant from the National Council of Nonprofits which has funded our ability to engage our good friend at the NC Center for Nonprofits, David Heinen (VP of Public Policy & Advocacy) in assisting us in the review and update of our entire vertical advocacy portfolio. David has been in this role with NCCN since 2007 and will be of great help to our work. 

We wanted to share that framework with you, our members, so that you can engage in the process and so that it can serve as one way to approach this important work that so many of us in the sector are undertaking. 

This work, with David’s help, will take the better part of the rest of our fiscal year, and is split into three phases: 

• Phase 1: Establishing Oversight [In Progress] 

  At the August board meeting, the Board approved not only the framework, but also the creation of a Public Policy Ad Hoc Committee to provide guidance and oversight as we move through this work. The Ad Hoc Committee consists of three board members and two non-board members and has already begun their work. 

• Phase 2: Internal Recommendations 

  Our Ad Hoc Committee will review and propose changes to internal board and staff policies that relate to advocacy, ensuring that our governance structure provides a strong baseline for us to start with. 

• Phase 3: Programs & External Relations 

  Our Committee will then turn their attention to our more public-facing advocacy work. In collaboration with our Advocacy Allies Peer Network and partners, the Committee will look at our member and nonprofit-centered programming and our more “external” (legislative, agency, etc) affairs to assure everything is aligned and well-positioned. 

We look forward to sharing more as this process continues! We are excited for the future impact we can make on behalf of our sector in the years to come.  

Your Ally For Good,

GP McLeer
Director of Public Policy & Community Engagement