John Kania and his colleagues at FSG Social Impact Advisors have been promoting a concept they call “Catalytic Philanthropy”. In their book “Do More Than Give” they suggest that “we all inhabit an increasingly complex and globally interdependent world that is changing with unprecedented speed. Although social and environmental problems have been with us throughout human history, today’s challenges are of a whole new order.” To make a difference in the new context requires that funders must become proactive players in solving problems and advancing the causes they care about. They must catalyze action across each sector of society. 

Kania and his colleagues name six practices that funders must incorporate to achieve the change they hope to achieve. One of those is to engage in advocacy – particularly to advocate for changes to government programs, priorities and laws that stand in the way of productive change. 

Advocacy is a dilemma for many groups who wish to work collaboratively to address social change. In my experience many activists and community groups are reluctant to collaborate with the business sector because they disagree with certain business practices and fear that by collaborating with business they will lose the ability to advocate against those practices. A similar fear makes it difficult for some to sustain close trusting partnerships with government. Funders such as United Way organizations are particularly reluctant to engage in advocacy out of a concern that they might alienate certain sectors of society and thereby damage their ability to raise donation revenues.

 The folks at FSG suggest that one solution to the dilemma is to change the way we define and understand advocacy. They acknowledge that there are certain types of advocacy that are difficult for funders to engage in. Direct lobbying that takes a stand and a call to action about specific pieces of legislation would be an example of that. But there are many other types of advocacy. Conducting public education campaigns that do not include calls to action related to specific legislation would be an example of that. Educating legislators about broad issues would be another. Conducting and promulgating non-partisan analysis and research would be a third.

 Throughout history, hard edged confrontational grassroots advocacy has been critical in achieving important social advances. The civil rights movement, the labour rights movement, feminism and the women’s movement – and many others all have a foundation in that approach.

 It is difficult to be collaborative and confrontational at the same time. At least it is difficult to collaborate with groups who think differently than you when using highly confrontational approaches. But there is a different type of advocacy, an advocacy based more on rational discourse – research, story telling, education and sharing of views – that can also be effective. And in this complex interconnected world of ours, we need to include it as one tool within our collaborative work.