Speaking Up! Foundations and Advocacy in Europe

“Evaluating the effectiveness of advocacy grantmaking depends, first of all, on articulating what you intend to accomplish, how each activity relates to a desired outcome, and how long each of those outcomes is expected to take – a few months, a few years, or longer.”

To draw on the knowledge of NGOs and other partners, foundations must be prepared to invest over a longer period of time in the infrastructure and, consequently, the sustainability of these actors: “You really have to decide how far you are ready to go, and then make the resources available and be realistic."

Several foundations emphasize the importance of grounding advocacy strategies in solid research in order to cogently convey an idea or a position. 

Sarah Stachowiak, a U.S. researcher, describes six pathways that each represent different theories about how policy change happens:

The chosen tool with which to achieve influence varies from foundation to foundation.

Foundations that engage directly or indirectly in advocacy potentially bring a lot of added value to the process:

In 1904, philanthropist Joseph Rowntree stressed, when writing to the trustees of his foundation the “need to seek to search out the underlying causes of weakness or evil rather than remedying their more superficial manifestations.” He added, “It was necessary to ascertain once and for all the actual facts as to intemperance, its causes – legislative and social – and when these were understood, the remedies that must be applied.”