Nonprofits work on behalf of communities in need. In Santa Clara County, Silicon Valley Council of Nonprofits (SVCN) advocates for and provides assistance to the local nonprofit sector, amplifying the voices both of the nonprofits themselves and of the communities they serve.

“SVCN is an important community partner that is leading advocacy work to raise the voices of communities in need,” said Michelle D. Fries, director of nonprofit leadership and support services for Silicon Valley Community Foundation. SVCN, along with its partner agency Thrive Alliance, is acting as a hub for diversity, equity and inclusion work in the Silicon Valley nonprofit community.

SVCF awarded SVCN a multi-year Capacity-Building & Leadership Investment (CBLI) grant that will help SVCN — along with Thrive Alliance, its counterpart in San Mateo County — develop and deliver a locally based and locally sourced advocacy curriculum to support nonprofits throughout the region. The grant not only gives SVCN and Thrive the resources to develop and deliver the curriculum, it will ultimately magnify the capacity of the nonprofits that participate in the training.

The training is critical because for most nonprofits to be successful, they will at times need to advocate for policy changes.

“To execute on their missions, they’ve got to change policy,” said Kyra Kazantzis, CEO of Silicon Valley Council of Nonprofits. “Otherwise, you’re just putting band-aids on things instead of addressing the root causes of problems.”

Deep dive into advocacy

The training, which will be delivered in the second half of 2023, will help nonprofits understand when and how to be an advocate. The curriculum will include success stories and details about how local governments — which both set policy and control budgets that affect nonprofits — operate. Nonprofits’ relationships with local government entities can be complex, and nonprofit leaders may be uncertain about how to advocate for budget or policy changes without causing hard feelings. The training will help nonprofits develop strategies for approaching advocacy.

“Lots of nonprofits are working side by side with government case managers and safety net providers, doing similar work, to help the community,” Kazantzis said.

Complex rules regulating lobbying activities can also make nonprofits wary of doing advocacy work.

The workshops will offer a mixture of in-person and remote instruction. The goal is to make them as accessible as possible for people who live in different parts of the region, while still allowing for in-person instruction for topics such as a role-playing scenario involving a city council meeting. Parts of the curriculum will be customized for San Mateo and Santa Clara counties.

“This work is in direct alignment with our Capacity-Building and Leadership Investment program’s goal to support nonprofit organizations to be effective advocates for diversity, equity, inclusion and justice,” Fries said.

Backing a broader mission

SVCN works to inform policymakers, particularly at the city and county levels, about the impact of nonprofits and to promote policies that help nonprofits advance their missions. Within nonprofit coalitions, SVCN also advocates for racial justice and equity, and to build thriving communities.

“We’re both leading and supporting the sector in saying that we as a sector need to do better in terms of advancing racial justice and equity, both internally at our organizations and externally in the community,” Kazantzis said. SVCN is also working to center community voice, positioning nonprofits as “servant leaders supporting the community.”

SVCN’s CBLI grant is one of several it has received in its longstanding partnership with SVCF. SVCF also provided a general operating support grant and another grant to create ongoing specialized training on the budget processes for the City of San José and Santa Clara County.

The budget training is a “deep dive for people that want to understand all the different levers for government budgets,” Kazantzis said.

Investing in capacity-building is investing in the effectiveness and sustainability of a nonprofit, ensuring that an organization can deliver its mission both now and in the future – a key tenet of the CBLI program. By funding groups such as Silicon Valley Council of Nonprofits that serve as hubs and coordinators for local nonprofits, SVCF is able to reach more organizations and support capacity-building across Silicon Valley’s nonprofit ecosystem.