Beyond Zero-Sum in the New Normal

How does advocacy, communications, and fundraising need to change post-pandemic?

Written with Katri Bertram

The Covid-19 pandemic is reinforcing in a stark way how interconnected our societies and challenges are. A functioning and prosperous economy and society depends on having a strong and inclusive public health system and political leaders capable of implementing sound measures to control the spread of a virus. Immigration, labor and education policies impact whether the health system has skilled workers needed to respond — and health and safety regulations and equipment in place to protect them. Trade, industrial and development policies impact whether countries can continue to provide their populations with essential supplies. Social policies determine whether sick days, child care, and income loss are covered. The quality of the air we breathe impacts our health and ability to recover from infection. Furthermore, forest loss makes future pandemics like Covid-19 more likely.

Yet, despite the clear interconnections, much of the discourse about the pandemic and returning to a “new normal” has focused on opposing choices. Should governments protect the health of people or that of the economy? Should donors and international organisations fund programs to deal with the pandemic or invest in efforts to combat climate change? Should governments and companies protect workers’ health, or focus on their businesses survival? Is the health sector essential, but education and food supply not?

These are not either/or questions. Rather, it is a question of finding the right balance for different phases of a crisis, and different contexts. As professionals who have worked across government, NGOs, international organisations, and philanthropy, we’re not surprised by the zero-sum approaches. Most policy analysis is highly specialized, but also fragmented and siloed. The same applies to decision-making, as well as budgeting. It is difficult to break these silos, as entire institutions have been set up accordingly. To support policy analysis, decision making, and budgeting in a way that best addresses complex challenges, we propose that a key first step is changing our narratives. That starts with how advocacy, communications, and fundraising campaigns are conducted.

We have advised a wide range of organisations on how to advocate to increase political priority and funding for their issues. These have included organisations working to prevent violence; ensure children and mothers have enough healthy food to eat; bring universal health coverage to their countries; stop climate change; and support early childhood development. Leaders working on each of these issues should be allies. But too often, they’re not. Some truly believe that their issue is the most vital issue — which deserves the most attention or funding. Other leaders acknowledge that their success depends on the success of those working on other challenges. But their advocacy, communications and fundraising often tells another story, putting their issue — whether it’s nutrition, health, education or something else — in competition for attention with government, donors and others. And it’s not just competition among, but also within, sectors. Covid-19 is likely to bring more emphasis to diseases — perhaps at the expense of support for health systems and other sectors.

We have felt pressure to reinforce these silos. When everyone wants their issue to get the most funding and attention, it’s easier to design a narrow issue-specific campaign than engage in the hard work of figuring out how to work and advocate together to solve complex problems. Our contracts and performance measures often reinforce the same. It’s common for leaders advocating for integrated action to come under fire from those seeking to protect their siloed turf. For example, advocates for the Green New Deal in the U.S. have gotten resistance for arguing that the climate crisis cannot be addressed without also addressing the interlinked crises of racial and economic inequality. Similarly, global health advocates trying to include nutrition policy as a driver of preventable deaths or ill health often get push back from the traditional health community, who fear that disease-specific or medical interventions would get lost or deprioritized. The result is zero-sum competition for budgets, incoherent and fragmented policies and operationalization, and ultimately less impact, and fewer lives saved.

Leaders working in all sectors are likely entering a moment where the apparent incentives to reinforce silos will — also in the face of scarcer budgets and in many countries ahead of elections — be stronger than ever. Governments and other donors are likely to tighten budgets in the face of the economic fallout from the pandemic — creating an incentive to fall back on “my issue first”. But the reality will continue to be that we will contain Covid-19, have more impact, and build back our systems better and more coherently by working together.

So how should advocacy, communications and fundraising support collaboration in this new moment? We offer a few broad suggestions below, but we’re looking for your input and specific examples of what advocacy, communications and fundraising should look like in a new and better normal.

• Advocate for people, not issues. Leaders working in policy and development tend to think in issue silos (at least professionally). But people tend to tell stories about our lives and the challenges we face in holistic ways. Centering advocacy on people instead of issues helps to avoid language suggesting that any one issue or sector is the silver bullet to all problems. It also helps convene representatives from different sectors or ministries — and explicitly advocate for shared planning, budgeting and accountability mechanisms across decision-making and budgeting.
• Communicate about intersections between issues. Recognize the importance of other issues, and their interconnectedness to your primary issue. Even if it’s a secondary message, communicate and campaign in a way that is not zero-sum. Leaders should also pay attention to how their technical language can shut others out. Partner across sectors, and include partners who have more freedom to message across sectors or beyond limited funding lines (e.g. academia and think tanks).
• Fundraise and collaborate in a way that expands the pie for all. Another answer may be to focus more on broad-based policies to increase the amount of funding available for all — like campaigns to increase the total amount of funding for development rather than the amount available for a specific issue.

Covid-19 provides a historical opportunity to do things differently. We can decide to work together for more impact for all people, society and the global economy, or we can blindly defend our silos at the cost of everything else.

As advocacy, communications and fundraising specialists, we believe our community can support and develop a more coherent, collaborative narrative and ways of working. Are we — and are our funders — ready to go down this new path?

Please share in our comments section or through social media examples where collaborative advocacy, communication, and fundraising is already taking place. We and our community would love to learn from best practices.