Building skills and capacities in the Rx network
In 2020, the Rx Foundation made funds available to support training opportunities for members of the Rx Advocacy Partners Network, and connected partners directly with several technical assistance organizations.
In 2021, we launched the Targeted Coaching program, which includes funding and introductions to a roster of coaches and technical assistance providers who were ready and willing to engage. This optional program gives grant partners a boost to focus on goals that they might not have articulated in their original proposals, and to meet coaches who were not already known to them. In the first year of the program, leaders and teams in the program worked on skills and issues including power analysis, building more effective teams, state-level health policy and text-based messaging outreach.
Rather than a one-size-fits-all approach to technical assistance, the Rx Foundation’s Targeted Coaching program is a chance for our grant partners to connect and work directly with coaches who offer tailored assistance to building capacity according to their organization’s priorities. We hope to give partners a boost to focus on capacity-building goals that may not have been articulated in their original grant proposal, or where more support is needed to make progress.
Coaching Spotlights
Learn more about select coaches and technical assistance providers in our Targeted Coaching program
PowerLabs supports staff and volunteer teams to make it more likely they get stronger over time, contribute to team members’ growth and learning, and produce excellent work. Their coaching approach is grounded in decades of research on what makes teams successful. PowerLabs’ coaches help your organization’s team develop the skills and processes to improve collaboration, problem-solving and innovation.
Three organizations in the Building Capacity for Health Advocacy program worked with PowerLabs, including Missouri Organizing and Voter Engagement Collaborative, People’s Action, and Vot-ER.
My team has found the coaching support so deeply valuable. I don’t think we would have found it on our own, and more than that, I don’t think I would have expended the amount of funding necessary to work with Randall Smith of PowerLabs without the Rx Foundation…Some of the learnings entirely re-defined how we ran our deep canvassing pilot program. We wouldn’t have had that without the Rx Foundation making the connection for us.
– Molly Fleming, Founding Executive Director of Missouri Organizing and Voter Engagement Collaborative
At Vot-ER, we aspire to be a highly collaborative organization — but as our staff grew, relationships alone were no longer enough to mediate collaborative decision making. Working with PowerLabs allowed us to combine the best practices of research-driven frameworks with the customized touch of adapting to our team’s needs and culture. We have now adopted decision-making frameworks, updated team norms, and are on a path to our leadership learning more about psychological safety as a result of PowerLabs work with us.
– Aliya Bhatia, Former Executive Director of Vot-ER
Thirty years after the 1992 South Los Angeles Uprising, Strategic Concepts in Organizing and Policy Education (SCOPE) continues to build community power, elevating the voices of Black and Brown communities most impacted by historic disinvestment. SCOPE’s birth was an experiment for grassroots power building to address the systemic factors that perpetuate intersecting drivers of disparities, including inequities in the health and wellbeing of our communities. Out of necessity, SCOPE and its South LA allies have continued to be a testing ground for innovative solutions.
One of the resources born from their own work is the Power Analysis tool. This visual and interactive tool helps organizers, advocates, and leaders map power relationships in the communities where we live or places we work. Who has power? How and for what do they use it? What do unequal power relationships have to do with the problems we face? By investigating these issues through the Power Analysis Tool, organizations can further develop strategies and tactics for winning campaigns and building long-term grassroots power. Reflecting on these relationships is critical to the creation of effective, proactive strategies that build the power of grassroots organizations fighting for social justice change.
In the Rx Foundation’s network, three grant partners have brought the Power Analysis tool training from SCOPE to their national teams.
Other Coaching & Technical Assistance Resources
Nerdy Movement Study Group
Many members of the Rx Foundation’s advocacy, organizing, and civic engagement learning community have completed PowerLabs’ Nerdy Movement Study Group, a “comprehensive program for designing and running organizing programs where volunteers and members thrive” hosted semi-annually.
The program helps participants use evidence-based methods to:
- Recruit new members
- Increase their commitment and ability to lead
- Build strong member teams that learn and adapt to changing conditions
It provides the tools, inspiration, and support to create a high-participation, high-commitment organizing program where members grow, learn, and lead.
As a new professional to the organizing non-profit space (also entering a new position for my organization) I was eager to learn more about how to apply organizing methods into my policy advocacy and coalition building work… This study group was ideal! I learned so much from each module and even took away skills I didn’t imagine would be as helpful as they are to my work (like coaching models.) I left with real experience having practiced them, and feel so much more confident as I look ahead toward my objectives for the year. I also made great connections with the folks in my cohort. I am confident that I have made friends and colleagues at Nerdy Movement that I will have for the rest of my career!
– Maria Bobrowski-Artola of Vot-ER
Participating in the program was an enlightening, productive experience. It was good for me to be placed in a learning circle with amazing people experienced in community organizing who were more than happy to share their experiences and best practice tips with me. Interestingly, they expressed to me being able to receive a new perspective on engaging in community organizing from me as a newbie. The end result of participating in the We’re A Nerdy Movement Study Group is I’ve learned a plethora of best practices for engaging in community organizing, I have physical resources to go back to when I get stuck or need to refresh myself, and I’ve made connections I can lean on from now on through my learning circle.
– LaToya Tyson, Health Equity Solutions
The Rx Foundation provides technical assistance funding to cover registration fees for partners in our advocacy, organizing, and civic engagement learning network.
Trainings and Skill-Sharing within the Rx Network
Since 2023, we’ve hosted several in-network trainings and workshops.
Together, we’ve explored topics such as:
- Cybersecurity
- Disinformation, misinformation, and building trust
- Grant writing
- Op-Eds
- Strategic capacity
- Power analysis
For current and alumni partners, we have a Partner Resource Library which hosts all of the previously recorded webinars in one place to watch on-demand at their convenience.
Training Spotlights
Learn more about select trainings we’ve hosted for the Rx network
Alabama Arise
Kentucky Voices for Health
West Virginians for Affordable Health Care
The most important lesson for me was how to develop your story: how to pull it apart and examine it from different angles, examine changes, and find intersections so the story becomes more robust and impactful. I was surprised to learn that there are tactics to developing a story and becoming a better storyteller. Storytelling has always seemed like it’s just something people either inherently know how to do or they’re really bad at it, so realizing there are ways to improve this skillset was encouraging. I can imagine our staff using these tactics to incorporate more storytelling into our work and fundraising.
– Former Participant
Thanks so much for this wonderful opportunity, this has been an extremely helpful experience and has been inspiring to include stories in my work on a greater scale! I will help others with developing their stories, share my story, and incorporate stories into the larger work of my organization.
– Former Participant
In Winter 2022, we asked our grant partners what technical assistance or coaching opportunities they’d like to see from our program. One of the named priorities was to bring a grant writing workshop to our cohort.
We co-created the resources with our partners and hosted a 12-hour, certificate, “Introduction to Grant Writing” series and several Advanced modules for our network in 2024.