Lobbyists: Stop Confusing Access with Influence—And Start Tapping Nonprofits’ Advocacy Superpowers
- bethany6152
- Aug 19
- 3 min read
Let’s get this out of the way: access is not influence.
Access is a meeting on the calendar, a legislator’s cell number, a selfie on social media.
Influence is what happens after the meeting—votes shift, amendments get inserted, hearings get scheduled, bills get buried, budgets get rebalanced.
Access gets you in the room.
Influence changes what happens in the room.
Too many nonprofit leaders think, “We got the meeting, we’re winning.”
Too many lobbyists think, “My value is that I got you the meeting.”
Both are wrong. Both are selling themselves short. Getting in the door is the easy part.
What matters is what happens because you were there.
And here’s the kicker: lawmakers don’t waste time targeting nonprofits because they’re weak. They go after nonprofits because they know how powerful they could be—if they actually organized.
Cute underdog narratives aside, nonprofits are sitting on untapped power. And lobbyists who only trade in access aren’t doing their clients—or democracy—any favors.
What great lobbyists (with nonprofit clients) do differently
Great lobbyists aren’t gatekeepers—they’re bridge-builders and force multipliers, and they:
Engineer inside/outside sync. Pair Capitol meetings with tightly timed action alerts so lawmakers feel constituent heat before, during, and after the meeting.
Spread relationships. Don’t hoard contacts—cultivate direct ties between legislators/staff and the nonprofit’s members, so power outlives any single contract.
Prioritize with discipline. Help clients focus on two or three winnable priorities and park the rest in a clear “watch list” with transparent criteria.
Insist on training. Untrained advocates don’t act. They ensure their clients build the muscle—briefings, scripts, role-plays, debriefs—until outreach is second nature.
Measure what matters. Not just meetings held, but letters per district, offices touched, champions recruited, story placements earned, and movement in vote counts.
👉 This is where Snyder Strategies comes in. This is the exact work I do with nonprofits and membership organizations—helping them sharpen their advocacy priorities, activate their members, train their storytellers, and connect all of that to the inside game their lobbyist is running.
When lobbyists and nonprofits align this way, it’s not just access—it’s real influence.
They leverage the 4 Nonprofit Advocacy Superpowers
Nonprofits—especially membership orgs—already hold four big levers. Your job is to leverage these for real-world outcomes. The four superpowers are:
Subject-Matter Expertise
Localized Data
Stories from People with Lived Expertise
Access to People Who Care (Mobilizable Networks)
To dig deeper into how each of these superpowers works—and how you can use them to drive influence—check out my blog: The 4 Nonprofit Advocacy Superpowers.
A simple operating system for lobbyist–nonprofit partnerships
Co-prioritize: Select 2–3 tier-one issues with a clear rubric.
Cadence: Weekly 30-minute war room (targets, intel, next beats).
Pair inside with outside: Meeting → alert; markup → LTE op; amendment → targeted calls; floor vote → patch-throughs.
Train & rehearse: Quarterly trainings, role-play meetings, debriefs after every lawmaker touch.
Scoreboard: Track actions, meetings, press hits, commitments, conversions—by target, if possible.
For more on how nonprofits can partner with lobbyists without giving away their voice or values, check out my post: How to Work with a Lobbyist Without Losing Your Advocacy Soul.
Five questions every lobbyist should ask their nonprofit client
“What are your top two or three priorities this session—and how did you use to choose them?”
“Who are our 10 best storytellers with lived experience, and have they been trained?”
“What community-level data can we credibly present, and who owns keeping it current?”
“How big is your mobilizable list by district, and what’s our rapid-response threshold?”
“What’s our inside/outside calendar for the next four weeks?” Every lobby meeting should have a matching member action.
And want to make sure you are hiring a lobbyist who gets grassroots? Check out this resource: 10 Questions to Ask your Lobbyist.
The Bottom Line
Nonprofits should be at the table, not on the menu—and the fastest way to make that real is a lobbyist who treats member power as the main course, not a garnish. Bring your access. Plug it into their superpowers. That’s how you turn presence into pressure—and pressure into policy.
And if you want to make sure your nonprofit clients have all the tools, systems, and strategies to back you up and deliver real influence? That’s my specialty. At Snyder Strategies, I work with membership organizations and nonprofits to unlock their superpowers, engage their networks, and transform passive members into powerful advocates.
Let’s make sure your clients don’t just get into the room—let’s make sure they move the room.
Want more smart, sassy, actionable advocacy insights like this?
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