02-00 About Understanding Advocacy
This chapter is for those in a leadership position in an advocacy organization. Especially one dependent on large numbers of members to pay their bills. Rebuilding after World War llFor governments to create employment, rebuild communities and deal with issues of income disparities, war-torn societies after the second world war all created a range of…
02-01 Rebuilding After World War II
In Europe and Asia, the War created massive devastation as well as a demand for national and international reconstruction. To help with this enormous challenge, European and Asian societies created and supported a wide range of organizations dedicated to rebuilding viable small businesses. In nations like the US, the challenge was of a different order….
02-02 A Special Kind of Sale
Selling political involvement to small business is a special kind of sale, but my experience at the Canadian Federation of Independent Business and the experience of my counterpart at the National Federation of Independent Business in the US, is that Boards never really understand or appreciate this reality. You need to sell memberships yourself to…
02-03 Detail, Detail, Detail
There is specialization and detail to be mastered in any business, but the failure to master all the detail associated with recruiting and selecting District Managers when I started the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, almost closed us down.It was November, 1971, and our cash ran out. We were still bringing in $1200 a week…
02-04 The Swedish Eye-Opener
It was at the historic first International Symposium on Small Business held in Tokyo, Japan in 1975, that I had my eye opened to the complexities of advocacy organizations representing small business. Of the 600 delegates from over 50 nations, 200 were representatives from advocacy organizations.I made an immediate friendship with those who spoke English,…
02-05 Fighting and Building
It is 1975, and CFIB has built a reputation as a fighter opposing changes to the Income Tax Act, The Combines Investigation Act, The Canada Labour Relations Act and the Unemployment Insurance Act. The question in my mind at the time was whether our destiny was to be a “fighter” or could we be both…
02-06 Wilson Johnson Death
When we achieved our 50,000 membership goal in 1978, two years ahead of schedule, Wilson Johnson called to congratulate me but sadly informed me that he had been diagnosed with bowel cancer and that it was well advanced. He died three years later.The Chairman of the NFIB was of the “religious right” and informed me…
02-07 More Like a Political Party
The Board of a political party includes politicians, policy wonks, organizers and financial people. Small business advocacy groups on the other hand, have Boards made up of strategic people from within their membership. That is a weakness rather than a strength because advocacy groups influencing public policy and public opinion are more like political parties…
02-08 Succession
“Tell staff jobs OK.” Those were the final words my father uttered before he died in 1980 at age 71. His early death was a shock but a lesson to prepare an organization for the succession of its principle players early in the game.The CFIB succession story began in 1982 even though I was not…
02-09 Advocacy Models
If societies want to evolve in a way that maximizes opportunity for its citizens. it wants to ensure that its public policies and public institutions reflect the changing needs of its small and medium-sized enterprises. Why? Because they are the major source of employment and healthy small firms contribute to healthy families and healthy communities….
02-10 CFIB Advocacy Models
During my thirty years of activism visiting organizations like CFIB, I never heard anyone even use the word “marketing”. In private business, companies sell reality or to put it another way, they market what they make. But advocacy organizations are all quasi-political and sell emotion and perception as much as reality. And all advocacy organizations…
02-11 Training and Advocacy
Historically the development model used to upgrade the small business communities in Europe and Asia has been called the “Training Model” and the model in Canada and the United States the “Scar Tissue” model. It was the language used at international conferences.It is a training model in Europe and Asia because training is so institutionalized,…
02-12 Tribute to Bob Morrow
Bob Morrow was a founding member of the Board of CFIB and a hands-on activist member of the Canadian Council for Fair Taxation. He died on January 20th, 2017. He played a strategic role in the history of CFIB. He was a friend.I was on the Jack Webster show in January 1970, attacking the Benson…