How Strategies for Children Uses GroupMap for Policy Advocacy

Strategies for Children (SFC) is a Massachusetts-based nonprofit dedicated to ensuring that children from birth to age five have access to high-quality early education programs. For 24 years, SFC has been a leading advocate in the early childhood sector, focusing on four major initiatives: The 9:30 Call, The Advocacy Network for Early Childhood, The Early Childhood Agenda, and the Eye on Early Childhood blog.

The Early Childhood Agenda, launched in 2022, brought together over 1,000 stakeholders to identify key priorities for advancing early childhood education. The initiative has since led to significant advocacy wins, new workgroups, and strengthened partnerships in the sector. To facilitate collaboration and consensus-building, SFC turned to GroupMap as a key tool in their engagement strategy.

About Titus and Marisa

Titus DosRemedios, is the Deputy Director at Strategies for Children (SFC), a Massachusetts-based nonprofit dedicated to advocating for high-quality early education and care. In his role, Titus oversees general operations, staffing, grant writing, budget development, and manages the Advocacy Network for Early Childhood. Since joining SFC in 2008 as a Research and Policy Associate, he has led numerous initiatives, including consulting with local communities on preschool planning and expansion efforts, co-facilitating the New Bedford Birth–3rd Partnership from 2016 to 2020, and facilitating the Massachusetts Partnership for Infants and Toddlers from 2019 to 2022, a statewide public-private collaboration with 60 member organizations. He also served as the inaugural co-chair of the Massachusetts Early Childhood Funder Collaborative’s Community Advisory Committee from 2021 to 2022.

Marisa Fear

Marisa Fear serves as the Director of Policy at Strategies for Children (SFC), where she contributes to advocacy, research, policy, and communication efforts aimed at enhancing early childhood education and care in Massachusetts. Her responsibilities include managing SFC’s COVID-19 support initiatives, producing daily advocacy calls for the early education and care field, documenting ongoing challenges, monitoring data trends, state and national budget proposals, and policy changes from the Department of Early Education and Care. Marisa facilitates the Speakers’ Bureau—a statewide cohort of early educators—and collaborates with the field to build advocacy capacity in local communities. She also works closely with SFC interns and manages collaborations with external partners. Marisa is a member of the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s working group on Early Childhood and Out-of-School Time.

Challenges Faced by Strategies for Children

Before using GroupMap, SFC faced challenges in coordinating input from a diverse group of stakeholders across Massachusetts’ early childhood sector. 

“We needed a way to facilitate meaningful discussions in both virtual and in-person settings while efficiently collecting feedback from educators, families, and policymakers,” said Titus DosRemedios.

Without a structured system, gathering and organizing ideas from large meetings and workgroups was time-consuming and challenging to translate into actionable strategies.

How GroupMap Helped

To address these challenges, SFC implemented GroupMap as a tool for facilitating discussions, brainstorming, and achieving consensus across multiple engagement levels.

Large Group Convenings

“We committed to hosting large-group convenings on Zoom, roughly once per quarter, after releasing The Early Childhood Agenda in January 2023,” shared Marisa Fear. “Our first such meeting in June 2023 attracted nearly 100 attendees.” 

Using GroupMap, participants provided feedback on how they had been using the Agenda in their work and shared ideas on evolving its structure.

Workgroup Meetings

SFC launched six workgroups to develop solutions for key priorities. 

“Each workgroup relied on GroupMap to break down complex issues, identify key stakeholders, and refine actionable recommendations,” explained Marisa. “For instance, workgroup #4 used GroupMap to list top recommendations, define clear objectives, and anticipate potential barriers.”

Stewardship Team Coordination

SFC created a Stewardship Team to recognize the need for a coordinating leadership body.

“GroupMap helped us track progress, collect feedback, and foster collaboration among facilitators and partners,” said Titus. “At our first Stewardship Team meeting, we used GroupMap to gather input on how this structure could be most effective.”

Outcomes and Benefits

The adoption of GroupMap significantly improved the efficiency and effectiveness of SFC’s engagement efforts. “Stakeholders reported a greater sense of involvement as they could see their contributions reflected in real-time,” said Marisa. “The tool’s interactive nature made it easier to build consensus and develop policy recommendations collaboratively.”

SFC’s efforts have led to tangible outcomes:

  • Engaged over 1,000 stakeholders in shaping early childhood policies.
  • Held quarterly convenings with 100+ participants, including an in-person event at Polar Park baseball stadium.
  • Launched six workgroups to tackle high-priority issues.
  • Drafted actionable recommendations for publication in 2024.
“Using GroupMap has been a game-changer,” Titus emphasized. “It allowed us to structure discussions effectively and ensure that every voice was heard.”

What Participants Had to Say

“GroupMap provided a structured way to gather and prioritize ideas,” said one participant. “It made complex discussions more productive and inclusive.”

Another stakeholder noted, “I appreciated how easy it was to contribute my thoughts and see how they fit into the bigger picture. It really helped us move from brainstorming to actionable strategies.”

The Future of The Early Childhood Agenda

As SFC finalizes the next phase of The Early Childhood Agenda, GroupMap remains an essential tool for fostering innovation, supporting decision-making, and driving meaningful progress. 

“We are excited about the next phase of our work and will continue to use GroupMap for consensus-building,” said Marisa.

Equip your team with better brainstorming and decision-making tools. See how GroupMap can strengthen your advocacy efforts today! Start your free trial here.

Case Study: Tuna Blue Uses Innovative Facilitation Tools to Engage Stakeholders

Tuna Blue Facilitation supports groups to make their best decisions together by providing tailored facilitation processes paired with innovative digital technology.

Group Map Case Study – Tuna Blue Facilitation

Who is Tuna Blue?

Tuna Blue Facilitation supports groups to make their best decisions together by providing tailored facilitation processes paired with innovative digital technology. It’s an approach they call Long Haul Facilitation and it’s been refined in 1,300+ workshops with Government, community, and corporate groups in a diverse range of sectors. Always ready for the long haul, Will and Bevan at Tuna Blue have worked across Australia and the Asia Pacific to help groups get the buy-in and engagement they deserve.

 

1. What was the event, meeting, or objective you were using GroupMap to resolve?

Stakeholder review of the Model of Care for Palliative Care in Western Australia.

 

2. What were the details of the event in terms of size, name, and location? Is there a link we can refer to?

Over 100 passionate stakeholders (primary and specialist care, allied health, consumers, etc.) at a one-day forum in Perth, WA plus a further 13 regional and remote representatives via Webinar later in the month.

 

3. What was the main challenge you wanted to resolve?

How to gain really focused and pragmatic input on changes to the Models of Care from a diverse range of expert stakeholders in a way that allowed everyone to have a voice but reached some pretty clear consensus before 4 pm.

 

4. In what way/s did you use GroupMap?

We created a number of maps for the different workshop sessions throughout the day:

  • A ‘Burning Issues’ session straight upfront, within 3 mins of the forum beginning.
  • A service delivery ‘Gaps and Solutions’ session with the solutions specifically linked to particular gaps through the use of the comment function.
  • A ‘world café’ style session focused on the 5 priority areas for review within the Models of Care, and
  • A shared 10 year Vision session.
 

5. What was the response from the audience?

We worked in collaborative mode and the participants loved the ability to discuss and enter their views in small groups plus build on other groups’ input. Most of all though, they were astonished that a level of consensus could be reached with 100 people present and that they could leave at 4 pm with a good idea of the overall strategic direction and a clear head. The sponsor closed the forum by saying ‘after running things this way, I don’t think we can ever go back to butchers’ paper and texts, this absolutely changes how engage’.

 

6. What outcomes/output did you achieve from using GroupMap?

With the wealth of input from the GroupMap sessions and plenaries, we developed a detailed Outcomes Report for the client to guide their review of the Models of Care with the smaller Steering Group. At a deeper level, the stakeholder group was engaged and felt a greater sense of ownership over the changes to the Models of Care that will affect their daily work and their patients.

 

7. Is there anything else you want to say to people considering using GroupMap for themselves?

We always stress to participants that GroupMap is the technology but the discussion between people is the really catalytic part, where change will occur. So make sure you’ve designed some robust facilitation processes to coincide with GroupMap and you’ll be sweet!

Read more about Tuna Blue’s mission statement here!

“GroupMap has fundamentally changed the way we do business. As a facilitation consultancy that spent the last 20 years on butchers’ paper, GroupMap has met a real need for ourselves and our clients. Plus it’s made us review and refresh the way we facilitate workshops.”

Will Bessen, Tuna Blue Facilitation

Tips for Online Stakeholder Engagement

Recently, Andrew Huffer, of Andrew Huffer Associates, shared three fast tips for online stakeholder engagement.

He has over 25 years of experience in working with organizations, businesses, managers, and communities at a state, national and international level.

Andrew is a Facilitation, Community Engagement & Team Development Specialist, who can help you and your team members be 100% clear on ‘What’s Next’.

Andrew designs and delivers specialist engagement processes, with a focus on facilitating open decision making processes and skill development of clients. He has delivered presentations and workshops at a number of states, national and international conferences. We’re pleased that GroupMap scored a mention in Andrew’s blog post as an “online engagement tool for people to provide their input individually in real-time during an online stakeholder engagement process.” Thanks, Andrew for the shoutout.

Andrew’s top three tips

Andrew has been doing plenty of online stakeholder engagement and has learned a few valuable things that he shared in his blog post, titled “Three fast tips for online stakeholder engagement.”

Tip 1: Keep participants above the line

Andrew commented in his post that engagement should be all about “encouraging them to give ideas that are future-focused; thinking about where the opportunities are in relation to the issue and what’s possible.” He calls this keeping them above the line so that their comments and thinking remain constructive, relevant to the future and solutions based.

GroupMap Collaboration Tool in Action

Tip 2: Equity in input

We love this tip from Andrew because this is what we aim to provide with GroupMap: “[give] people…the chance for that more intimate conversation where they get the chance to be heard. This occurs at all levels from equal speaking time, to equal air time for ideas and include a diverse range of voices.

Tip 3: Have workshop templates ready to go

Another awesome tip is to get all your templates ready for the online engagement workshop that you are running so that “… you to get the data from the workshop ….. and get it out to your participants as quickly as possible.”

Of course, this is something that can you easily do via GroupMap’s readily available or custom templates along with a reporting functionality that allows you to download all workshop discussions, voting, and comments at a click of a button!

GroupMap templates

To read Andrew’s full online stakeholder engagement tips head to this blog post.