The bamboo curve
Why advocacy grows slowly, then all at once — and how to read the quiet years.
The book · Winter 2026
The Advocacy Advantage
Build Brand Power Through Authentic Relationships
A practical guide for leaders ready to move beyond transactional engagement and build advocacy through trust, belonging, and shared identity.
About the book
Real brand power comes from genuine relationships.
The Advocacy Advantage challenges leaders to rethink what makes organizations resilient. In a world where audiences are overwhelmed by messaging but hungry for belonging, Shane makes the case that real brand power comes from genuine relationships, shared identity, and authenticity.
This book offers a well-researched, yet deeply human blueprint for leaders who want to build beyond the numbers and old ways of engaging into advocacy that lasts.
What you'll learn
- How to shift from transactional engagement to advocacy-driven communities built on shared meaning and behavioral insight.
- Effective ways to translate your organization's values into actionable Promises, Principles, and Aspirations people can actually live by.
- How to build an Advocacy Dashboard that tracks relational health, engagement, and alignment.
“This book is a gift, a valuable tool with easy-to-follow advice about increasing genuine engagement.”
Who it’s for
- Leaders of nonprofits, foundations and mission-driven organizations
- Communications, brand and marketing teams tired of messaging that doesn't move anyone
- HR, culture and people-operations leaders closing the gap between values and daily practice
- Anyone who has been told to 'live your values' and wanted a method instead of a mantra
What’s inside
Seven frameworks, thirteen exercises and a twelve-week sprint.
The ones below are the frameworks that come up on stage and in workshops; in the book each one ends in an exercise you can run with your team.
The values pyramid
Defining, guiding and informing values: which to protect, which to trade.
The advocacy flywheel
How trust compounds into advocacy that costs less than acquisition and lasts longer.
The twelve-week sprint
A working plan for turning belief into behavior a team can act on Monday.
Stakeholder circles
Mapping who is inside the work — and who has only been told about it.
The CTA ladder
From awareness to advocacy: asks that match where people actually are.
Free worksheets
Every exercise in the book, as a page you can fill in.
The Advocacy Dashboard Workbook, all thirteen exercises as fillable worksheets, and the twelve-week sprint tracker. Free with your email.
Waitlist
Be first when the book is out.
One list, one promise: you hear first when the book is available, and nothing else.
Join the waitlist
About the author
Shane Lukas
Shane Lukas owns A Great Idea, an award-winning communications and consulting firm working at the intersection of brand, advocacy and stakeholder engagement. He is an activist and creative strategist who speaks globally. A two-time TEDx speaker and co-host of the Power Beyond Pride podcast.
Meet Shane“This book is a gift, a valuable tool with easy-to-follow advice about increasing genuine engagement.”
“Shane Lukas provides us with practical strategies to go beyond click rates to creating opportunities to build real relationships of deep engagement and value.”
“From your design choices to your values, this book offers actionable advice to any organization.”
Bring the book to your stage.
Keynotes and workshops built on The Advocacy Advantage — booking now for 2027.