Matt Fletcher Building an Advocacy Base Presentation

BUILDING THE BASE

Steps for Creating a Strong Advocacy BaseA Presentation by Matt Fletcher

2014 InterHab Advocacy Bootcamp

© Matt Fletcher, 2014

Start with the core.

Cores store and protect the seeds that are the genetic blueprints for the next generation!

Cores provide the backbone for the rest of the apple!

BUILDING THE BASE

Why do apples have cores?


Assemble a core advocacy team.

Teams are important in advocacy. A team of supportive individuals can accomplish much more than just one person. It is important to stress that this is a team, not just a group.

A team implies a shared sense of purpose, and a sense that performance - both individual, and as a group - will lead to accomplishing goals.

BUILDING THE BASE

Recruit a small team of people within your organization who are passionate and energetic about advocacy.


Start with one or two people who will agree to be leaders.

A leader provides valuable functions for teams:

Charts a course on team goals and objectives.

Develops cohesive bonds among the team.

Organizes creation of shared team process for accomplishing goals.

Encourages the team in achieving goals.

Creates opportunities for reflection, feedback and analysis of team progress on goals.

Celebrates team success, no matter how small.

BUILDING THE BASE© Matt Fletcher, 2014

Team size. WWGD?

Research suggests:

Team size just large enough to complete task focus.

Anything larger and you risk negative behaviors within the team.

Five to eight persons should be a target for team size.

BUILDING THE BASE

Goldilocks. An excellent chooser of “just right”. What Would Goldilocks Do?


Who are potential team members?

• People who are invested in the mission

• People who are enthusiastic about advocacy.

• People who are good collaborators.

• People who are willing to try new things.

• People who can coach others in advocacy.

• People who have connections.

• People who have skills.

• People who are energetic.


Set a schedule.

• Provides initial needed structure.

• Begins the loop of development, execution and analysis.

• Creates needed accountability opportunities.

BUILDING THE BASE

Schedules are extremely important for nascent team development.


Make a plan.

By making a plan, your team:

• Coalesces around team goals and functions.

• Explores team member strengths and interests.

• Creates a sense of team identity and purpose.

• Divides labor among team members.

• Generates excitement over shared planning and possibilities.

• Determines how to evaluate outcomes of team activities.

BUILDING THE BASE

As a first step, your team needs to make an advocacy plan.It can be very simple and short. Team planning will help to create a shared sense of understanding of what the team hopes to accomplish.


Components of your advocacy plan.However simple or complex you decide to make your advocacy plan, make sure to include the following components:

•Agreed-upon advocacy goals.

•Goals broken down into action steps.

•Needed resources for each action step.

•Assignment of team members to action steps.

•Agreed-upon timeline for accomplishing action steps.

BUILDING THE BASE

“I love it when a plan comes together!”


Your advocacy team will be the start of something big.

One small pebble = a thousand ripples.

With your team in place and goals set, you’re ready to start recruiting a larger advocacy base.

This will be a long-term process.

Your overarching and never-ending advocacy goal should be to continue to build a larger and larger advocacy base.

There’s never going to be a “big enough” moment. You can always recruit one more voice.


Recruiting the base.Public Opportunities:

BUILDING THE BASE

Look for public opportunities to address audiences of potentially-aligned people. These opportunities might be at civic clubs, church groups or other community meetings.

Look for public opportunities via the internet. websites like “Meetup” might provide you with opportunities in your community you weren’t aware of.

If opportunities don’t exist, create one! Hold a town hall meeting and invite the public to participate. Make sure to use multiple communication mediums to get the word out!


Recruiting the base.Mailing/E-mail Lists:

If your organization has a mailing/e-mail list of supportive individuals, see if you can use the list to send out information regarding advocacy activities.

If you belong to a civic group, see if they would agree to allow you to send out advocacy information using their mailing/e-mail list.

Make it a priority to begin building your own mailing/e-mail list. Make sure to collect contact information from new advocates each time you engage in an advocacy activity or event.


Recruiting the base.Social Media:

Facebook can be an incredibly powerful tool in advocacy recruitment! You can start a cause page and encourage Facebook users to ‘like’ your page.

When FB users ‘like’ your cause page, their information becomes available for you to use in messaging.

Usage of Twitter can generate followers as well. Plus tweets can be fed into your Facebook cause page, creating fresh content that supporters can view on a regular basis.

Other social media may be available as well. Always be on the lookout for the ‘next big thing’ in social media!


Communicating to the base.No one likes re-runs!

Regular communication will keep your advocacy base from growing stale. Think of your advocates as consumers of media.

When the same information is repeated on the news – or worse, no new information – viewers switch the channel.

Keep your advocates engaged by providing them with regular updates. Use a newsletter

or e-mail update format to send your advocates information on a regular basis.

Ask your advocates how they prefer to be updated by you on advocacy matters.

Provide more than one venue for updates, if possible.


Krazy glue for people.Face-to-face communication opportunities are very important.

Your advocates are more likely to stay involved, if they develop relationships with fellow advocates. This is called ‘cohesion’. It’s the glue that will bond your advocacy base together.

Cohesion is developed most effectively through face-to-face interactions. Create opportunities for advocates to assemble together and work on advocacy projects.

Create opportunities for your advocacy base to divide into smaller teams to work on advocacy projects. This will help to create even tighter bonds between advocates.


Communicating to the base.Build a communications framework.

Create a communications plan. Determine how you will communicate with your advocacy base and at what frequency. Select communication mediums that best fit with how your advocates consume information.

Create opportunities for face-to-face interaction among your advocates, and encourage advocates to share information with one another and the full advocacy base directly.

Create a sense of community through your communication efforts. Advocates will be

much more likely to stay engaged in advocacy if they feel they belong to a community.


Training the base.Give your advocates the tools they need.

Many of the advocates you will recruit will have little or no prior advocacy experience. You must help them build up their advocacy muscles.

You must teach them a number of important skills in order for them to be comfortable, confident disciplined and productive advocates.

Turning your advocates loose without proper training will most likely result in poor advocacy and a short-term advocate.


Training the base.Help your advocates understand their own power.

Each of your advocates can share their own personal experiences. That makes them powerful experts on the issues they speak to. However, new advocates often don’t realize how much power they have.

Help your advocates discover their power by exploring their own personal advocacy messages, and the strength those stories carry with others.

Give your advocates opportunities to experience advocacy success. Build up their confidence by exposing them to advocacy opportunities with low degrees of failure.


Training the base.Overcoming the ‘white coat phenomenon’.

The ‘white coat phenomenon’ is the spike in blood pressure observed in patients when they visit their doctor. It is thought to originate from the anxiety people experience when they perceive an authority figure with power over them.

The same thing often occurs between new advocates and legislators. Your goal should be to help advocates become comfortable with talking to legislators, and not perceive legislators in a subordinate fashion, but as peers.


Messaging from the base.Your advocates must understand the advocacy message and deliver it with consistency.

Your advocates must sing in a chorus, not solo. That means that they must all use the same core message elements you devise.

Advocates should be encouraged to share their own personal stories as they relate to your core advocacy messages.

Constant communication from you to your advocacy base will assist in advocates learning how to ‘speak the same language’ in regard to your advocacy message.


Tone, length and clarity.Help your advocates fine tune their messages.

Tone is very important. An angry or overly assertive advocate can close relationship doors with policy makers and ruin your overall advocacy progress. Teach your advocates to be polite, but firm in their interactions with policy makers.

Length of messaging is very important. Can your advocates deliver their messages in one minute in a crowded elevator? If not, they need to continue to refine their message delivery skills. Help your advocates to prepare to brief and impromptu encounters. Advocacy often occurs this way.

Clarity of messaging is very important. Clear and concise messaging is important if advocates hope to cut through the background static of all the messaging legislators receive on a daily basis. Help your advocates to hone their messages so that legislators can quickly pick up the main points of their messages.


Practice, practice, practice.Much like in trying to get to Carnegie Hall, your advocates will be more successful if they have the opportunity to practice.

•According to most studies, people fear public speaking more than death.

•Help your advocates become accustomed to sharing their stories in public.

•Practice is the only way to overcome the fear of public speaking.

•Practice in a supportive group environment.


Your job as an advocacy leader is to always encourage.

Always think long-term when engaging in advocacy. Consider how you can keep the advocates you already have engaged in advocacy in the future. Also consider how to attract new advocates to your base.

Advocates will be more likely to stayengaged if you provide consistent positive feedback. Be the coach and encourage your base to stay engaged!

Never stop coaching.


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Matt Fletcher Building an Advocacy Base Presentation