5 Advocacy Campaign Tips to Run an Effective Effort
Running an effective advocacy campaign takes skill and planning here are five tips to run a winning advocacy campaign:
- Have a clear and measurable goal(s) for your advocacy campaigns.
- Plan, plan, and plan.
- Who do you need to influence to achieve your advocacy goal (your targets)?
- Who can help you influence those advocacy targets (your advocates)?
- Create urgency!
- Nothing creates an action for advocacy like an urgent deadline and nothing promotes procrastination like a vague one.
- If you are lucky enough (I use “lucky” loosely here) to be working on an advocacy campaign that has a strict timeline (e.g. you are looking to get a governor to veto a bill before the end of the legislative session, or maybe you are trying to get a local city council to place a ballot question on the upcoming ballot), make sure your targets and advocates know what the deadlines are.
- If, on the other hand, your advocacy campaign doesn’t have a strict timeline – and the urgency that comes with it – create one! Set a specific date for when your bill will be filed or when committee will pass it. Make sure your advocates and targets know and believe the urgency of your timeline.
- Make sure your advocates know how they can help advocate.
- Lay out clear and easy ways for your advocates to get involved. Can they sign a petition online? Call their legislator? How about collecting petitions or signatures from their friends and neighbors? If it’s not an official form, can they download a PDF from your website to collect the signatures? How can super-advocates tell their stories and get the word out about why this issue is important in their lives? Can they add it to a story bank, get in front of a legislator on lobby day, or maybe speak at a press event?
- Lay out clear and easy ways for your advocates to get involved. Can they sign a petition online? Call their legislator? How about collecting petitions or signatures from their friends and neighbors? If it’s not an official form, can they download a PDF from your website to collect the signatures? How can super-advocates tell their stories and get the word out about why this issue is important in their lives? Can they add it to a story bank, get in front of a legislator on lobby day, or maybe speak at a press event?
- Don’t be afraid to ask for expert help.
- You don’t have to do it all yourself. Planning and managing effective advocacy campaigns isn’t easy. Here at The Campaign Workshop we work on advocacy campaigns daily – big and small, federal and local, all over the country and even some around the world.
Have questions about your advocacy campaign? Ask them here: