Advocacy and Mass Campaign Administration (AMCAD)

Topics Outline:

1. ADVOCACY

• definition of advocacy
• objectives of advocacy ( anticipated advocacy outcomes)
• advocacy agenda
• Targets of advocacy
• Forrms of advocacy ( internal and external)
• Advocacy mindset ( 3 myths and 3 truths)

Definition

The word advocacy originated from the Latin word “advocare” which means to argue

• Advocate (verb)
- seek favor for something
- give/seek support through argument
- provide general recommendation

Advocate (noun)
- one who summons, seeks supports, mediates, debates and defends for the welfare of the majority

1. Meaning of Advocacy- an act or process of pleading a cause

• Deliberate and strategic use of information to influence decision-making;
• Strategic action to initiate a public policy beneficial to the community or to block one expected to be harmful;
• The act or process to demand, defend or maintain a cause before a body of authority which includes among others the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government.

Policy Advocacy – a strategic political action of a community or group of people arising from the need to address a particular issue through influencing policy or the way it is implemented.

Public Advocacy – actions to influence the mind of general public from the need to address a particular issue and in effect organizing and mobilizing them for a specific action.

• part of the developmental action:
• As an element of an organizational work:
• Advocacy and Community Organizing (CO
• Advocacy and people’s empowerment:

Role of an Advocate

An advocate, on the other hand, is a person who does the advocacy work. Their role is to represent the client group’s interest. This is done through efforts to influence the individual or groups who control the situation with which the client is concerned.

Practice a Powerful Advocacy Mindset

As advocates, you are the initiators of action.

This mindset is the simplest and most powerful means for navigating among options when planning your advocacy strategy. As advocates, it is your agency that matters: choose the strategies that promote and preserve that agency.

Advocacy strategy can focus on shaping WHAT policy is - establishing a law, a policy, a decree, or some other kind of societal rule. Advocacy strategy can also focus on HOW policy happens - opening up the process by which such societal rules are made and kept.

But advocacy strategy works in the most powerful and lasting ways when it also centers on WHO makes policy happen - facilitating a process by which people know the power they themselves have in making and keeping societal rules.

This orientation towards initiative acts as your compass on your advocacy journey. No matter the twists and turns of the road, the needle keeps its orientation, allowing you to navigate in any needed direction.

People-Centered Advocacy

A social justice advocacy organization needs to work to stay connected with and accountable to the people whose interests it serves. A people-centered campaign produces not only change, but engaged community members who work to keep change going, and to implement other changes.

To make sure that your organization maintains significant relationships with its members, constituents, or those in affected groups, continuously ask yourself three questions:

• Are we giving voice to people whose voices are not fully heard?
• Are we enabling and motivating people to become actively involved in the advocacy process?
• Are we taking time to learn from the experiences of our members, constituents, or those in affected groups?

People-centered advocacy not only helps amplify the voices that are seldom heard, but also begins to transform existing power dynamics that determine who can be an "advocate" in the first place.


2. Advocacy issues

* Definition of issue
* Issues life cycle Stage
* Checklist for choosing problems and issues


CHECKLIST FOR CHOOSING A PROBLEM AND ISSUE

To compare issues and choose the best focus for your campaign, either use this checklist of criteria or develop your own. List the issues under consideration in the columns, and go down the list of questions, recording a “1” for every “yes” answer and a “0” for every “no” answer. Problems/issues with higher scores have the potential for multiple positive results.

Problem/Issue 1:	Problem/Issue 2:	Problem/Issue 3:	Will resolving the problem/ Will the issue:
			1. Result in a real improvement in people’s lives?
			2. Give people a sense of their own power?
			3. Build strong lasting organizations and alter the relations of power?
			4. Raise awareness about power relations and democratic rights?
			5. Be winnable?
			6. Be widely felt?
			7. Be deeply felt?
			8. Be easy to communication and understand?
			9. Provide opportunities for people to learn about and be involved in policies?
			10. Have clear advocacy targets?
			11. Have a clear time frame?
			12. Be non-divisive among your potential constituency?
			13. Build accountable leadership?
			14. Be consistent with your values and vision?
			15. Provide potential for raising funds?
			16. Link local issues to global issues and macro policy context?

Adapted from A New Weave of Power, People, and Politics: The Action Guide for Advocacy and Citizen Participation by Lisa VeneKlasen with Valerie Miller, and from Organizing for Social Change: A Manual for Activists in the 1990s by Kim Bobo, Jackie Kendall, and Steve Max.

TRIANGULAR ANALYSIS

Political solutions to problems often take more than just law or policy reform. There are many examples from different countries where laws changed, while the people did not. Laws are a critical part of public policy because they regulate work and social relations, and access to economic resources, opportunities and political power. Laws and policies, however, can be unjust in three ways: content (the written law or policy may be discriminatory or inadequate in today’s context); application (policies may not be implemented or at least not as envisioned; laws may not be enforced, or enforced in a prejudicial way); and culture (if citizens are unaware of policies, the laws or their rights, or if social attitudes run contrary to the substance of the law or policy, even a just law or policy cannot benefit people in practice).

When selecting an advocacy issue, you need to identify where the change needs to occur – at the level of policy, at the implementation level, or in the culture and behavior of the people themselves. This is known as triangular analysis.

Questions to guide triangular analysis

• Is a new or improved law or policy needed?
• Is the existing policy or law being implemented or enforced adequately?
• Do people know the law and believe that they have rights in order to pursue solutions or make demands on the system?

APPLICATION refers to the process and institutions of the state that implement and enforce law and policy such as courts, police, ministries, schools, etc.

CULTURE refers to shared values, attitudes and behavior, level of awareness about law and government, sense of rights

CONTENT refers to the constitution, written laws & policies, budgets


3. Media Work and Advocacy

• important influencer
• conduit for information with your audiences
• looking for “interesting and news-worthy” stories (real people, celebrity,scandal, danger, sex, relevance to their medium)
• different kinds of media people/outlet ( radio- sounds, print- news releases, tv and photo – graphics, events)
• dealing with the media
• crafting a media campaign plan

Dealing With The Media

Whether you like it or not, the media matters. If your campaign generates any level of interest and develops a profile, you will have no choice whether to deal with the media. Your choice will be how, not whether, to deal with the media.

For campaigns, the media can provide an important conduit for information with your audiences. Even local radio and newspapers reach hundreds of thousands of people with a directness, objectivity, and immediacy which no campaign could ever match.

If your campaign is battling for public opinion, then the media is the most important influencer.

Journalists need information in a format they understand - which is why organisations use the News Release format as one way of promoting their stories. They need information which they can use - which is why you should always try to make your stories interesting and news-worthy. 'News-worthy' is fairly subjective, but journalists are on the look out for the following:

• Stories about real people, not organisations
• Unusualness or oddity
• Celebrity
• Scandal
• Danger
• Sex
• Relevance to their medium

Radio journalists don't want photo-opportunities, they want sound. Local journalists want events on their patch, not in the town down the road.

The basic techniques of media relations are:

• News Releases
• Features and articles
• Letters to the editor
• Photo-opportunities
• Interviews

News releases are a way of attracting a journalist's attention and getting them to phone you up for more information. They should contain your organisation's name and address, a 24-hour contact phone number, and the words 'News Release' at the top.

• If you 'embargo' your news release, the journalist cannot print or broadcast the material it contains before the stated time and date.
• If you write 'for immediate release' the journalist can use it straight away.
• Your news release must contain news - a story which the journalist can use - and pack the facts into the first paragraph. Follow the 5W formula (who, what, where, when and why).
• Double space your news release, use one side only, and don't go beyond two sides of A4. Write 'more follows' if going on to a second page, and 'ends' at the end.
• Target your news release at the right person - news rooms receive thousands every day, and most go straight into the waste bin.

Features and articles can cover your campaign and keep you in peoples' minds. You can pen these yourself or approach a journalist with background material and story ideas.

• * Read the publication you are targeting and try to match the house writing style.

Letters to the Editor should be short and sharp and pertain to a story in the publication. Write 'For Publication' and include a phone number.

A photo is worth more than a thousand words - try to dream up interesting photo-opportunities for local or national newspapers, or commission your own photos and send them out to publications.

If giving interviews to broadcasters, decide what you want to say first and don't be distracted by the interviewers questioning. Stay on message, and repeat yourself if necessary.

• Find out whether the interview is live or pre-recorded, and who else is appearing with you. Arrange the travel details and any appearance fee in advance.

• Keep contact details of journalists you have dealt with, and keep them informed about the campaign's progress.

If your opponents are quoted or have an article placed - rebut it with your side of the argument as fast as possible. Don't let your opponents get away with a free ride.

If you get unfair coverage, or you are misquoted, you have the right to complain first to the editor, and then to the Press Complaints Commission. Complaining about bad journalism is the way to secure good journalism.

4. Alliance and Coalition building

• Definition
• Needs of alliance and coalition
• Formation of coalition
• Managing a coalition
• two kinds of collaboration - “unity and diversity” and “confrontation and dialogue”

TIPS FOR MAKING A COALITION WORK

Coalitions expand the numbers and expertise of those working on an issue; they can unite unlikely allies and bridge essential gaps. When effective, coalitions mass and focus the collective skills, resources, and energies of their constituents. When ineffective, they can drain energy and resources, exacerbate institutional and personal rivalries and conflicts, paralyze flexibility, and deaden initiative.
There are several basic rules that can make coalitions more effective and help avoid the greatest dangers. Use these rules to supplement the constant “care and feeding” of coalition members, which must remain a high priority.

1. State clearly what you have in common, and what you don’t.The goals and objectives of the coalition must be clearly stated, so that organizations that join will fully comprehend the nature of their commitment. At the same time, coalition members must openly acknowledge their potentially differing self-interest. By recognizing these differences, coalition leaders can promote trust and respect among the members, while stressing common values and vision.
2. Let the membership and the issue suggest the coalition’s structure and style.Coalitions can be formal or informal, tightly organized or loose and decentralized. The type of coalition chosen will depend on the kind of issue as well as the styles of the people and organizations involved. Coalitions evolve naturally, and should not be forced to fit into any one style.
3. Reach out for a membership that is diverse – but certain.Coalitions should reach out for broad membership, but not include those who are uncertain or uncommitted to the coalition’s goals or strategies. The most effective coalitions are composed of a solid core of fully committed organizations, which can draw together shifting groups of allies for discrete projects or campaigns. Overreaching for members can result in paralysis and suspicion. There’s nothing worse than a strategy planning session where coalition members are eyeing each other suspiciously, instead of openly sharing ideas and plans.
4. Choose interim objectives very strategically.Interim objectives should be significant enough for people to want to be involved, but manageable enough so that there is a reasonable expectation of results. They should have the potential to involve a broad coalition and be of sufficient interest to gain public and media attention. Interim objectives should be chosen so they build relationships and lead toward work on other, more encompassing objectives.
5. Stay open to partnerships outside the formal coalition structure.A coalition must be able to work with a great diversity of advocacy groups, but all groups need not belong as formal members. Organizations whose goals are more radical, or whose tactics are more extreme, are often more comfortable and effective working outside the formal coalition structure and informally coordinating their activities.
6. Take care of the coalition itself.At the heart of every successful coalition, there should be a small directorship of leaders who are deeply committed not only to the issue, but also to the coalition itself, and to the importance of subordinating the narrow interest of their individual organizations to the overall goals of the cause.
7. Maintain strong ties from the top to major organizations.The coalition’s leaders must also have strong ties to the major organizations and their leaders must be strong. This commitment must be communicated within the organization, so that its staff members clearly understand that coalition work is a high priority.
8. Make fair, clear agreements and stick to them.Coalition tasks and responsibilities should be clearly defined and assignments equitably apportioned. If a member is falling down on the job, that should be dealt with promptly. Meetings should allow opportunities for members to report on their progress.

5. Crafting Campaign Plan and Adminstration

• definition of campaign
• Campaign Planning and preparation

Campaign Planning and Preparation

The essential component of a campaign is a plan.

Without it, your campaign will lack focus, squander resources, burn out your activists, and suffer from what the military call 'mission drift'. A plan helps target your resources, ensures that all your volunteers are pulling in the same direction, gives a shared understanding of what you are attempting to achieve, and gives you a compass by which to steer your activities. Advance planning and preparation can save valuable time and money as the campaign develops.

Your plan should be flexible, and allow for unforeseen developments and opportunities. The best campaigns are those which can quickly react to events and turn the unexpected to their advantage. Your strategy should be soundly worked out, but your tactics should be flexible and adaptable.

The elements of your campaign plan should include:

• Overall strategic objective
• Tactical targets
• Your key messages
• Target audiences
• Methods of delivery
• Timing
• Evaluation of success

In other words:

• What you want to achieve
• What the steps are along the way to achieving it
• What you want to say
• Who you want to say it to
• How you want to say it
• When and for how long you want to say it
• And how you know if you've been successful

It is worth looking at each of these elements in some detail:-

Overall Strategic Objective

This is your final goal - the target which unites your supporters, spurs on your activists, gives your campaign its 'personality' to the outside world, and which provides the yardstick against which all your activities should be measured.

It might be a grand objective, such as the global disarmament of nuclear weapons, or a localised one such as preventing the closure of a local branch of a high-street bank. If you choose the grand objective, you should ensure that your tactical targets are realistic and achievable.

You may be able to attract support for visionary objectives, but without immediate targets which can be achieved quickly, your supporters will soon evaporate. Like Monty Python's Popular Front of Judea, if your campaign objective is akin to 'the dismantling of the Roman Empire by Wednesday week', you will lack credibility.

The overall strategic objective might become part of your campaign's written communications. You might want to codify it into a snappy 'mission statement' or statement of aims, so that everyone clearly understands what you want to achieve.

Without such shared understanding, you will find that your volunteers and activists are working to different agendas, and that you public profile will be confused with your target audiences. The overall objective reflects your campaign's values and provides the answer to the question 'what is your campaign for?'

Tactical Targets

To give a campaign vibrancy and life, you should aim for some tactical targets which can unite your supporters and give your campaign direction and focus.

In business jargon this is known as going for 'the low-hanging fruit' or gaining 'quick wins'. It means that the morale of your campaigners is given a boost by small but significant victories, and you gain profile and enhanced reputation.

Examples might include achieving a target for fundraising, or for a mailout or leaflet drop, or securing a key pledge of support from a politician, or winning a goal which puts you on the way to your overall objective.

Your Key Messages

Your key messages are what you want to say. These should be short, snappy and memorable, and devised to engender as widespread an understanding as possible. They should avoid all jargon or rhetoric, and be written in everyday language. You might want to show them to a twelve-year old to see if they pass the comprehension test.

Your audiences, even those directly effected by your campaign, have little time for lengthy documents, manifestos or lists of demands. Your key messages must be short and understandable to busy people with many other distractions and competing influences. Your campaign may be the most important thing in the lives of your activists, but for the rest of the population the same is not true.

These key messages can be boiled down into 'soundbites' for use in the media. Just as Lenin condensed the whole of his political theory into the soundbite 'Bread, Peace, and Land' or campaigners in the 1980s struggled for 'Jobs not Bombs' or 'Coal not Dole', so you should aim to create a campaign lexicon which is equally concise and robust.

Repetition is essential, throughout all your literature, interviews and speeches, so that the message is reinforced through all forms of communication. In politics this is called 'Staying On Message'. If you find yourself repeating the same messages for the thousandth time, console yourself with the thought that someone, somewhere is hearing them for the very first time.

Target Audiences

To be successful, you must decide who your campaign is aimed at. Your audiences will fall into several categories, and each will need a different style of approach, and for different purposes. Your activists need to hear different messages and be treated differently from sponsors, or journalists or politicians. The people taking the decisions which will determine your campaign's success or failure might number only a handful, and possibly even one, but the numbers of people who influence the decision-makers might number thousands or millions. A consumer boycott involving millions of people across Western Europe might be aimed ultimately at a company Board of just ten people.

Your audiences might include:-

• Activists
• Supporters
• Potential supporters
• Opponents
• The media
• Third-parties
• Politicians
• 'Influencers'
• Deciders'

Each of these groups should be carefully researched and their views and motivations clearly understood.

Some of your target audiences are the decision-makers who can influence the outcome of your campaign, others are the influencers whose views the deciders listen to. Other audiences will be the media, who will help you reach deciders, or third-parties with whom you can make common cause.

It is even worth communicating with your opponents, because their opposition might be based on misconception or inaccurate information about your campaign.

Accuracy is vital - be sure to spell names correctly, get peoples' titles right, and ensure that you are writing to the right person, not the person who left the job three years ago.

Methods Of Delivery

How you communicate is as important as what you communicate. The methods of delivery you chose will depend on your budget, your campaign's style and approach, and the size and place of your audiences.

Most forms of mass communications are prohibitively expensive - television and newspaper advertising costs tens of millions of pounds. That is why most campaigns, run on limited resources, depend on imaginative techniques for 'low-cost/no-cost' communications which allow you to punch above your weight.

Successful campaigns have been pitched against global companies or even countries and won, despite being massively out-resourced by their enemies. The methods of communication must be appropriate to the audiences you seek to reach. Language and graphics must be accessible to all, including people with disabilities or people without English as a first language.

But you should also be aware that certain forms of communication are ineffective with certain groups. For example Cabinet Ministers are virtually immune to being shouted at by demonstrators - that comes with the job - but will listen to a well-made argument soberly put.

Traditional forms of communication such as leaflets are poor ways to reach people - in urban areas letter boxes are stuffed with mountains of unsolicited material advertising pizza, minicabs, decorators and so on, so your campaign leaflet might be fighting for attention alongside a great deal of competition. People are becoming immunised to 'junk mail' and now junk e-mail, or 'spam.'

Public meetings are usually poorly attended. The old-style campaign is in danger of extinction - and those which prosper will be those which use imagination, lively attention-grabbing methods and the latest technology.

Low-resource campaigns may use the techniques of 'guerrilla marketing' to promote their cause.

These might include fly-posting, attaching stickers and posters to 'street furniture' like lamp-posts and at zebra crossings, or by using graffiti to change the meaning of other's poster ads. Anti-smoking campaigns, or campaigns against cars have used these techniques to great effect. You should be aware that you may be committing a criminal offence if you engage in this style of activity.

The campaign toolkit includes:

• Media relations
• On-line communications
• Advertising
• Direct mail
• Stunts
• Public meetings
• Street activity
• Demonstrations, marches and pickets
• Lobbying and briefings
• Leaflets and posters
• Guerrilla marketing
• Direct action

Part of your planning must include consideration of what kind of techniques you chose to communicate with, and the appropriate balance between different techniques.

Timing

Campaigns need a beginning, middle and end. A launch event affords the opportunity for media activity and a spurt of campaigning work. You might decide that your campaign will keep going until your objectives have been met.

If so, you need to identify phases of campaigning, and campaigns within your campaign to keep people interested and involved. Some campaigns give themselves a deadline, such as the Jubilee 2000 campaign. It is important for your volunteers and sponsors, as well as your target audiences, to know when your campaign intends to start and finish.

The calendar is a guide to activity. For example, August and late December/early January are bad times for calling demonstrations, public meetings or organising a petition because people are on holiday or off work for the festive season, but these are excellent times for getting stories in the media because there is less 'news' going on.

Evaluation Of Success

Your evaluation of success is rooted in your campaign aims and goals, but can only be focussed on smaller tasks and activities. What is important is to have a shared understanding within the campaign and its activists of what the criteria for success are, so that people stay motivated and focussed.

The criteria for success might be simple - such as a certain number of people who sign a high street petition, or a particular amount of money raised, or the thousandth envelop posted. These small milestones give the opportunity for celebration and a shared sense of achievement.

But evaluation is not just about the things that went well. If a particular event is a wash-out or a direct mail letter does not receive a high response level, you need to find out why. Assessment of failure is an important way to ensure that you get it right next time.

A Guide to Action

A campaign plan is essential to success, but a campaign plan which gathers dust or is used to prop up a wobbly table in the campaign HQ is pointless. Your plan should be a living document, being endlessly updated and tested against reality. It is a guide to action, which is regularly discussed and improved.

Campaign Planning Checklist

• All campaigns need a plan
• Try to win widespread support for your plan amongst your supporters
• But don't allow it to be written 'by committee'
• Decide on your objective
• Decide on your targets to help you achieve your objective
• Decide what you want to say
• And who you want to say it to
• And how you want to say it
• And when, and for how long you want to say it
• Be flexible and adaptable
• Be prepared for the unexpected
• Profit from opportunities
• Learn from setbacks
• Update and evaluate your plan regularly
• Remember - nothing worth having is won without a struggle!