Tag Archives: advocacy
How To Be A Mediocre and Ineffective Advocate
Here are the sure-fire ways to be a mediocre and ineffective advocate.
These are the truths that, if ignored, will take us from the on-ramp directly to the road to perdition as we try to communicate with legislators.
1. Reliance on technology as communications panacea. The craze over the latest Internet techniques to communicate with legislators was legitimate in the early 90s. Savvy advocates know the tools are not the answer, but rather the strategy and message behind them.
2. Transfer of knowledge mistaken for motivation. This axiom is particularly salient when we try to convince our insurance industry colleagues, employees, friends and even family members to contact legislators about critical issues. It is why the ubiquitous legislative update provided by a lobbyist…
How to Get Your Advocates Off Their Computers and On the Streets: Part Two
This is a follow-up post (see part one here) giving you a basic checklist of what you’ll need to do to get more of your advocates off the computer and in front of their legislators and community groups.
- When you have determined the path, create the infrastructure. Without this, it’s like trying to build a plane while you are flying it. Resources should include training, team structure, defined team member roles, team resources, team communications, reporting structures, events, rewards and recognition, for a start.
- Get real. Find out who is willing to go to the next level, and what they are willing to do. I call it measuring commitment intensity. My “Winning Hearts and Minds” research with over 400 grassroots and…
Advocacy Has To Be Customized
Clearly, having an older, more experienced, and more successful person trying to persuade a young staffer can be a recipe for disaster. Many of the necessary ingredients – trust, similarity, just liking a person – are missing. To overcome these hurdles, the advocate should find out what the staffer and client have in common. Where is the staffer from? Is this his or her first job out of college? What college? We know of advocates who break through this way and are able to meet with legislators who were previously “unavailable.”
A significant amount of research shows that building rapport before negotiating increases the likelihood of an agreement. If it works for negotiators, we can apply it to grassroots lobbying efforts.
Another…
Tips for Managing the Rogue Grassroots Advocate
I hear the lament every time I speak before a group of government relations professionals, specifically lobbyists: “What happens if we ask our grassroots to contact their legislators and they say the wrong thing?” or, the ever-popular, “How can we trust them to say the right thing?” It is sometimes used by the unenlightened government relations professional as an excuse for not engaging in grassroots activity. No matter what the rationale, it’s a spurious reason to ignore your grassroots potential.
While about one percent or less of grassroots volunteers have an agenda opposite of the larger organizational cause, I truly believe that the rogue advocate does not act intentionally, rather, he or she simply doesn’t “know better.” When people know better,…
How to Get Your Advocates Off Their Computers and On the Streets
Here is a basic checklist of what you’ll need to do to get more of your advocates off the computer and in front of their legislators and community groups.
- Know your organization’s ultimate persuasion goal. That will help you define #3 below.
- No matter how slick your tools, you will have little success moving people offline without a compelling message and a compelling messenger (See: Obama, Barack). This makes it vital to test your messages, rigorously evaluate your messengers, and recalibrate as necessary – be nimble. No one is stupid until he or she stops asking questions.
- Define the “next level.” This is different for everyone. One of my first clients told me they “wanted their advocates to go to the next level.”…
