THE CRUCIAL ROLES OF A PUBLIC INTEREST ADVOCATE

Speaking rather generally,  public interest groups promote issues of general public concern. For example, public interest groups claim to exist to protect the rights and well-being of all, rather than just the rights and well-being of their members. They exist in order to take care of public concerns, things like pollution, protection for children, and equal rights for women, just to name a few. Public interest groups exist at all levels of government and society. They can be local, national, European or international. Although public interest groups are often concerned with environmental issues, it would be a mistake to assume their scope is limited to just this. On the contrary, public interest groups exist for things like religious freedom, gender equality, safe labour practices, freedom from political oppression, and much more. With this vast array of subjects, the key thing to remember is that public interest groups are supposed to exist for the good of all, not just for the good of some.

Engaging in public interest advocacy might be very appealing for people who may not want necessarily desire to represent corporate interests, but nevertheless wish to remain active in public policy. Working as a Public Interest Advocate could provide an appealing alternative for giving a voice to a set of societal interests that currently lack a voice at the national or European level.

A Public Interest Advocate helps create what social analysts call the “civic balance,” allowing the public interest to be incorporated into public policy. A Public Interest Advocate helps balance the many self interests that, naturally enough, push policy in ways that benefit narrow parts of the population. There’s nothing inherently wrong with pursuing self interests. It has a legitimate voice in the process. Each of us has our own specific interests. But these self interests create a cacophony of special interests that must be balanced by people and groups that pursue the public interest. Public Interest Advocates are especially concerned with incorporating the views of people who are not normally part of the process. Public interest advocacy is people-centered advocacy. The ability to generate sustained grassroots public participation is one key distinction between public interest and special interest advocacy. Public Interest Advocates rely on broad public participation. Generating informed grassroots participation is a crucial role of Public Interest Advocates and they aim to move from “what is” to “what ought to be,” carrying out the values they believe in and stand for.

There are many benefits of a public interest advocacy career other than contributing to social change:

• Because the essence of advocacy is relationships (with constituents, policymakers, coalition partners, other staff members), you can learn much about how to relate to people, including those with whom you may not always agree.
• Similarly, being an effective advocate means learning how to be an effective team member. No one person can bring about an important policy change. You must learn to work with people both within and outside your organization.
• Being effective also means learning how to communicate with people outside your immediate world. If you are going to build broad public participation, you have to be able to do two things. You must learn to demystify the policy-making process, which allows people distant from that process to learn how to affect it and to believe they can affect it. And you must learn to talk about your issue in ways that make it real and compelling to people who aren’t immersed in policy jargon.

What attitudes make Public Interest Advocates effective?

This commitment to being part of a team rather than a lone ranger is one of many attitudes that can help make a Public Interest Advocate successful. These attitudes include:

• An internalized belief in democratic values and process.
• Accepting people for whom they are, regardless of race, religion, class, gender, disability, or credentials.
• A sense of possibility that changes can occur. An openness to trying new, sometimes bold, approaches.
• A willingness to challenge entrenched, institutionalized power, without being intimidated.
• A belief in people’s capacity to do the job and follow through.
• Respect for other points of view, even those with whom you strongly disagree. By respecting other points of view, you don’t make permanent enemies.
• Not personalizing disagreements, recognizing that allies sometimes disagree.
• Ability to express strong emotions such as love and anger in ways that strengthen rather than undermine the team effort.
• Respect and empathy for those you are trying to serve.
• Patience and restraint within your organization, recognizing that there are different roles for different people at different times.
• Stamina to engage in the usually long struggle to achieve and maintain significant changes.
• Openness with colleagues, which can allow for critical feedback that can strengthen rather than undermine the joint effort.
• The use of humor, which helps people keep perspective.
• The use of celebration, which helps pull people together, acknowledge their importance and maintain their commitment. You celebrate not just the occasional substantive victory the new law you win but also the more common “process” victory the constructive meeting your members had with a legislator or editorial board member.
• Openness to innovation, which can lead to new techniques for advocacy, organizing, using information, building coalitions, and telling the story of your work. This openness combined with a willingness to seize the initiative is critical. This is especially true today, when the special interests have adapted many public interest advocacy techniques.

What skills make Public Interest Advocates effective?

Advocacy skills come over time, with experience, rather than through a formal credentialing process. But they only come if people are open to learning from their experiences, as well as from colleagues.

Specific skills include:

• The ability to listen to what your constituents, allies, and opponents are saying.
• The ability to communicate effectively to members and the public. This can be harder than it seems. It is easy to fall into certain assumptions about an issue and how people will respond to it. It is easy to assume that everyone understands an issue and its importance as well as you and your colleagues understand it. Again, being able to listen closely to how people respond, to the questions they ask, is critical. If you find yourself isolated in a place like Brussels , the key is getting out as regularly as possible. It’s too easy to be absorbed by the “insider” world, which can both limit your ability to communicate with people and rob you of your sense of what is possible.
• Being grounded in reality in what is possible while at the same time maintaining a vision of what you want and where you are heading.
• The ability to write and edit quickly. While the legislative process can move painfully slowly, there are often constant small steps and changes that require analysis and response. The ability to produce quick drafts is very useful.
• The ability to analyze and synthesize diverse and complex material.
• The ability to motivate others by telling stories, using humor and drama, and building strong teams.
• The ability to negotiate, mediate, and drive a hard bargain. This requires adapting to different situations, being realistic about your opponents and allies.
•  The ability to build strong personal and public relationships that can survive disagreements and allow you to work with former adversaries.

Don't  let this long list of skills discourage you. One reason working with others and building a team is so important is that different people and organizations bring different skills. You may be a great negotiator. Someone else may be a great writer. Another person may be a superb strategist. You need a range of skills, but you don’t need to be great at every skill.

What knowledge makes Public Interest Advocates effective?

There are two types of knowledge that good advocates need. One is simply knowing the basic tools of the trade: how to identify possible allies on an issue, how to work with a coalition, how to set up a meeting with a legislator or staff member, which people should meet with the legislator and what should be said, how to summarize an issue into a few, cogent “talking points,” how to testify at a legislative hearing, and much more. The other type of knowledge is less concrete. As with skills, this type of knowledge comes from experience. It involves things like the interaction between the formal and informal rules and procedures of a legislative body. You need to know the rules and procedures of the legislative body you are trying to influence. Equally important is knowing the answers to questions such as:

• How does the formal structure mesh with the informal practice?
• Who actually makes decisions?
• What procedures must they follow?
• To whom does the decision-maker listen?
• Who will take public responsibility?
• Are there budgetary or legal restraints?

You also  need to know as much as you can about external factors that could influence decision-makers.

• How sensitive are decision-makers to public pressure, media attention or embarrassment?
• Are there certain people or groups to whom a decision-maker must be particularly sensitive for political reasons?
• Has there been a recent event that may sway a decision?

You gain this type of knowledge not by reading but by observing and talking with lots of people. This type of knowledge usually can’t be found in guidebooks. If this isn’t enough, many decisions today are affected by larger forces. Decisions by a local government are often affected by the rules or direction of the national  government. Decisions of the national government can be affected by European/international concerns. This is particularly true for economic, trade, and environmental issues. Given all this complexity, you also need to know how to help your organization forge a realistic strategy.

• What are your potential advantages and strengths?
• Challenges and weaknesses?
• What factors could undermine your goal?
• What ties do you have to individuals or groups that can be helpful?
• What’s the best way to frame the issue and generate public support?

Concluding thoughts

The task of creating change can easily seem daunting, and it is for one person or one organization. You must have allies, including those with whom you may not always agree. And you must keep in mind that you are engaged in a long-term process, one that involves building broader public participation in decisio making as well as building more relationships with those who can influence policy decisions. You may well lose in the short-term, but the key is what happens over time, both in relation to specific policies and in how people and policymakers think about your issues. Even if you win in the short-term, there are no permanent victories in this work.  Laws that once seemed permanent face threats. Which is why you have to be in public interest advocacy for the long haul, celebrating victories but not being lured to sleep by them, learning from defeats but not being overwhelmed by them. What it all adds up to is that the Public Interest Advocate must be prophetic and priestly. The prophet is the visionary, helping us see what could exist, recognizing that we must move past ourselves, that we cannot be only for me. Similarly the Public Interest Advocate draws out the ideas that can energize people and keep them involved for the long-term struggle that real change always requires. The priest helps people keep their faith. Similarly, the Public Interest Advocate must keep alive the belief and faith that the democratic political system will respond to those who participate in it, that it will reach out to those who have been historically excluded. It doesn’t always pass this test. But it has passed it often enough to make it continuously worth testing. The strategy of change through broad participation diminishes the fantasy of leader-rescuers: the idea that a president or a charismatic leader will make the changes we think are needed. Today in a democracy, a leader can only act if the path has already been laid out, by citizens who have been effectively pushing for changes over many years. This strategy, by emphasizing the need to inform and involve people also diminishes the importance of the “inside” experts with their narrow technical fixes. Certainly a technical change in a regulation can make a difference. But those working for the public interest must keep the long-term focus on the major changes that will really improve the lives of many people, changes that can only happen as a result of widespread participation and understanding. Just as the religious leader keeps the group’s focus on its mission, so the Public Interest Advocate must keep the group’s focus on its mission. That can only be achieved when the group organizes, educates, engages and involves large numbers of people. The challenge is to blend the prophetic vision with the priestly attributes of faith and attention to the mundane and ordinar the day to day work of building an organization, strengthening a coalition, making room for new leaders, nurturing public and personal relationships, doing the research and raising the money. You need it all. Each reinforces the other, helping make real and lasting improvements in people’s lives, insuring that their voices will be heard and their concerns become the public agenda.