LAUNCHING AN ADVOCACY CAMPAIGN 101

Advocacy is a process through which citizens organize to influence public policy and resource allocation decisions. Organizing advocacy efforts is important because there are situations where the benefits of a new policy or policy change will be important for society, but individuals do not have the interest or capacity to press for this change independently. Advocacy groups bring people together to collectively promote a cause, ultimately leading to better outcomes than individuals could achieve on their own.

Advocacy groups:

• Assist in the development of better public policy
• Ensure governments’ accountability to citizens
• Give a voice to (misrepresented) citizen interests
• Mobilize citizens to participate in the democratic process
• Support the development of a culture of democracy

Successful advocacy campaigns require leadership, organization, and strategic planning. While thorough planning is critical, it is also important to be flexible and willing to modify plans when necessary. In any campaign, it is likely there will be ups and downs, successful advocacy leaders are able to keep people motivated and working toward solutions.

Components of an Advocacy Campaign

The first step in an advocacy campaign is to figure out exactly what the issue is, what action needs to be taken to achieve the desired outcome and who the people are who have the ability and authority to take the required action. Understanding the issue – both the problem and the solution – usually requires significant research and analysis. The problem may be clear, but there may be surprising root causes to this problem.

There are many steps to implementing solutions and there are different people with power to make changes at each step. Therefore, the first part of the advocacy campaign is to identify the root causes of the problem, the solution most likely to solve the problem, the people who have the power to implement the solution, and the people who might be able to help the cause and who might present obstacles.

Once the audience and issue are defined, the next questions are how can the right people be convinced to support and implement the solution, when do the tasks need to happen, and what financial and human resources are needed?

Finally, the advocacy plan needs to be executed, which requires managing staff, volunteers and fundraising. Monitoring and evaluation throughout the campaign are important for ensuring that the objectives are achieved and for facilitating learning.

Advocacy campaigns can be conducted at any level of government–EU, national, provincial, local or even village–and the process is similar. It may not be obvious at the outset what the appropriate level of government is, but it will become clear during the preparatory research and analysis.