Advocating in communities

Ross Woods, Jan. 2009, Rev. 2014,17

Systems advocacy is lobbying for policy change. You'll probably be familiar with leading figures who have advocated for people's rights: Martin Luther King, Mahatma Ghandi, Rosa Parks, and Nelson Mandela. Systems advocacy refers to advocacy for the rights and needs of a group of people in the context of the broader rights and needs of the general community. It often seeks a change in legislation or government policy, and often involves participating in decision-making forums to advance specific views and influence public decisions. (In contrast, "individual advocacy" refers to representing specific individuals. people who are unable to act on their own behalf.)

 

Part I: Strategy

First step: identify the need
Define your accountability
Who are the stakeholders?
Develop a strategy
Do your research
How to present your research
Put your strategy into practice

Part II: Your toolkit of skills

Best hints
Your network
Working with key people
Participating in forums
Letters and written submissions
Interacting with government
Getting laws changed

 

First step: identify the need

Your biggest need is for a group of people with a particular need that is being ignored. Most of these people will feel powerless against "the system" and might be very angry and disillusioned.

The group could be the elderly, the disabled, children with special needs, racial or ethnic minorities, the homeless, or victims of crime, exploitation or abuse. Other groups whom you might not have considered:

For a student project, the need you identify must be reasonable and must appear to be within reach of a resolution.

If you want to take on an overseas project, you might consider:

You might find that the disabled, children with special needs, racial or ethnic minorities, the homeless, or abuse victims are treated much worse in some other countries than in Australia.

 

Define your accountability

Before you start doing something, you will need to consult with key individuals and groups on your role, the process you will follow and the conditions that will affect what you can do. So let's look at these three: role, process, conditions.

Your role

To have a defined role, you will need a community or an organization to appoint you to act on their behalf. Some of your options are:

Process

You also need to follow a particular process. It might be as simple as attending a series of meetings and having a say, or writing comments into a feedback section of a website.

Unfortunately, it's usually not that simple. You may need to ask key people in decision-making roles for an appointment for a formal meeting. Be friendly and pleasant, and have your facts ready. Do not expect promises at the meeting; any good leader will only promise to follow up, which will normally mean that he/she will check your facts and see what course of action may be suitable. You might need a follow-through strategy to keep the process in motion.

Conditions

Your representation will often have conditions imposed. For example, in an industry association, your organization must be a member of the association. In an education and training environment, you will normally need to be either an industry representative or an educational institution. If there is a call for submissions, there will normally be a deadline and an address to which they must be sent.

Here are other usual kinds of conditions:

These conditions also apply to representatives of other organizations with whom you deal.

 

Who are the stakeholders?

Make a list of the people and organizations that you need to work with. You'll be dealing with agencies and stakeholders such as:

Then next to each one, write the names of the people you will be dealing with, their contact details, how to access them, and their role in the whole process.

 

Develop a strategy

Work with your stakeholders to develop a strategy. You'll need close working relationships with some stakeholders. For others, it will be more appropriate to keep them in your looser network and consult them.

It will take a series of formal meetings or working groups to develop a strategy. Your strategy will need to include policy statements, action plans, projects, and programs, so it is good practice to put your strategy in writing. However, your planned activities may be informal or formal. When you have finished, check with your stakeholder organizations that your strategy statement is agreeable to them.

Your strategies may include:

Here's a form to get you started ... Download (Opens a new browser window.)

 

Do your research

You will need to do your research beforehand. Well-researched facts are usually not disputed. Start by consulting the people you are representing and get them to describe the issues of concern. Make written notes.

Be careful to be balanced and unbiased. People spot unfair bias very easily.

You need to find any of the following that will be helpful. Perhaps they are already written down and you just need to find them.

  1. Statistical information. Make notes of date it was collected, the assumptions upon which it was formulated, and the methodology that was used. The assumptions and methodology may be limited or faulty.
  2. Descriptive information, for example, cultural descriptions, (ethnographies), eyewitness accounts, incident reports. Make note of any biases, methodologies and specific purposes that are essential in correctly interpreting this information.
  3. Relevant policies, laws, court rulings, and other legal requirements (e.g. common law, social/economic/industrial laws, policies on service delivery. Consider national, state and local government policies as relevant. And check the related theory because the information could be interpreted in various ways.
  4. Discussions of trends.

If the information is not written down, you will need to get it through some more fieldwork. For example, a series of interviews may give you suitable information.

Research how each of the following affects your case:

  1. What is the best way to consult the community?
  2. What factors maintain discrimination? (Consider structural, political and other social factors.)
  3. What are the effects of gender, language, culture, ethnicity, age, and/or socio-economic status? (If you are an industrial advocate in the community services industry, you should describe the nature, structure and culture of the industry as it affects your case.)
  4. What community development models are relevant? (Links: general, specific
  5. What kinds of management or leadership approaches are necessary for success?
  6. What needs to be addressed to promote the cause more effectively?
  7. What agencies and services might be willing to help you?
  8. What would be the most effective way of political lobbying?
  9. How could we use of media for advocacy?
  10. What is the balance between the rights of the general community and the rights of people with specific issues?
  11. What are the relevant politics of the decision-making processes? Include power structures and relationships, and identify gatekeepers. They could be in industry, community and/or government.

Depending on your role, you may also need specific knowledge of particular groups or issues e.g.:

Collate your information so that you have something useful that you can say and can give the details of the sources that it came from.

Check that there are no gaps. If it has, fill them with any other necessary research and fit them into your dossier of information.

 

How to present your research

Put your information into a form that you can give to people later on.

The great problem is that most people won't read a large tome of detailed research. You probably have too much information to communicate easily. The recommended solution is to summarize your most important information into a one-page list of clear points. You'll probably find this quite difficult, because you have to miss out so much that is relevant to you.

As to the rest of your information, you have several options:

Your organization will probably have a set of standards about document presentation. e.g. Version control, backups, use of logos, print quality, etc. If you don't have a set of document presentation standards, a neat, plain, workmanlike approach is adequate.

Tips for your documents

 

Put your strategy into practice

Now it's simply a matter of putting your strategy into practice. As you go, look for formal and informal opportunities to communicate your message.

Evaluate your strategies as you go to see how effective they are. Compare your results to your goals and report your progress to your supervisors. Analyze what you did. What worked? What didn't? Why?

You'll need to occasionally adjust your strategy if the evaluation shows you are not on course.

 

Best hints

The two best, best hints:

  1. Make friends. People who make friends get further than people who don't.
  2. Listen a lot and listen carefully. Being fair and even-handed will give your views more weight. Other people's circumstances might be quite different from yours, and any new policy will have to cover them as well as you.

Other really good hints:

  1. Define which issues that you can compromise on, and which issues you can't. You might need to revise these as more information comes to light. Make compromises. You can't always get your way.
  2. Keep your mouth shut when you don't understand what people are talking about.
  3. Asking good questions (and follow-up questions) can be often more effective than stating good opinions.
  4. Interpret information carefully. Most of it is slanted toward the position that people are lobbying for. Some people will gladly obfuscate; they will expand minor facts so they look more important than they are, provide long and boring explanations that don't help, or belittle opposing opinions.
  5. Look out for useful facts and keep notes.
  6. Assess the personalities of those involved.
  7. Beware timewasters.
  8. Be patient with inarticulate people. They might have very good points to make.
  9. Some consultation groups work on consensus or majority view. If you need to object, stick to your guns and register disagreement.
  10. As soon as possible after a personal meeting, write notes of what was said as accurately as possible. You might need those notes later on.
  11. Follow up personal meetings with a thank you letter or email. It may be appropriate to enclose a copy your notes of the meeting, so they must be very fair and accurate.
  12. Be aware that organizational mindsets will vary greatly. Compare these:

 

Your network

You will need to participate in community and professional networks. It has lots of benefits:

Besides, government departments consult community and industry associations when they envisage changes in laws and regulations.

At network meetings, it's best to take your own notes, even though you'll also collect other documents such as brochures, meeting handouts, meeting minutes, government information, people's business cards, etc.

Some of these meetings are quite boring, but you can easily justify the time if you:

 

Working with key people

You need strategic alliances. In reality, it's about making friends with people who share the same views and concerns as you. This will probably be very easy if you already have a good industry network in place. A few people might simply want to help you, but most of your allies will see it as helping them also get what they want.

The key people you need to work with could be:

Seeking the support of key people generally means meeting with them and finding out what they want to achieve through the representation process. It may be a group meeting, or you may have to talk to them individually.

Some will give you advice, and may be equally as competent as you to do the representation.

Quite likely, some may feel disempowered and deprived of a voice. They may be quite frustrated by "the system" and depend heavily on your advice. They may not know how "the system" works at all, or even how it effects other people in similar situations. If they are from a particular cultural grouping, be aware that there may be cultural and social aspects that you will have to navigate. If they are inarticulate or angry, they might find difficulty in expressing their opinions in a way that is useful to your representation. They might also be so biased and unreasonable that you will need to be very careful about finding out what you can advocate for.

When you have met the key people, you will need to set a direction on what you want to achieve that matches, as far as is possible, what they also want.

Later on, you'll need to keep the process on track:

 

Participating in forums

Before you go to a forum, make a plan for what you will do. Start by looking at your organization's priorities, and choosing the relevant concerns that you can pursue at the particular forum. You probably can't pursue them all.

Take relevant information so that you are prepared to speak up when you can. (However, there isn't usually a lot of opportunity for you to speak at a forum and you mostly need to listen.) You also need a follow-up plan to get action.

In the forum, take initiative to speak up for the people you represent. When you have opportunities, respond to views that are relevant to your goals.

Afterwards, assess whether it will result in decisions that match your goals. You should also report to your supervisor and other key people according to your organization's requirements.

 

Letters and written submissions

Government departments often ask the public for written submissions. Does it make any difference? Hard to tell. Governments sometimes back down against well-organized advocacy.

But you do have an opportunity to present a view and it can be good to take it.

Be fair and polite. If you write an angry letter don't send it. Leave it sit until you have calmed down and can revise it to be more helpful in achieving your goals. (Eccentric and "poison pen" letters tend to defeat their own purposes.)

Address the topic and state your views clearly and succinctly. Give good reasons for your opinions, including verifiable facts if possible.

You also need to get the practicalities of it correct:

Consider how your submission will be interpreted, which is not always honest. For example, government officers will sometimes simply "count the votes". Your submission might only count as one vote no matter how compelling your reasons are.

As another example of dishonest interpretation, the government asked for responses to a list of points a recent consultation. Most respondents commented on only some points, but government officers counted every view as agreeing with the government view unless it explicitly objected. In other words, respondents were deemed to agree with points that they had not commented on. (In fact, respondents might have seen those points as irrelevant to their organization, or might not have even understood them at all.) Consequently, the majority of opinion was deemed to agree with that of the government.

 

Interacting with government

Hint One: Try to work within existing laws and policies. It is usually easier and more effective to find ways of getting what you need within existing laws and policies. That is, you don't need to change anything, just the way it is implemented. This way, everybody looks good and there is no conflict to be resolved. In this approach, public servants can still show that they are complying with existing laws and policies. You don't need to go the hard road of getting lawmakers to vote for something different.

Hint two: Find out exactly what the Act actually says.

Hint three: Work with your politicians. Other than working with civil servants, you can approach government through different avenues: Your local member of Parliament, The Minister, The Shadow Minister, The complaints process of that Department, the relevant tribunal, the Ombudsman, or an existing lobby group. If you wish to meet a politician whom you don't already know, write a formal letter asking for an appointment and briefly stating your point. The politician's personal assistant will probably phone you asking why the civil service can't resolve the problem, and you need to have a good answer.

A politician's reasons for a meeting will vary depending on:

  1. Their personality, which can be very different from their public persona.
  2. How much political mileage they can get out of it? (Will it make them look good? If an election is close, will it help them win?)
  3. Does what you want align with current party policy or government policy in some way? Or does it at least fit within the broad outlines of current government policy?
  4. Could inaction be politically embarrassing?
  5. Do you come from their electorate?
  6. What size constituency do you represent? Who else is part of it?
  7. How clear and strong is your case? Do you have good information?
  8. How politicized is your case?
  9. Are others also lobbying for change? If so, what changes?
  10. Is the relevant Act currently under review?
  11. Do both sides of politics have the same view of the current Act or do they view it very differently?
  12. Is Parliament currently sitting? This affects the amount of time they have available.

 

Getting laws changed

Getting a law changed is a major challenge and it is easy to go wrong.

First of all, could you get better results by circumventing politics altogether? For example, you might be able to use social networks, community development projects, or businesses to achieve the same ends. This can be more effective in developing countries where laws are often poorly conceived and not implemented.

If you are working in a well-developed liberal democracy, such as the U.S., U.K., or Australia, you probably have two major parties, one right-leaning and the other left-leaning. If you are proposing a change in the law, you usually need a long-term strategy. (The exception is a high-profile major disaster for which both parties agree on an urgent solution.)

Aim for bipartisan support and try to prevent the issue becoming politicized. A change that is supported by both major parties will pass through parliament with minimal debate and public attention. In fact, many laws are supported by the major parties, both of which consider controversy to be unfruitful.

To that end, avoid letting the issue side with one major party and against the other. The ensuing debate and controversy might prevent any further progress. If it gets to parliament as a Bill, it will have a difficult path through parliament with an increased risk of failure, and it could more easily be repealed when the other party gets government.

In a worst case scenario, a senior politician might rule it out as a future option, and politicians generally have to stick with that announcement. If they were to change their minds, the press would be very negative and the issue would become increasingly controversial.

Consequently, it is better to have your facts and your lobbying strategy ready first.

Do petitions work? It depends.

Letter writing campaigns fall into two categories: