Advocacy Issues

7 Questions with Bob Keefe

Sep 12, 2022 by Elizabeth Rowe (she/her)

Interview with Bob Keefe 

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Legislative Advocacy 101

Nov 14, 2016 by Ben Holse (he/him)

Legislative Advocacy 101, It's Time to Take a Stand

Legislative Advocacy 101: Legislative Advocacy is important because there comes a time in everyone’s life when they have to take a stand. While this moment is always more dramatic in the movies, it’s possible that you’ve come to this realization regarding a particular policy or issue in your locality. And if you’ve decided that you want to make a change in policy and advocate for your issue in your local legislature, it’s time for a little Legislative Advocacy 101. While the list below is far from comprehensive, it’s a general outline of the process to help get you started with legislative advocacy.

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Why Advocacy and Elections Matter

Jul 01, 2015 by Joe Fuld (he/him)

Advocacy and Elections: Love, Marriage, and Health Care

If you have not read the opinions from last week’s Supreme Court rulings, you should check them out. You can read summaries of the opinions on marriage equality here, and excerpts on the Affordable Care Act ruling here. The opinions are amazing and the words of the majority opinion make me proud, but also sadden me, because there’s still a lot more work to be done and our opponents aren’t going to stop anytime soon.

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Winning Advocacy Strategies for 2015 and Beyond

Jan 05, 2015 by Joe Fuld (he/him)

The Evolution of Advocacy Strategies

Advocacy strategies have changed a lot over the last 20 years. When I was a chief of staff in the New York State Legislature, I don't remember there ever being a real advocacy campaign around public support of an issue that focused on legislators. The main way groups moved legislation was to hire a lobbyist and that was really it. There were occasional print ads and lobby days, but day-to-day mass contact from constituents that were driven by member groups were few and far between. Today, we spend a lot of time running advocacy campaigns on the state level.  Issue advocacy tactics that were once only used on large, federal issues are now seen on smaller federal issues as well as state and municipal issues.

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