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Improving
your advocacy campaigns
Five
helpful hints for advocacy initiatives
There are five
elements we would recommend that you keep in mind when you are talking
with elected officials or making presentations to interested citizens.
For this purpose, we propose the “KIS” organizing framework:
1. Keep It
Simple: Focus on the basics of your message. Try your best to
limit your pitch to three points. If you count more than three,
you are officially out of control.
2. Keep It Short: Policy makers and most of the public hate history
lessons. They will stop listening and start daydreaming. Maintain
your focus and keep it concise.
3. Keep It Sound: Give a short overview and a clear list of what
your audience or interlocutor can do.
4. Keep It Smart: Keep the focus. Don’t talk about oranges
to the director of apples. Know your audience.
5. Keep It Special: Tell an amazing and/or personal short story
that everyone will remember to illustrate your point.
Six
deadly sins of human rights advocates
Beware of the
Six Deadly Sins of would-be human rights advocates like us. We can
get pretty sanctimonious, long-winded, and overzealous. So here
are some things to avoid when you are trying to make your case,
whether to a politician or to a group of people you are trying to
educate.
1. Don’t
be too boring! Advocacy is not like an academic conference. We
need to think through how to make our presentations stand out.
Tell a story, tell a joke, make what you have to say interesting.
Don’t paint in black-and-white; paint in color!
2. Don’t be too long-winded! Most of us who get involved
in advocacy could hardly be accused of being shy. We often tend
to drone on just a little too long about the issues that fire
us up. Zero in on the main points and be concise!
3. Don’t be too unilateral! We often just make long presentations
or speeches at our meetings and events. We need to focus on interaction
with our interlocutors or audiences. After initial presentations,
engage people by asking questions. Be interactive!
4. Don’t be too complex! We often overload our message by
telling everything about our subject of interest in all its glorious
complexity. Pick the highlights. Make a few simple points!
5. Don’t be too unstructured! There’s often so much
to said about our topics that we have the temptation to just blurt
it all out in a stream of consciousness, sort of like hurling
mud (or any other similar substance) against a wall and hoping
it sticks. Instead, it is important to make a tight situation
report and then present a focused set of recommendations. Make
it flow!
6. Don’t be too touch-feely! We have to match our advocacy
agenda to the big picture. We can’t just rely on the “because
it’s the right thing to do” argument, or simply hope
that for humanitarian reasons people will respond. We also have
to connect our issues to larger national interests and what politicians
and Zimbabweans care about. Be relevant!
With thanks
to: Not
On Our Watch: The Mission To End Genocide In Darfur and Beyond
by Don Cheadle and John Prendergast
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