Social justice advocacy goals almost always require the support of some segment of the public in order to move forward. Therefore, significant attention needs to be paid to planning the appropriate outreach and communications effort.
Advocacy outreach begins with developing the basic messages of your advocacy campaign. These messages, their audiences, and the delivery of the one to the other, will influence your overall outreach strategy.
Just as the Nine Questions can assist you in planning your overall campaign strategy, pull them out again to guide your specific outreach efforts. Namely:
What do we want? (Goals)
What is it you want your audience to do once they've heard your message?
Who can give it to us? (Target Audiences)
Which segment of the public is in the best position to hear and act effectively upon our message? (NOTE: The “general public” is not a target audience.)
What do they need to hear? (Messages)
What is the best language, use of words, that will impact them powerfully and move them to action?
Who do they need to hear it from? (Messengers)
Who is this particular target audience most likely to listen to?
How do we get them to hear it? (Delivery)
What is the best medium to reach them (e.g., print, radio, television, email)?
What have we got? (Resources; strengths)
What resources do we already have at our disposal– good messages, graphic artists, web-savvy specialists, motivating speakers– that can help us achieve our communications objectives?
What do we need to develop? (Challenges; gaps)
Who do we need to bring in? What skills do we need that we don't have? What organizational culture issues might hamper our efforts?
How do we begin? (First steps)
What are some things we can do right away to get the effort moving forward? Then what will we do after that?
How will we know it's working, or not working? (Evaluation)
What mechanisms will we put into place to measure the impact of our message and our approach?
The Advocacy and Leadership Center offers a number of tips for using the media to advance your issue.
A message's content becomes exponentially more powerful when set in the right context. Every message is positioned inside an interpretive frame, a background set of signals made up of language, metaphors, visuals, and messengers, that tell an audience how to interpret what they hear.
Frames trigger meaning. They tap into the listener's belief system and create instant filters. The moral and cultural models that are sparked by the frame cause the listener to disregard certain details and focus on others.
Ultimately, a frame triggers a deep, unconscious connection with a moral belief or cultural identity. The listener moves toward that deeper connection.
Advocates can make strategic use of frames to bring new power to their campaigns. Where the current frames for issues are less desirable for their campaigns, they can craft messages to bridge to more advantageous ones.
Your audiences play the ultimate role in making the change you want to see happen. There are two types of audiences that your advocacy efforts will focus on:
Decision makers: Those that have the power of authority - formal and/or informal - to make or to block change.
Pressure makers: Those that have the power to influence or pressure decision makers or other pressure makers, and to raise public opinion of an issue.
In order to identify the right audiences and begin analyzing information about each of them, here are some things to think about:
When fleshing out potential audiences that will make moves toward your goals, it is also important to think about whom and what will provide resistance. Both those who are negatively impacted by the status quo and those who want to maintain it all play important roles here.
Both the formal and informal ways in which change is made and blocked are important considerations when identifying decision and pressure makers. Think about:
Decision makers: Who has the power and authority to make or block change? Who decides whether a problem is addressed or ignored? What are their duties? For what can they be held accountable? What are their limitations?
Pressure makers: Who has the influence with or connection to these decision makers?
Formal and informal structures: What are the decision making bodies? How are they organized? What is the relationship among different bodies and different levels?
Decision-making process: How does an issue become part of the problem solving agenda? Are there openings for public participation? Do decision makers consult with civil society when deciding among alternative solutions? If so, at what stages of the process? Through what mechanisms? Who has access to these mechanisms? Whose voices are sought out? Represented? Listened to? Considered important?
You can use our worksheet Identifying Relevant Audiences to assist you with these questions.
Once you've gained a broad sense of the individuals, groups and institutions that should be targeted, begin to hone in on your key audiences.
Begin to focus in on your most important audiences. Ask yourself the following questions and gather as much information as possible from the worksheets provided:
Who holds a stake or an interest in the issue, and whether or how it is resolved?
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See if you forgot anyone. Think about the many sectors of society at all levels (i.e. local state, national, regional, international).
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For each audience, how important are they to the issue? Why?
Break up your audiences into three broad categories: Very important, important, and not important. The “very important” audiences will serve as your key audiences. Pay careful attention to your other audiences as their level of importance might change over time (see the
"Ranking Your Audiences”).
For each key audience, do they support or oppose the change?
Further divide list into the following categories: strong supporters, moderate supporters, fence sitters (those who are uncommitted), moderate opponents, and strong opponents (see the "Evaluating Your Audiences").