PUBLIC POLICY ADVOCACY – LET’S WRITE!
ad·vo·ca·cy: support for or recommendation of a particular cause or policy.
What are we writing:
- Letters to the editor of our newspaper
- Letters to legislators
- Our own
- Members of the committee of interest, especially its chair and vice chair
- Any relevant member of the legislature
- Script for testimony to committee or agency
- In person or virtual (sometimes scheduled in addition to in-person testimony)
- Can also submit written testimony
- Script (talking points) and/or one-pager for a visit to a legislator’s office
- Op-eds
- Brief comments on surveys or postcards
Guidelines for information to include in all types of advocacy writing:
- Reason for writing
- Why does this matter to me?
- Why I am I qualified to speak about this issue?
- What is the problem? Why is this a problem? Offer a possible solution if you have one.
- What is your “ask”? What do you want the person or persons to whom you are writing to do?
Tell your story (making the issue personal) . . . . .
At every advocacy training event, we are told to tell our stories when writing advocacy letters or testimony. This doesn’t mean what we usually think of as biography, but basically that part of our story that answers questions 2 and 3 above. Why? What does this accomplish? The Herren Project says, “Stories let us share information in a way that creates an emotional connection. They help us to understand that information and each other, and it makes the information memorable. Because stories create an emotional connection, we can gain a deeper understanding of other people’s experiences.” [Mar 29, 2020] And they of us. Quite simply, telling a story is a way to communicate why an issue is important to us, how or why it affects us, and what experience or expertise we possess to make this judgment. This emotional connection is crucial in advocacy work because it motivates people to actively support a cause by tapping into their feelings, making them more likely to take action, donate, or speak out in favor of the issue. Individuals are more likely to be passionate and committed when they feel personally invested in the outcome due to an emotional tie to the cause.
A “hook” sentence:
A hook is an opening statement (which is usually the first sentence) in any piece of writing that attempts to grab the reader’s attention so that they want to read on. There are several different types of hooks–a question, quote, statistic, or anecdote can be excellent hooks. Some examples from recent letters to the editor of the newspaper:
- The Texas Treasury has an almost 24-billion-dollar
- In a recent Metro column, Bridget Grumet sums up what she says is the essence of the Republican Party’s fabricated Great Replacement Theory: “They are coming to take what’s ours.”
Since the primary runoff election, Governor Abbott has been proclaiming that he has the votes for school choice.