Deep Dive Breakout 3: At the Drive-In: Planning In-District Meetings and State Advocacy Days

In-district meetings and state advocacy days are a cost-conscious way to grow advocates into leaders. Learn key takeaways on developing successful state and in-district meetings, tips on how to make in-state programming engaging and successful, and what key metrics to gather. This session will also cover building In-district meetings into your overall advocacy program.

Notes:

• Discussion
  • Determining if state advocacy works for your program
    • LLS Advocacy in action: strategy is key
      • Decide what number and which states are the most strategic with your budget as you plan your stated advocacy days
  • BGCA: Finding the right goals
    • What is the goal of the engagement?
      • Policy goal?
      • Raising awareness?
      • Stewardship!
    • Grassroots: use advocacy as an entry point for future, advanced engagement
      • Once an advocate goes to their first in-person advocacy meeting, it is easier to get them to go to a second one and flip them to additional issues with less training
      • Even their presence in the office is a great outcome; advocates bring the story, your organization can bring the policy
  • AEM: 1000+ opportunities
    • Lawmakers want to talk to their constituents over other types of representatives
    • More opportunities with activations or to involve lawmakers will increase your level of participation and engagement in subsequent events
    • Leverage your internal communications just as much as the external communications – goal is to give your members FOMO so that they also want to become involved in their district
    • Each member company is a unique opportunity
    • Decide which in-district meetings are the best fit for your advocates/ members
    • Build the relationship between advocates and legislators in the off-season when it’s calmer
  • LLS: a year-round strategy enhances the volunteer experience
    • Enhance the volunteer experience
    • Increase volunteer affinity for the organization/ mission
    • Build the volunteers’ skills and expertise
    • Year-round engagement is important
    • Issues that news to be addressed at the Federal and State level are strong opportunities for engagement
  • BGCA: Bridging Federal and State
    • Build the bridge!
      • One person, one meeting, or one process
      • Action-oriented
    • Encourage over-sharing
      • This is important for cross-departmental teams, like separate state and federal GR teams
      • It is better to have to much than too little – an FYI message or looping in email threads will rarely hurt, only help
      • Add touch points where possible
    • Collaborative annual planning
  • AEM: Builds bridges
    • Overlap programs when possible
    • Find synergy between similar systems and process
    • States will move on issues even when they are paused Federally
    • Staff at member-driven organizations will wear many different hats, so this overlap and synergy will benefit them in their multiple roles
• Creating impactful advocacy meetings
  • Timing and issue choice matters
    • Legislative calendar
    • Holidays
    • Other lobby days
  • Issues should be relatable, easy to message, widely felt, and give volunteers a sense of power
• BGCA: Meetings or visits
  • In-disctrict meetings (let by BGCA)
    • Current, ongoing policy ask
    • Critical to meet with the office at the moment
  • Site visits
    • General awareness and good-will building
    • Asks are more general or long-term
• AEM: Make some noise
  • Create a menu of ways members can engage, including some without an elected official
  • Coordinate with internal teams
    • Take a team approach
    • Plan early
    • Communication is vital
    • Be nimble
  • Consider a work team model and establish point people for each team
  • Have frequent check-ins during planning
  • Connect with written updates between meetings
  • How is success going to be measured?
    • Define riles & responsibilities
    • Define the system and process
• Q/A
  • How do we transition State advocates to Federal advocates (and vice versa)?
    • The baseline will be the same, mainly on the advocate’s confidence. You want to instill that confidence in them and share the slight differences that might arise between their previous experience and their newest advocacy opportunity
    • A lot of advocates will find the state level less intimidating
    • Getting actual members in front of your advocates is very validating for them and will encourage them to engage again
  • Hosting state or in-district meetings when there is not staff capacity to attend in person
    • High-level advocates: they work with them to make sure they can go to meetings alone
    • Trainings will help account for their time and build that confidence
    • You have to have faith in your advocates
    • Build an ambassador network/ program
    • This does not happened overnights, but you can train them to be experts in their story and in your message