How to get policymakers to actually hear you
Written by Niki Juhasz
We know your work – all of our work – is directly impacted by recent tragedies and crises. Dallas, Buffalo, Laguna Woods, Uvalde. The formula crisis, attacks on necessary equity efforts in our schools and child care shortages. These all signal the need for a major revolution.
So what do we want? Long-term, sustainable policy change to help our children and families thrive. When do we want it? NOW. (I mean, years ago, really.)
So that’s what we’re focused on today. We reviewed more than 10 peer-reviewed journal articles, book excerpts and research studies (in addition to our years of experience working with policymakers!) to ensure that you have what you need to succeed in your advocacy.
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Below, we're clarifying what policymakers most care about, so you can best advocate with them.
What Policymakers Care About: Self-Perception
Policymakers want to support work that aligns with how they see themselves.
For example, many policymakers value “helping hard-working Americans succeed”. In this case, they want to support programs that directly align with their self-perception of being champions for the working man (and…ahem…woman).
Tactic to Help You Succeed: Build Your Campaign Based on Policymakers’ “Brands”
Showing policymakers that you see them the way they see themselves is critical in advocacy.
By figuring out what’s important to policymakers, we can then speak to their values and self-perceptions in our messaging. Looking at their voting history and public remarks are great ways to do this.
For example, if a policymaker fancies themself a champion for the working woman, you could begin your advocacy by saying: “Your history in Congress shows that you're a strong advocate for working class Americans. Investing in families is investing in our future workforce. If we hope to turn around the record low birth rate among U.S. families, and eliminate a potential economic downturn, we need to ensure that we provide pregnant families, along with infants and toddlers, with wraparound support.”
Pro tip: check their website to reference how THEY talk about your issue, so you can then use that language as well.
What Policymakers Care About: Seeing Constituents in Their Work
In many cases, we find that policymakers only care about issues impacting *their* constituents, not the entire country. They want to know what a policy issue means for THEIR neighborhoods, their communities and their voters. For example, data about a South Carolina education crisis won’t resonate with Oregon policymakers – unless you make a connection that gives them a reason to care.
Tactic to Help You Succeed: Use Community-Specific Storytelling
According to a Palgrave Communications article, “telling stories, or using other framing techniques that more readily allow information to enter the memory, is more effective than presenting evidence as if it can speak for itself. Evidence advocacy alone is ineffective.”
Policymakers do need to see the data and the evidence -- but pairing it with stories will make the most powerful case.
Making a personal, imaginable case for policymakers is critical. We have resources to help:
What Policymakers Care About: Peer Influence
Research found that in many cases, policymakers “draw more from cues related to their allies (such as a shared political party) than specific political issues.” That means we can’t target just one policymaker in our work and hope to win.
Tactic to Help You Succeed: Target Multiple Decision Makers
While creating your advocacy campaign, think through all the people who may influence your core decision maker – and then ensure you’re getting in front of all of them with your messaging. Who has the power to say yes or no? Who influences them? That may mean your school board of education members, if you’re campaigning about your district’s budget, your city council members to enact a new law, or even national-level representatives if you’re working on initiatives that span the country.
Telling policymakers who else is involved can also build engagement with your campaign. For example, if you tell them you already have support from important community leaders (and even name them if possible!) it shows them that this is a campaign they don't want to be left out of.
What Policymakers Care About: Time
Multiple studies have shown that policymakers don’t have time to pay attention to every campaign that lands on their desks.
They are limited in what they can process – so they will likely ignore large unformatted blocks of text or skip over time-consuming reports, no matter how important.
Tactic to Help You Succeed: Simplify Your Materials
Design a one pager with the most important points of your campaign. Create a short video that speaks directly to your issue and target it to the policymaker. Write core messaging that they can skim quickly and easily.
However you do it, get rid of the jargon, simplify your messaging and make your materials easy to skim and understand. We have resources to help:
When it comes down to it, it’s simple: the easier we make it for policymakers, the more likely we are to succeed.
Our country needs your work right now. It’s essential that you succeed, and we’re right here with you along the way. Thanks for everything you do.
