Forming an Advocacy Habit

I have a confession to make. When I woke up this morning I thought to myself “yeah, I should go vote in the DC Primary today, but I don’t really want to. It’s not an important election and I’m really busy.” In my defense, there are only a few contested races for positions that I, frankly, know little about. It just doesn’t feel like a good use of time. Anyone else feel that way occasionally?

See, even the Advocacy Guru has those days when she’s not all about civic participation and democracy. That said, though, I will go vote, mainly because I like the little “I Voted” stickers. OK, that’s not the only reason. In fact, I do make myself participate in these “they don’t really matter” elections because I think they are essential to forming a positive advocacy habit. What’s an advocacy habit? I’m glad you asked.

If you think about it, many of the things that are good for our health, our family and our community aren’t necessarily things that many of us just love to do everyday. Think exercise. Or flossing. Or putting money into a 401K instead of a new sports car (maybe that’s just me). Yet we do these things because we know they’re beneficial (umm, except maybe the exercising…) -- and the tool we use to get ourselves to do these things is the process of forming habits.

When you form an advocacy habit you don’t have to think about whether you’ll vote or send a letter to an elected official or attend a townhall meeting. You just do it. Over time, the benefits of “just doing it” compound. You may be asked to make a statement at a local hearing. Your state and federal legislators reach out to ask your opinion. You may even be asked to run for office. In short, your decision to “just do some advocacy” today will reap amazing benefits for the future by giving you the power to influence the issues you care most passionately about.

So how do you form an advocacy habit? Just follow these three simple steps:

Step One -- Commitment: Say it loud and say it proud “I will form an advocacy habit.” Really, I mean it. E-mail your spouse, post a blog entry, call your friends or reach out to your local or national association and tell them that are forming an advocacy habit. Add a comment on your Facebook page, drop me an e-mail or post a notice on our social networking site. Studies show that a public commitment is essential to forming any good (or eliminating any bad) habit.

Step Two -- Take Daily Action: Yes, that’s right. I said daily. To successful form a new habit you’ll need to keep it “top of mind” every day for several weeks. But I don’t mean you should contact your elected officials every day or vote more than the appropriate number of times during an election (just once, for anyone doing the math on that). Just find 5, 10 or 15 minutes everyday that you can use to feed that habit.

Step #3 – Persistence: This is the one I have trouble with, especially when it comes to the aforementioned exercising. I am really good at my habit forming efforts for about a week and then, well, I slack off. I’m not the only one with this problem, am I?

So, to help my tipsheet readers with their advocacy habits, I’m offering two FREE options for getting a daily “nudge” about advocacy:

An e-mail autoresponder program. All you need to do is send an e-mail to habit@advocacyguru.com and I will send you a new advocacy habit forming activity EVERY DAY through the end of September (the first one starts today!).

Or you can follow me on Twitter (User ID: AdvocacyGuru). I’ll be sending out daily “tweets.”

That should give you plenty of time to get on the advocacy bandwagon. Each tip is short (one or two sentences) and designed to be completed in no more than 15 minutes.

Through commitment, daily action and persistence in no time you’ll be an advocacy superstar. In fact, you might get to the point where you’re jonesing for some advocacy whenever you’re away from the democratic process.

Facebook and Advocacy Campaigns: A New Tool?

Facebook, the social networking site extraordinaire, has gotten in to the advertising game. Anyone with a profile on the site can set up an advertising campaign designed to drive traffic to a website, a Facebook profile or anywhere else on the world wide web.

I've been playing around with this tool mainly for business development purposes (i.e., linking people to our business site). It's pretty easy to use. All you need to do is write an ad using the usual "haiku" format (ok, it's not a real haiku, it just feels like one), wait for it to be approved (no capitalization in strange places as I learned) and it starts running.


In keeping with the spirit of Facebook I've linked the ad to free resources on my site as opposed to anything for sale, so it's hard to tell whether there's been a positive impact. I didn't create a special Facebook landing page, which would be the smart thing to do and is next on my list. I have seen a slight uptick in newsletter subscriptions which may be a result of this campaign.


At any rate, the reason I'm mentioning this on my blog is that I believe there may be some advocacy applications for this approach, specifically in using the advertising tool to recruit activists for issue campaigns and as new association members. Political campaigns are already using it (I've seen a fair number of Obama ads pop up) and some issue campaigns like MoveOn.org are on board as well. Advocacy organizations might want to take a look at whether this tool can help them access the active and socially connected people that use Facebook every day (and, in some cases, every minute).

Some of the downsides include cost (a minimum of $5 bucks per day AND the click through costs are much higher than Google) as well as the inability to target as specifically as one might like (or, at least, I can't figure out how to get to people just interested in grassroots advocacy and have to settle for people interested in politics in general). That said, it's worth a look for any organization seeking to get the word out to the Facebook audience -- and if you try it out, let me know how it goes!

Grassroots Advocacy in Iceland...

I'm back from my vacation in Iceland where my advocacy work was related mainly to advocating for more time at the fantabulous geothermal hot springs. I'll post some fun photos from the trip soon, but wanted, in the meantime, to hook everyone in to this great blog post on Associations Using Twitter.

If you aren't sure either a) what Twitter is or b) why you should care, you should definitely take a look at this post. Think of Twitter as the texting craze meets blogging. Basically, when you use Twitter you send "Tweets" or very small (up to 140 character) posts about whatever it is you want to alert the world to. Originally used in by the younger crowd for fascinating comments like "Dude, I'm so playing Guitar Hero right now," associations and businesses are starting to see the value of using this technology to connect quickly and easily with a large group of people.

The post includes a number of great examples of Twitter use in the Association world as well as links to posts on how to make your Twitter posts most useful. Frankly, this technology has incredible applications for grassroots advocacy: imagine having all your hardcore advocates able to follow your updates quickly and easily through their cell phones, especially during an active legislative debate or an event like a lobby day!

We're hoping to experiment with these approaches during the busy 2009 Lobby Day season. Let us know if you'd like to be part of the fun!

Oh, and check me out on Twitter! My user ID is AdvocacyGuru

The Grassroots Advocacy Olympics!

If you're like me and have been staying up way past your bedtime to watch the Olympics everynight, you might like my recent newsletter, "The Advocacy Olympics: Or, How to Medal in the Great American Art of Democracy." In it, I make suggestions for how we can all be more successful at essential democratic and advocacy activities, like "Synchronized Legislating", the "Get That Bill Passed Balance Beam" and the "Policy Pentathlon."

If you want to be the Usain Bolt of the grassroots advocacy arena, take a look at this article. It just might help you get up on that medal stand!

Why This Week (August 18th) is the MOST IMPORTANT WEEK OF THE YEAR For American Democracy

Today, Monday August 18th marks the start of the most important week in 2008 for American democracy. That's right, this week -- this measly little, mid-August, "why can't I get anyone on the phone" week.

It doesn't seem like such an auspicious week, does it? And yet, it will make all the difference for what Congress and even the Presidential candidates have to say in the coming months.

I recognize that most people would give the honor of "most imoprtant week for democracy" to the week of November 3rd, when citizens across the country will be voting in the Presidential election. Or maybe they'd give it to the week of August 25th or September 1st when, depending on your party, delegates gather to select a president.

What they're missing is the fact that this week represents the last opportunity for citizens to connect with their lawmakers at home before the national conventions and the end of the 110th Congress.

Why is that important? Traditionally, the views expressed by constituents during what's known as the "August district work period" dramatically impact Congress' policy agenda and schedule for the remainder of the year. This impact increases exponentially during a presidential election year.

In short, members of Congress will go to the conventions and back to DC with hearts and minds full of what they are hearing back home. So if citizens really want elected officials to listen up, whether it's on the economy, gas prices or the regulation of industry X, Y or Z, now's the time.

If you want to be most effective in your communications, stop by our Article Vault or FAQs page for more ideas on how to be a truly great advocate -- and happy advocating!

Grassroots Advocacy and the Net: Ships passing in the night?

A recent report from the EVoter Institute demonstrates an enormous disconnect between how the general public expects political campaigns and grassroots advocacy organizations to connect with them on the Internet and how effective campaigns et al view the Internet as a medium for getting their message out.

The report "Missing the Boat: How Political and Advocacy Communications Leaders Spend Campaign Funds," suggests that over 2/3rds of those who use the Internet for political information expect candidates and others to connect with them through blogs, video casts and the like. And yet only a very small portion of campaign budgets are going toward these approaches. Most campaign managers rate these tools as "ineffective" in getting their message out to voters. It's rather odd, since those running the campaigns use social media all the time!

I've run in to this same disconnect in the Association world. Many organizations feel that their members "won't use" social media tools. At the same time, most of their member are already using these tools in their daily life. Those Associations that are able to bridge the gap between personal and professional use will be providing their members with a tremendous service in the Web 2.0 (and 3.0 and 4.0) world -- and will manage to stay afloat in the process.

For more information about the EVoter Study, check out this article from Media Post.

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More to come soon!