What is advocacy?
Advocacy is about speaking out and making a case for something important. It can be important to you personally, or important to society as a whole. The size or scale of the issue doesn’t matter.
When you
advocate, you’re telling a story to a decision-maker to influence them to do (or not do) something.
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What do we mean by that?
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Telling a story: When we say, “telling a story,” we mean communicating a problem and a solution.
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Decision-maker: A decision-maker is an individual or institution who can take actions or make decisions on issues impacting society.
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Influencing: The goal of advocacy is to influence. That means convincing or persuading the decision-maker to see the problem from your perspective and agree on the solution you’re suggesting.
Being an advocate
Anyone can be an advocate! You are likely already an advocate in your daily life. Whenever you speak up for your own needs, or the needs of someone else, you are being an advocate.
The goal of this toolkit is to help you be the most effective advocate you can be.
