1. Geiger Gibson Capstone in Community Health Policy & Leadership
Webinar Series
Executive Branch Role
Legislative Branch Role
Judicial Branch Role
Advocacy Role
Merle Cunningham MD MPH - Program Director
Geiger Gibson Program in Partnership with NACHC
GWU School Public Health & Health Services

2. The Role of Advocacy in Health Policy October 22, 2013
Presented by
Amanda Pears Kelly
National Advocacy Director
National Association of Community Health Centers

3. Learning Objectives
At the end of this session, participants will be better able to:
Understand why & how advocacy influences health policy
Appreciate the keys to successful advocacy
Apply the rules for organizing grassroots advocacy

4. Advocacy and Health Policy
Good Policy Should Come First: Who Wants to Advocate for Bad Policy?

5. Why Does Advocacy Matter in Health Policy?
Policy Decisions Do Not Happen in a Vacuum
- Competing Priorities
- Dueling Numbers
- Health policy is about people
Advocacy is Not Just Lobbying
- Getting Policymakers to Pay Attention
- Getting Legislators to Vote Yes (or No)
Legislative Decisions ALWAYS Involve Politics
- Good Policy Development is not enough
- Sometimes votes matter more than relationships
- What Good is Perfect Policy that Never Becomes Law?

6. Action = Effective Advocacy
Effective advocacy has one requirement: ACTION
Simply discussing issues, challenges, and plans is NOT effective advocacy.
To Be An Effective Advocate & Attain Your Goals You MUST
Make advocacy an ongoing commitment and priority.
Translate discussions, plans, and passions into moveable actions.
Make your voice and perspective heard and understood.

7. Effective Advocacy = Power
Grassroots advocacy is about
BUILDING POWER
Power is not measured by the number of advocates on a list
Power is not measured by the number of small (or even large) victories we win.
Power must be measured by our ability to successfully advance our own agenda and to make it unthinkable that any other political or special interest would ever want to take us on.

8. The Real Deal: Relative Effectiveness of Advocacy Communications
1. A visit to your health center 2. A personal meeting back home 3. A personal meeting in Washington 4. Personal telephone calls 5. Personalized Letters (faxed) 6. Personalized s 7. Template s (ineffective unless in volume)

9. Advocacy 101 The Basics Keys to Successful Advocacy Know what you want
Know who can give it to you
Know what they want
Know how to make the loudest squeak
Advocacy is an ongoing effort
Keys to Successful Advocacy
Advocacy is a competitive activity
There are winners and losers and, sometimes a stalemate is a win!
Advocacy is an ACTIVE, not a passive process
You are not the only one who wants something; So you have to be heard through the din of all the other interests

10. Goals To win T0 positively Impact Advocacy Targets
To build an Ongoing Capability
To involve your board and staff
To involve the community

11. Metrics Can someone get the target on the phone?
Can you get the target to your center & how often?
How often is the center in the media?
How many local organizations/elected officials do something CONCRETE to support you?
How many grassroots advocates do you have? How active are they?
How many voters have you registered? Do they vote?
How much of what you ask your targets for do you get?

12. Recognition
-Recognize your targets -Recognize your community supporters -Recognize your best grassroots advocates -Recognize your advocacy leaders -Recognize your center!

13. Empowering Yourself Through Advocacy
Your level of commitment is directly related to your ability to make an impact.
You must demonstrate personal commitment to your issues if you expect to receive the support and commitment of your officials and community members.

14. Do’s & Don’ts of Health Center Advocacy
Offer Answers You Don’t Have
Assume Knowledge of Health Centers
Believe Someone Else is Taking Care of Your Advocacy
Burn Bridges
Be Intimidated
Confuse Being Quiet for Being Polite
Express Partisanship
Forget to make your ASK
Dos:
Know What You’re Asking For
Know Your Audience
Know Your Opponents
Know The Rules
Make a Commitment
Be Polite
Say THANK YOU
Keep it Simple

15. Making Effective Advocacy Happen: Building A Culture Of Advocacy
In order to realize the full potential of our grassroots power it is critical that we create a culture of advocacy at the local, state and federal levels
Building a culture of advocacy means:
Changing the culture and attitude from within the health center, recognizing advocacy as a critical and mandatory component to our daily work and planning.
Making a commitment to doing the work to build and organize our grassroots in order to fully realize the potential of our grassroots power.
Growth and recognition of grassroots advocacy and effectiveness the same way other critical skills and programs are recognized for health center staff and boards.

16. Building A Culture Of Advocacy
Essentials For Empowering Your Health Center Through Advocacy in the community
Recruit Advocates Inform others of your issues and advocacy efforts, ask them to get involved and make a commitment to health center advocacy.
Develop Partnerships Reach out to local businesses and organizations to educate them about the health center and ask them to join in health center advocacy efforts.
Increase Exposure: Begin an advocacy campaign at your health center.
-Set up legislative visits at the health center with local, state, and federal officials regularly.
-Write letters to the editor on health center issues.
-Hold health center events
-Make people (elected officials, the media, the public) aware of who you are and what you provide the community.

17. Building A Culture Of Advocacy
Build And Maintain Relationships With Elected Officials
Establish an ongoing schedule of hosting and meeting with local, state, and federal elected officials and their staff at the health center.
Know your officials interests, background, committees, career etc.
Let your officials know how many patients/ constituents you are serving and update them regularly on developments
Offer yourself as an information resource to your officials and their staff.
Recognize and thank your officials for their support of health centers.

18. Essentials For Empowering Yourself Through Advocacy
Making Effective Advocacy Happen: Establish What Works At Your Center And In Your Community
Essentials For Empowering Yourself Through Advocacy
Staying Informed- provide board members, staff, patients, and community partners with regular updates on what’s happening in D.C. and your state capital and how it could affect their center.
Ongoing Priority and Commitment- make advocacy a standing item on the agenda at every board meeting.
Recognition- publicly recognize and thank both officials and health center advocates.
Patient Involvement- involve your patients in as many advocacy activities as possible.

19. Ultimately Y
The success of a policy can only be measured by it’s impact on real people – not with numbers or abstractions.
The success of your advocacy can only be judged through the benefit of the policies and actions you make happen.

20. “…The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.” Mohandas Gandhi

21. Questions? apearskelly@nachc.com