Getting Started with Advocacy for Digital Preservation��

https://www.menti.com

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Our agenda

Digital preservation fundamentals

Time for a break�10 minutes

What is advocacy?

https://growthmethod.com/cim-marketing-buying-journey/

Why it matters

Sender

Receiver

Message

Encoding

Decoding

Noise

Feedback

https://www.communicationtheory.org/shannon-and-weaver-model-of-communication/

How advocacy drives change

1. Advocacy makes an invisible problem visible
2. Advocacy builds organisational buy‑in
3. Advocacy unlocks funding and resources
4. Advocacy shapes policy and long‑term planning
5. Advocacy drives behaviour change and best practice
6. Advocacy builds partnerships and community
7. Advocacy accelerates understanding, innovation and adoption
8. Advocacy builds long‑term sustainability

Back to menti.com�What is your ‘ask’?

Your stakeholder(s)

• Who could say yes to your ‘ask’?
• Who could stop it from happening—even passively?
• Who do decision‑makers listen to when thinking about this kind of issue?

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Identifying stakeholders

High Power

Low Influence

Keep Satisfied

High Power

High Influence

Manage Closely

Low Power

Low Influence

Keep Informed

Low Power

High Influence

Monitor with Minimum Effort

Influence

Power

https://blog.oxfordcollegeofmarketing.com/2018/04/23/what-is-mendelows-matrix-and-how-is-it-useful/

Back to menti.com�Who could say yes/no/influence this?

Why motivators matter

?

System resilience, Security, Institutional risk management

Creating stakeholder scenarios

As a: Chief Executive 

I need to: have secure, immediate access to all relevant organizational data whenever I need it

In order to: make informed decisions, report accurately to stakeholders and ensure we are meeting our goals.

�Potential motivators:

Business Continuity / Reputation / Impact / Transparency

As an: IT lead

I need to: ensure systems remain secure over time

In order to:

avoid data breaches and reputational damage.

�Potential motivators:

Security / Efficiency / Reputation / Recovery

From Motivators to Messages

Effective advocacy messages have three characteristics:

• They start with the stakeholder—not with digital preservation
• They link motivators to tangible outcomes
• They make clear what value is being delivered, even if no immediate action is requested

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From Motivators to Messages

Business Continuity

Reputation

Impact

Transparency

Digital preservation underpins business continuity by ensuring critical information remains accessible and usable, and enabling swift recovery from disruption. It also strengthens reputation, impact and transparency by preserving reliable evidence of activity and supporting accountability.

From Motivators to Messages

Security

Efficiency

Reputation

Recovery

Digital preservation strengthens organisations by securing critical data, improving efficiency, and enabling rapid recovery when disruptions occur. It also safeguards reputation by ensuring information remains trustworthy, accessible, and verifiable over time.

Back to menti.com�What might motivate your key stakeholder?

Recap of Day 1

HOMEWORK

• Identify your Stakeholder
• List their motivators
• Draft a message for your Stakeholder

Getting Started with Advocacy for Digital Preservation��

Our agenda

What is Digital Preservation?

​

“the series of managed activities necessary to ensure continued access to digital materials for as long as necessary.”

- The Digital Preservation Handbook

​

What is advocacy?

https://growthmethod.com/cim-marketing-buying-journey/

Why it matters

Sender

Receiver

Message

Encoding

Decoding

Noise

Feedback

https://www.communicationtheory.org/shannon-and-weaver-model-of-communication/

Articulating your ask

​

A digital management �plan

​

Asset audit / permission for assessment / complete an assessment / gathering stats on data volumes

​

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Support for

day-to-day tasks

Your stakeholders

Their motivators

Any questions or feedback?

https://www.menti.com

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4846 0322

Back to menti.com�Homework feedback

Storytelling for maximum impact

• Acknowledge the stakeholders with whom you are communicating
• Appeal to the human element!
• Tailor the message for them
• Present an achievable, actionable action using clear language
• Use evidence to back up your proposal where possible

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Storytelling in practice

Head, Heart and Hand

• Head (thinking): Provide clear, evidence‑based explanations of risks, benefits and long‑term value so your audience understands why digital preservation matters.
• Heart (feeling): Use motivators to create stories, values and messages to make preservation meaningful and emotionally resonant.
• Hand (action): Offer practical next steps, tools and achievable starting points so people feel empowered to contribute.

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An example: CEO

Digital preservation underpins business continuity by ensuring critical information remains accessible and usable, and enabling swift recovery from disruption. It also strengthens reputation, impact and transparency by preserving reliable evidence of activity and supporting accountability.

HEAD: Digital preservation is essential to business continuity and would have saved us from XX hours of downtime last year when we had our system failure, meaning critical information remained accessible for all users and our reputation was protected.

HEART: On that occasion, the user support line was jammed with calls and no one was able to come into our public spaces to access our resources. We are a national institution, so it felt like something we should have been able to manage!

HAND: If we establish robust digital preservation workflows, we can avoid this happening again. I have completed a digital asset register and have drafted a digital management plan – I’d be happy to talk you through this!

An example: IT

Digital preservation strengthens organisations by securing critical data, improving efficiency, and enabling rapid recovery when disruptions occur. It also safeguards reputation by ensuring information remains trustworthy, accessible, and verifiable over time.

HEAD: With a structured approach to digital preservation, we have saved XXX TB of our organisation’s critical information. This has been accessed by XX users over XX months and remains trustworthy, accessible, and verifiable over time – enhancing our reputation!

HEART: We are exhibiting this incredible collection which showcases all of the achievements of our IT service over time, this would have been lost without effective digital preservation practice!

HAND: So that other important collections may be showcased in this way, we would need dedicated full-time resource. I have drafted a role description and would be delighted to talk you through how this would benefit the whole organisation.

Back to menti.com�Head, Heart or Hand?

Time for a break�10 minutes

Delivering your message

• Informal conversations
• Events and occasions
• Intranet, social media, blog posts

• Working groups and task forces

• Briefing papers
• Presentations
• Business cases

• Reports
• Statistics
• Evidence

Tools to Support your �Advocacy Work

• Advocacy toolkit
• Novice to Know-how Advocacy Training
• DPC RAM and CAT
• Digital Asset Register Toolkit
• Bit List of Endangered Digital Materials
• Prioritization Tool
• Topical notes, How to talk to IT

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Advocacy Toolkit

Introduction

How to use the Advocacy Toolkit

Before you Start

Step-by-Step Guide

Sample Motivators

Messages for Digital Preservation Advocacy

Evidence to Support your ‘Ask’

Advocacy Case Studies

Further resources

Novice to Know-How Advocacy

• Five modules:
• Advocacy is tough, but so are you
• Advocacy is storytelling
• Advocacy is incremental
• Advocacy is agile
• Advocacy is sustainable
2. Includes checklists and an Advocacy Action Plan

DPC RAM and DPC CAT

• Where is our organization now?
• Where would we like to be in the future?
• What should the priorities be for improving our organization’s preservation capability?
• What support and resources do we need to help our organization move forward?

• Establishes skills required for digital preservation across all roles in an organization
• Helps support identification of training priorities
• Helps support recruitment
• Help with role definition and resourcing

Digital Asset Register Toolkit

• Create visibility
• Highlight business-critical assets
• Provide evidence for resource requests
• Support risk assessment

The ‘Bit List’ and Prioritization Tool

• Cross-reference with your Digital Asset Register and identify at-risk content
• Primarily an advocacy tool, helping influence decision-makers and highlight urgent digital preservation risks
• Supports organisations in making the case for digital preservation internally
• Helps prioritise the most vulnerable materials, so effort is focused where it is most needed
• The Digital Archiving Storage Media Prioritisation Tool (University of Glasgow) can also support identifying and prioritising at-risk materials

Publications

• Technology Watch reports and Guidance Notes
• Topical Notes – on a range of introductory subjects, designed to be read by non-digital preservation people
• How to talk to IT about Digital Preservation, Scott Prater

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Any questions?

Back to menti.com�Quiz time!

Summary

• People based, not technology based
• Advocacy is a process
• Effective advocacy starts with understanding your audience
• Great messaging translates digital preservation into outcomes that matter to them.
• Choose the right channel for your audiences
• Anticipate barriers – you will likely need to �try this more than once!

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In summary

Advocacy is tough but so are we!

In summary

Thank you�Gracias

sarah.middleton@dpconline.org

anna.perricci@dpconline.org

�www.dpconline.org

Illustrations by Jørgen Stamp digitalbevaring.dk CC BY 2.5 Denmark