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Leading from Your Seat: Funding Advocacy Toolkit

Gini Pupo Walker, Executive Director, Ed Trust - TN

Corinn O’Brien, VP of Policy, A+ Education Partnership

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Presentation Overview

  • What is Advocacy and Why does it Matter?
  • Advocacy Strategies & Tools for Engagement
  • Meeting with Legislators
  • Tools to Support Legislative Advocacy
  • Q & A

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Key Takeaways

  1. There is a role for me to play in advocating for school funding reform in Alabama.
  2. Resources are available for me to communicate why school funding reform matters for every child.
  3. I will take action to advocate for school funding reform in Alabama.

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Advocacy Strategies & Tools for Engagement

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Why does advocacy matter?

Advocacy is garnering public support for and raising awareness of a particular cause, issue, or policy

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What is Advocacy?

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Advocacy Campaigns Are Targeted

What is your issue? How can you cut that issue into a specific ask or action?

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Advocacy Strategies & Tools

Strategies

  • Coalition Building/Partnerships
  • Community Organizing
  • Legislative Advocacy
  • Strategic Communications
  • Litigation
  • Research & Data Analysis

Tools

  • Public Comment/Testimony
  • Fact sheets
  • Op-eds
  • Research Papers/Policy Memos
  • Meetings with Elected/Appointed Officials
  • Speeches
  • Social Media Campaigns
  • Text Message Campaigns

All advocacy campaigns are based in strategy and use tools to fulfill an agenda.

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Advocacy Tips

  • How can student-serving & community-based organizations be most helpful?
    • LEARN: Lean into learning about funding and its role in improving education
    • SHOW UP: Go to school board meetings, attend town halls
    • SPEAK OUT: Draft op-eds, share stories, meet with policymakers, testify
  • How to best support legislative champions?
    • BE RESPECTFUL: Even when you differ, share information, keep coming back
    • BE RELIABLE: Share information and data, answer questions quickly, provide questions and supports
    • SPOTLIGHT THEM: Lift up champions, celebrate them

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Communicating about School Funding Reform

  • “School Funding Reform in 5”
    • The Need: Why is now the time to change how we fund our schools?
    • Why do we need a new funding formula?
    • What kind of formula do we need?
    • What would be different in schools if we had a new formula?
    • Will there be more accountability? How will we know if the money is spent well?
  • Internalize a talking point from each section

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Using Social Media to Advocate & Inform

  • Follow the Every Child Alabama Coalition on social media channels
    • Links are in the pre-reading & on our website
  • Share content with your networks, like our new “Why Funding Matter” series

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Using ECA Resources to Advocate & Inform

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Helpful Tips: Meeting with Elected or Appointed Officials

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Pre-Meeting Research

  • Power Mapping: Who has the power to influence this issue and how do we reach them?
  • Uncover any personal or professional connections to the targeted leader(s)
    • Organizations, mutual friends, houses of worship, shared community service, alma mater, etc.
  • Have they made any public stances on the issue or related issues before?
  • Understanding where an issue currently stands
    • Political viability & window of opportunity
    • Where is it in the legislative/policymaking process?
    • Identify champions/opponents

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Pre-Meeting Research

  • If a group, coordinate availability in advance
  • Pick one person to schedule the meeting, with others in cc:
    • If possible, make request no less than a week in advance to be respectful of their time (standard is 2-3 weeks)
    • Keep in mind the importance of staffers and schedulers; key in process
  • Direct, concise language
    • State your purpose, but the real discussion will happen in the meeting!
    • Highlight who will be in the room – attendees and the orgs/communities they represent
    • Provide any materials/data points you may want them or their staffers to review in advance

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Conducting The Meeting

  • Pre-Strategize
    • Comfortably know the purpose of the meeting and the ultimate ask – the “why”
    • Identify who will uplift specific talking and/or data points – the “what”
    • Assign a dedicated notetaker
  • BE ON TIME! A few moments early is best practice, even in virtual meetings.
  • During the Meeting:
    • Keep intros succinct
    • Always communicate authentically and personably – share personal stories and information that makes the case
    • Listen attentively
    • Stay on topic!
    • Anticipate questions and/or pushback – be prepared for it!
    • Manage and respect the allotted time
    • Close with a repetition of the ask and any key takeaways

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Post-Meeting

  • Internal: Debrief with your team
    • Celebrate high points/wins
    • Identify opportunities for improvement/sharpening approach
    • Discuss lessons learned and share with relevant partners
    • Map out next steps
  • External: Know The Power of a Meeting Follow-Up!
    • Thank them for their time
    • Highlight any key takeaways from the discussion
    • Reiterate ask/points of emphasis
    • Offer to be a thought partner and resource moving forward
      • Relationship management is EVERYTHING!
    • Provide any additional data points, resources promised during the discussion, and/or offer updates on recent developments since you last met, if applicable
    • Set reminders to follow-up, if and when appropriate

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Tools to Support Legislative Advocacy

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Alabama Legislature Website - ALISON

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Find Your Legislator Activity

  • Please go to https://alison.legislature.state.al.us/and click “Find My Legislator” at bottom of the page
  • Enter your current address
  • Report your Alabama Representative and Senator in the chat

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Finding Legislative Text

  • At https://alison.legislature.state.al.us/, you have a variety of tools at your disposal to search bill text
    • Search bar
    • Bills Tab
  • You can search by sponsor, subject/issue area, bill name, etc.

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Navigating Bill & Amendment Pages

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Navigating Bill & Amendment Pages

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Bill Language - HB88

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Navigating Bill & Amendment Pages

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Fiscal Notes

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Accessing Floor/Committee Livestream

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Accessing Floor/Committee Livestream

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Accessing Floor/Committee Livestream

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Key Takeaways

  • There is a role for me to play in advocating for school funding reform in Alabama.
  • Resources are available for me to communicate why school funding reform matters for every child.
  • I will take action to advocate for school funding reform in Alabama.

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Questions?

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