Planning a productive lobbying day is a crucial step in any advocacy campaign. It enables you to communicate with your elected officials and affect global change. You should therefore begin your preparations as soon as possible. This entails scheduling meetings, recruiting members, and ensuring that your advocacy team has everything necessary to conduct a successful meeting.
Planning a successful Lobby Day can be a daunting task, but if executed properly, it can aid your advocacy efforts and raise your profile. Before planning, it is essential to select a campaign that is relevant to your target audience. Your campaign should ideally focus on the issue that is most vital to your supporters. For instance, if your members are concerned about the state of the world, you may wish to develop a campaign centered on climate change and environmental issues. After planning your campaign, the next step is to recruit participants. It is essential to target a variety of audiences, such as students, business owners, and community members because doing so can help you relate the issue to their personal experiences. Whether you're planning a physical or virtual lobby day, recruiting members can be a crucial aspect of a successful campaign. Identify advocates and members with a high level of engagement with your organization as a starting point. These individuals should be able to articulate the issue and its consequences in an engaging manner. They should also be familiar with the mission, values, and objectives of your organization. Bring at least 20 individuals to the event, but the more attendees you can attract, the better. It is also advisable to seek out advocates from different state legislative districts, as this will demonstrate that your concerns are being heard on a statewide scale. Lobbying days are an integral part of advocacy work for nonprofits. They provide organizations with the opportunity to connect with their supporters, increase awareness of issues, and build community. For a productive lobby day, advocacy leaders should begin scheduling appointments four to six months in advance. Then, you can begin to create an agenda, appointment list, bios of elected officials, talking points on the issues, and location maps. You can also begin sending out "leave-behinds" to help lawmakers recall the meeting's key points. These packets must contain the advocate's notes, visuals, and contact information so that the member or staffer can follow up with them in the future. If your organization has the budget, a legislative reception in the evening is an excellent way to emphasize the significance of Lobby Day and foster relationships between members and lawmakers. Happy Hours at restaurants or hotels are also an excellent way to continue conversations after legislative meetings have concluded. After Lobby Day, it is essential to reunite with your advocates and collect as much information as possible from them. Determine the nature of their conversations with their legislators, whether they had any follow-up questions, and whether there were any technical issues (this is especially critical for virtual lobby days). It is also essential to distribute lobbying packets to advocates and legislator staffers prior to the meeting to ensure that they have all the necessary information. These packets should contain a summary of the issue, the name of the advocate leading the meeting, and contact information for anyone with follow-up questions. Whether you are conducting a lobby day on your own or with a partner organization, ensure that the momentum from the event is sustained and that any promises made during the event are kept, especially if you participated in a virtual lobbying day. FCNL encourages advocates to record their interactions with legislators in their digital lobby day materials. This not only helps them recall key points of conversations but also enables them to determine whether a legislator opposes or supports an entire portion of a bill they are advocating for. This information can help a lobbyist build on the conversation and argue for the bill's passage.
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