Your 4-step advocacy playbook
Written by katie test davis
It’s not just you. It’s… uh… very LOUD out there lately.
In a media landscape buzzing with endless options and digital noise, how do you make sure your organization is heard?
This quick guide will walk you through a proven framework to build a campaign that not only gets noticed, but gets results.
Let's get to work.
start with your “why”
🥅Before you do anything else, you must be crystal clear on your campaign goals. What does success look like for your campaign?
These days, it’s not good enough to “raise awareness”. (That is, unless you’re embarking upon a very sophisticated framing campaign, but that’s a whole other post.)
Are you trying to:
raise money,
change a law,
introduce a new program,
change people’s behavior,
get people to volunteer, or
encourage people to sign up for your services?
Whatever it is, write it down. Make it specific. Make it measurable.
This is your North Star. It’s the thing you’ll come back to again and again to make sure you’re on the right track.
who do you need to reach?
👥Once you know what you want to achieve, you need to figure out who can help you get there.
I’m going to be forthright: it’s not “the general public.”
If you’re trying to reach everyone, you’ll end up reaching no one.
Think about the specific people who have the power to make your goal a reality.
Is it:
State policymakers?
New Donors?
Faith leaders?
The families you serve?
Get super specific.
What do they care about? What keeps them up at night? What’s their motivation? The answers to these questions will be the key to crafting a message that resonates.
tell a story that sticks
Now for the fun part: telling your story.
This is where you get to be creative. But it’s also where you need to be strategic. Your story needs to be more than just a collection of facts and figures. It needs to be emotional. It needs to be memorable.
And most importantly, it needs to be about the people you serve.
Take our work with the National Head Start Association (NHSA) back in 2022, for example. NHSA wanted to secure more funding for Early Head Start programs. Instead of just talking about the need for more money, we helped them tell the stories of the families and caregivers who rely on these programs every day.
We created a storytelling campaign that centered on their lived experiences. We wrote blog posts, created social media graphics and developed a robust advocacy toolkit that empowered supporters across the country to share their own stories with policymakers.
The result? A $960 million funding increase for 2023 over 2022.
That’s the power of a good story.
make it easy to take action
Finally, you need to make it ridiculously easy for people to take the action you want them to take.
Don’t make them guess. Don’t make them work for it.
And make it as simple as possible. Pre-write a letter they can send. Give them a script they can use to make a phone call. The fewer barriers to action, the more likely people are to take it.
So, there you have it. The secret to impactful advocacy isn’t a secret at all: it’s a strategy.
It’s about knowing your ‘why,’ finding your people, telling a story that matters and making it easy for others to join you.
In 2025, the most successful movements are built on community and connection.
Your story is a powerful tool, and we hope this guide helps you wield it with purpose.
Now, go out there and build a better world.
We’re right here with you when you need us.
PS: If you liked this, here are a few more blog posts you might be interested in:
