Advocacy
Course
Developing a Coalition [11:48]
- Learn how to identify potential supporters.
- Learn ways to reach advocates beyond your school building.
- Learn the importance of creating an advocacy committee.
Decision makers are faced with important issues every day to make sure that your needs are not forgotten or overlooked. You need to ensure that your decision makers hear not just from you, but from many individuals. One voice can be powerful, but many voices together is even more so. These individuals should represent a variety of stakeholders. Hearing from other librarians, educators, parents, community members and learners carries more weight than hearing from other librarians alone.
Advocates can assist with your advocacy campaign in a myriad of ways. They may be involved in helping collect data, develop messaging and identify decision makers, or they may be involved in disseminating the message to decision makers and other potential supporters through emails, in-person meetings, presentations, public testimony, or writing a letter to an editor.
The best place to start is with the community directly impacted by your advocacy goal. If your goal relates to your school, you'll want to start by identifying potential supporters among your school community. If your goal is district wide, then your initial potential supporters will be as well.
In essence, potential supporters are those that care about the same things you do to identify them. You'll actually use the opposite method that you did with determining your decision makers values when you identify the priorities of a decision maker. You know the person you wish to influence and you need to learn more about them. When identifying supporters, you will do the opposite. You know the issue at hand. Now you need to find people who care about that issue.
For example, if you want to convince your administrator to implement a new digital citizenship curriculum, you will want to identify individuals in your school community that care about online safety. This could be anyone, but a good place to start would be guidance counselors, social studies teachers and members of the PTA as these people have occupational reasons to care about this issue.
A personal approach is best when starting out by reaching out to one individual or a small group and explaining your goal and how they can help. You are much more likely to be persuasive. This is also a perfect opportunity to understand the needs and concerns of your potential supporter.
The best supporters are those who are fully engaged. Not only will they send an email or give testimony when asked, but they will help develop messaging, identify decision makers and collect data. Having a mutually beneficial relationship is helpful toward developing this level of engagement. Sometimes this means tweaking your goal or messaging slightly to encompass the concerns of your supporters. If you are advocating for a digital citizenship curriculum and your guidance counselors were potential supporters, you may want to point out to them and your decision maker, how one's online presence can impact their college admissions and job prospects.
It can take time to pull together a group of potential supporters, but once you have formed those relationships, they will positively impact your library in both the short and long term. Supporters are more likely to assist with future advocacy efforts and become more involved in the library in general, whether it's participating in events, collaborating on lessons, or just using the library.
Once you have a core group of supporters from your local community, whether that's at the school district or regional level, it's time to reach out to the broader community. Extending your reach will also increase your influence. However, it is important to stay within the realm of authority of your decision makers. In other words, if your advocacy goal relates to your district, you do not want to pull in supporters from another state, although you can certainly get advice and data from them. Unless they are known for making comparisons, it's likely that your superintendent doesn't want to hear from parents in another school district. Those parents have no influence in your district.
Reaching out beyond your local community is less geographical and more topical. Public libraries are a natural fit for collaboration. Also, consider how local businesses, community youth organizations, tribal organizations and local and regional nonprofits might get involved. These groups are likely to care about education as the education of the youth in the community directly impacts their services, potential workforce and programs. Groups like girl and boy scouts, habitat for humanity and four h may already have relationships with the local school district that you can capitalize on or strengthen.
This is also where you can think about including representation from different segments of the learning community. You want to make sure that marginalized voices are included in your advocacy effort. Remember that no one person can represent the entirety of a community. So be sure to include multiple representatives where possible. Having a more diverse group of advocates will help ensure equity in the development of your advocacy goal and messaging and will help broaden your reach.
Leaders in the community are particularly helpful as they will encourage others to participate. Leaders may be formal leaders such as the president of a youth group or nonprofit. Or they may be informal leaders, someone who is known for their social status and participation within the community.
As you start to reach out to leaders and organizations in your community, you can start to turn your advocacy group into an Advocacy Coalition. A coalition unites different organizations and people together to support a common goal. It can take time to develop coalitions as the relationships needed to establish the necessary networks take time to develop. There's no need to rush into starting a coalition but be aware of their potential to improve your outcomes.
For example, in a district where the school board has recommended cuts to elementary music and library, librarians may wish to form a coalition with the local music educators. In this instance, they might want to reach out to a local music educators association, a community music group, private music instructors, as well as local literacy organizations by banding together toward a common goal. Each group keeps its identity and organizational goals while also working together to achieve a common goal, thus strengthening individual and group positions.
An advocacy committee is like a library advisory board. In both groups, you strive to have representation from individuals that represent diverse perspectives; you expect people to come to the table with differing opinions in service of a common goal; and you ask for cooperation and collaboration while making it clear who's responsible for each aspect of the campaign.
Many of your supporters will help spread your message by testifying at a school board meeting, signing a petition or writing a letter, and then move on. Therefore, your advocacy committee will not consist of all your supporters. You will want your committee to be made up of a smaller group of supporters who can help you run your campaign. These people will help make decisions about which decision makers to reach out to, what message to share, and will do the heavy lifting of recruiting supporters. Once you have formed your committee, you will want to establish leadership roles.
Advocacy will not follow the same strict leadership rules as a professional organization or a workplace. It is unlikely you will have a president, secretary, etc. However, as you begin to pull together a coalition or committee, it's important that everyone knows who is responsible for each aspect of the advocacy campaign. Who is running the campaign? Who is inviting members to the committee. Who is responsible for messaging. Everyone will help with all aspects of the advocacy campaign. But you want to make sure that people are not stepping on each other's toes and that each important task is accomplished.
Your committee will understand and value the work of the school library and be competent at sharing that message with others, including these stakeholders in your advocacy committee will result in feelings of ownership and pride in the library. When a specific need arises in the future, they will be ready and willing to take up the library's cause. Although your specific advocacy goal may involve work over a couple of weeks or months, advocacy in general is an ongoing, long term project by developing an advocacy committee and developing positive, reciprocal relationships with potential supporters. You will have created an important resource in your advocacy toolbox.
An advocacy committee should be made up of a small group of supporters who are capable of helping you run your campaign. These people will share the responsibilities of the campaign and your advocacy goal. Similar to a library advisory board, your committee will represent diverse perspectives, have differing opinions, but all work together in service of a common goal. Read the SLC article in the Resources and then complete the Reflect and Practice activity below.
After reading the SLC article above, take a few minutes and pull together some ideas for potential members of your advocacy committee. Then, using the chart on page 8 of the Course Packet (included in the Resources above), outline the qualities of particular people you have identified as key supporters. Remember, it is important that your committee is made up of a diverse group of perspectives and opinions all working towards one common goal.
MLA Citation
Rinio, Deborah. "Advocacy: Design Your Ideal Advocacy Committee." School Library Connection, December 2022, schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/2295001?learningModuleId=2293921&topicCenterId=2247902.
Entry ID: 2295453
In this lesson, we discussed the many possibilities of expanding your audience by extending your reach beyond the school building. Think about organizations that are involved in your learning community or programs that care about education. How can you spread your advocacy message to those audiences? Can you influence them to become your advocate? After reading the SLC articles, take a few moments to think about who you can reach out to in hopes of increasing your influence and complete the Reflect and Practice activity below.
As you begin your advocacy journey, you will quickly gather supporters inside your school building to help you achieve your goal. However, as discussed in this lesson, the more voices you have supporting your goal, the better! After reading the SLC articles above, brainstorm for a few moments and think about who you can reach out to in hopes of increasing your influence. Then, using the chart on page 9 of the Course Packet (found in the Resources above), choose 3-4 supporters outside of your school building to help strengthen your voice.
MLA Citation
Rinio, Deborah. "Advocacy: Reaching Beyond the School Building." School Library Connection, December 2022, schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/2295001?learningModuleId=2293921&topicCenterId=2247902.
Entry ID: 2295454
Additional Resources
About the Author
MLA Citation
Rinio, Deborah. "Advocacy. Developing a Coalition [11:48]." School Library Connection, ABC-CLIO, December 2022, schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/2295001?learningModuleId=2293921&topicCenterId=2247902.
https://schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/2295001?learningModuleId=2293921&topicCenterId=2247902
Entry ID: 2295001