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Advocacy Campaigns in Washington
Using Grassroots, Coalitions, and the Media to Get Your
Message Heard
Your staff will learn how to build a solid
communications plan into an advocacy campaign that will
motivate your constituents to act and get heard in
Washington. They will learn how to recruit and
motivate your stakeholders into a winning advocacy
campaign, how to organize a
Capitol Hill Lobbying Day, form coalitions and use the
media to advance your organization's advocacy goals, and track the success of
your advocacy campaign.
A
1-page
overview of this custom program is available (pdf)

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Custom Training
Information |
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Sample Agenda |
8:30 a.m. Welcome and
Introduction
Advocacy Campaigns
· Overview of advocacy and educational campaigns,
types, purposes and tactics
· Examples of successful advocacy and educational
campaigns
· Traits of a successful campaign
· Overview of legislative and regulatory limits that
may effect these activities (i.e., Hatch Act and PAC
contribution limits)
Doing the Homework
· What motivates your constituents to act
· Techniques to find out what motivates you
constituents
· What are your constituents' resources and
capabilities
· Finding out what other similar organizations they
belong to (information for possible coalition building)
· What motivates a Member of Congress or their staff
· Now you know your constituents-what tactics are
right for you (PAC, Capitol Hill Day, media campaign)
10:00 Break
10:15 The Issue, Message, and Strategy
· Developing a coherent action strategy (emphasize
specific methods to reach government and regulatory
officials, Members of Congress, and motivate PAC committee
members, and other targeted audiences)
· Creating a message for the issue
· Capitalizing on your organization's issues by
branding those issues
· Remember that no matter what happens in the
up-coming election, it's a new Congress
· Identifying key Members of Congress based on their
committee assignments
· Tracking and rating members based on your
organization's issues -developing a score card
· Defining the benchmarks and measures of success for
your advocacy
Organizing a Capitol Hill Day
· Planning cycle
· Budgeting for the event
· Speakers and training
· First timers
· Training your members so the know what to expect,
say, and do
12:00 Networking Lunch
1:00 Communications Tools to Motivate and
Educate
· Using your research results to motivate
· Writing for a newsletter and the web
· Using the internet and email in your advocacy
campaign
· Developing new, additional, and one-time
communication vehicles
· Placing your message and messengers into 24-hour
news media
2:30 Break
2:45 Building and Using Coalitions
· Benefits of building a coalition
· Finding natural and unnatural allies
· Pros and cons of coalitions
· Overcoming obstacles that may effect the coalition's
goals
· Branding the coalition's message
3:45 Break
4:00 Tracking and Evaluating What Happened
and Lessons Learned
· Why tracking is important
· Tips on ways to track Hill and media reaction
· How to gauge if your campaign was a success
· Following up campaign with wrap-up report
4:30 Program concludes and complete evaluations
All custom training is
tailored for each organization and audience. Topics from
this program can be combined with topics from our other
programs and with topics from your existing training
programs.
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Sample Agendas
in pdf format  |
A sample agenda is available
as a pdf.
See our Sample
Agendas page for agendas from our other custom training.
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Audience Level |
Attendees
should have some knowledge of, or a minimum of one
year's experience working with, the media, or completion of
one of our Media
Training
courses is recommended.
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Audience Size |
This
program is most effective for between 15 and 35
attendees.
Not enough staff for a custom, on-site
program? You can still train your staff at our
public courses.
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Previous Clients |
Our selected
client list includes clients who have purchased
custom training, sent staff to our public programs
and who have purchased our publications.
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Faculty |
Our
faculty for this program all have more than 10
years' experience working with the media, on
grassroots or national education/advocacy campaigns.
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Rave Reviews
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See what
some of the attendees at our custom programs say about
our custom training. |
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Course Materials |
Materials
can include a personal copy of
Media
Relations Handbook by Brad Fitch or
Common
Sense Rules of Advocacy by Keith Evans for each attendee.
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Length and Location |
Usually requires 1 or 2
days.
This program is usually held in
Washington, DC. It can be presented anywhere in the
world. |
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Internal Marketing |
To
help you
publicize and market a custom program to your
organization's audience, we can provide printed
materials and language for your own internal
promotion and publicity.
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Fee |
The
fee for this program depends on the location, number
of attendees, length, and training materials.
Call us for details, or complete our custom
program information request for more
information.
If you
don't have enough people for a custom, on-site program,
you can still train your staff at our
public
course.
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What is included in the fee? |
TheCapitol.Net
tailors each program to meet your training and
educational objectives. Before we issue a cost
proposal, we will work with you to tailor a program
to meet your training objectives. We provide
all course materials and faculty chosen for your
topic and your audience at the time and location you
choose.
Our
custom program clients provide the classroom/meeting
space, all audio visual equipment, any food and
beverages, all registration functions, and travel
arrangements for attendees. When the program is held
outside the Washington, DC metro area, travel
arrangements for faculty can be made by the client
or by us.
We can also provide meeting space,
audio visual equipment, food and beverage,
registration, and travel arrangements, though this
affects cost. |
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FAQs |
See
FAQs
About Our Custom On-Site Training.
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Payment |
TheCapitol.Net
accepts all forms of payment for its custom
training, including credit cards (VISA,
MasterCard,
Discover,
American Express), government procurement cards,
checks, Form 1556, EFT, and purchase orders.
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About Us |
TheCapitol.Net,
Inc., is a non-partisan small business
and a Virginia corporation. We are registered
with CCR. See our
About Us page for more details.
FEIN: 54-1917701
DUNS: 04-273-5071
CAGE: 1K5S4
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Related Information |
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Related Custom
Training |
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Need more
information? |
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Non-Partisan |
TheCapitol.Net is a non-partisan firm, and the
opinions of its faculty, authors, clients and the owners and operators of its vendors are
their own and do not represent those of TheCapitol.Net. |
URLs:
www.TheCapitol.Net/CustomPrograms/advocacycampaignsagenda.html
www.LegislativeTraining.com
Last updated:
April 04, 2008
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