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.
This program will teach your staff how to
Recruit and motivate stakeholders
Organize a
Capitol Hill
Advocacy Day
Build and recruit members to coalitions
Use the media to advance your organization's advocacy
goals
Track the success of your advocacy campaigns
More Information
Sample Agenda
Audience Level
Course Materials
Fee
Related
Training
Related Resources
Materials can include:
Persuading
Congress
By Joseph Gibson
Pocket Guide to Advocacy on Capitol Hill
by Bradford Fitch
Pocket Constitution
Custom Training Information
Sample Agenda
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)
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 they know what to expect,
say, and do
Communications Tools to Motivate and Educate
Using your research results to motivate
Writing for a newsletter and the web
Using the internet, email, and social media in your
advocacy campaign
Developing new, additional, and one-time
communication vehicles
Placing your message and messengers into 24-hour
news media
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
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
Lunch and breaks scheduled as appropriate
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.
Sample Agendas
See our
Sample Agendas page for agendas from our other custom training.
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.
Audience Size
This program is most effective for between 15 and 35
attendees.
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.
Course Materials
Materials can include the
Pocket Guide to Advocacy on Capitol Hill, the
Training Edition of
Media
Relations Handbook, or
Common
Sense Rules of Advocacy for
each attendee.
Length and Location
Usually requires 1 or 2 days.
This program is usually held in Washington, DC. It can
be presented anywhere in the United States online.
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 courses.
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.
The
program
fee includes pre-program development and design,
materials for your internal marketing and promotion,
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,
online venue, audio visual
equipment, food and beverage, registration, and
travel arrangements, though this affects program
cost.
FAQs
See
FAQs About Our Custom Training.
Payment
Payment methods we accept for custom training
include checks and EFT/ACH.
Related Custom Training
Capitol Hill
Day / National Advocacy Day program
527 Workshop
Capitol Hill Workshop
Grassroots Advocacy
on the New Capitol Hill
How to Research and Compile Legislative
Histories
How to Work With the Media
"Legislative
Day" training program for associations and
coalitions
Starting and
Building a PAC: PAC Workshop
Strategies for Working With Congressional Staff
Tracking and
Monitoring Legislation
About Us
TheCapitol.Net, Inc., is a non-partisan small
business, and a Virginia corporation. We are
registered with CCR / SAM. See our
Capability Statement and our
About Us page for more details.
FEIN: 54-1917701 DUNS:
04-273-5071 CAGE:
1K5S4
Related Resources
Congressional Procedure
Congressional Directory
Congressional Documents Online
Congressional Leadership and Committees
(listing)
Congress - Published Schedules
Essential Hill and Political Washington Web
Sites
How to Contact Congress
Legislation and Legislatures,
including national, state and local links
Lobbying and Advocacy links
Media Relations Handbook
Pay and Perquisites of Members of Congress
Persuading Congress
Politics and Political News
Need more information?
Phone: 202-678-1600
Email: custom -at- TheCapitol.Net
Complete our
online custom program information request.
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.
All custom training from TheCapitol.Net 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.
Public Course
If you don't have enough staff for a custom, on-site
training program, you can still train your staff
using our
Capitol Learning Audio Courses.
Rave Reviews
See
what some of the attendees at our custom programs say
about our custom training.
Faculty
Our faculty for this program all have more than 10
years' experience working with the media, on
grassroots or national education/advocacy campaigns.
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.
Our Clients
Congressional Offices
Federal Agencies
Military
NGOs and
Nonprofits
Diplomatic Corps
Fortune 500
Law Firms
Lobbying
Firms
Labor Unions
Associations