In advocacy, we often use terms that volunteers may not be familiar with - here's your chance to learn them all!

Candidate/Lawmaker Tracking: (Also known as bird-dogging) To persistently follow a subject of interest, such as a person, lawmaker, or cause. In terms of politics, it can also refer to trying to force a lawmaker/candidate to address an issue by appearing at his/her public events and asking specific questions about your issue in an attempt to get an on-the-record response.


Direct mail: As opposed to more personal mail, this is a more general, mass-mailing designed to get your message across in large numbers to a wide audience. For advocacy purposes, a direct mail piece is often sent to a list of voters, or subset of voters, (i.e. Republican women between the ages of 35 and 50) in a particular legislative district rather than to the general population.

Decision-maker: This term refers to people that have power to give you what you want. If you want a state mandate for AEDs in health clubs, the legislature and the governor would be your decision-makers. If you want daily physical education in public schools, local school boards members would be your decision-makers.

Desk-side Media Briefings: These informal gatherings are primarily educational in nature and are intended to give beat reporters some face (or phone) time with you on your issue. Like news conferences, everything should be considered “on the record,” and like news conferences, desk-side briefings should be reserved for truly important developments. You should invite broadcast producers, but no cameras or live microphones should be allowed. The best media candidates for briefings are those which aren’t subject to daily deadlines, so you might consider weeklies, magazines, columnists and other medium-lead outlets for these informal briefings. These briefings may not result in an immediate placement, but the AHA has established itself as a resource on the issue and you may see some coverage in the future.

Door-to-door canvassing: Going around neighborhoods, knocking on doors to engage the residents in conversation about the issues along with providing resources for further learning.

Drop-by visit: To stop at a lawmaker’s office and speak with them or a staffer, also leave materials for the lawmaker to look-over. This can occur with or without an appointment with the lawmaker or staffer.

Editorial Board Meetings: Editorial boards outline the issue positions for a newspaper’s editorial page. Gaining support for your issue from a newspaper can go a long way in influencing decision makers. After researching the editorial position of the publication in question and the opposition’s point of view, recruit a small, diverse group (no more than 5 people including survivors and health/policy experts) to meet with the paper’s editorial board.
Email campaign: To spread awareness and support, including action alerts where people are encouraged to send information, via email, to their lawmaker.
 
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