Advocacy Toolkit for Nurses
In its simplest form, advocacy means speaking up on your client’s behalf, which you do each day through your work as a Nurse-Family Partnership Nurse. As a nurse, you possess the expertise and direct service experience that makes you uniquely equipped to identify problems in your community that need to be changed. Grassroots advocacy can help you drive that change.
Participating in grassroots advocacy efforts allows you to move from serving one client (or 25!) at a time, to being a part of a broader network of advocates that works systematically to raise awareness, educate and create lasting change for families and communities. But in order to achieve this kind of systematic change, we need nurses to use their voices to speak up on behalf of families at the local, state and federal levels. This toolkit will help you maximize your time as an advocate by identifying ways you can most effectively leave your mark on the legislative process and public discourse.
Making Your Mark on the Process – The Basics
Effective advocacy in person and through social media begins with strong relationships with local community influencers and elected leaders at the local, state and federal level. Wondering what’s the best way to get your lawmakers attention and to advocate for the Nurse-Family Partnership? Read on for some advice!
Do Your Research
Identify who your elected officials are at the local, state, and federal levels. Find out their committee assignments, if they have any leadership positions, and what their policy and personal interests are. Sign up for their newsletters so you can stay abreast of important updates.
Sign up for the Nurse-Family Partnership Advocacy Updates.
Stay in the know by signing up to receive advocacy emails from NFP. When we need members of Congress to hear your voice, we’ll send you instructions for how to take action. We make it easy – and quick – to reach elected officials.
Follow On Social Media.
Social media has emerged as yet another outlet through which elected officials listen to their constituents. Follow your representatives and stay informed about their actions and issues important to you and your organization. More importantly, you can tweet at legislators to introduce yourself, your organization, and your policy goals. Don’t forget to follow @NFP_nursefamily on Twitter, too!
Be Persistent.
Tweeting at elected officials, commenting on their Facebook page, and emailing or calling their office may not yield immediate results, but don’t fret! Staffers read messages and hear calls, so if you have the opportunity to meet an official or staff member in person, be sure to introduce yourself and give context to your social media advocacy.
Think Globally, Act Locally.
Make sure to only reach out to the representative for whom you are a constituent; although it may be tempting, reaching out to representatives outside your state or district through social media or in person can have a negative effect.
Advocacy in the Public and Private Sectors
Some frequently asked questions about advocacy in the public and private sectors include:
“I work for a government agency or my job is funded in part with local, state, or federal government funds. How can I be helpful as an educator about NFP or as an advocate?
- Do you have a work phone and private phone? If so, only use your personal phone to take online advocacy actions (using your personal email address) for NFP. This includes emailing elected officials, posting on social media for NFP, or calling officials.
- Do not take any advocacy actions on the clock! If you have an unpaid lunch break during the day, feel free to advocate (using your personal phone). Can you find a few minutes on the occasional evening or weekend? Take that time to do your advocacy.
- Remember, you cannot use any state or federal funds to directly or indirectly pay for lobbying. All advocacy must take place on your own time and with your own phone, computer, or any other equipment.
“I’m not sure that I am allowed to attend any legislative visits ask my agency leadership if we can host legislators for a site visit.”
- You can serve an educational-only function in an NFP visit at the capitol or a site visit at your agency. You simply educate about what you do and how the nurse-family relationship is so important, this is a crucial role. Others including National Service Office staff or Community Advisory Board members can make any “asks” for additional funding to serve more families.
Social Media Advocacy – The Basics
- Balance your Content. Be careful not to overload your followers with too many posts about your campaign. Aim for three posts not about advocacy for every one post about your outreach or advocacy campaign.
- Tag After Meeting. If you had the opportunity to speak to a lawmaker or their staff, always tag them on your social media channels to thank them for their time and meeting. Make sure to restate your ask in the post so that the staff connects the dots!
- Use Pictures. Lawmakers respond well to photos with their constituents. When possible, include a photo of you with a lawmaker or staff when you tag them in a post. If you have NFP clients and/or their families in the photos, make sure to have them sign a media consent form available in English and Spanish.
Tips for Twitter
- Set standards for hashtags. If you create a hashtag for a specific issue you’d like to convey to your elected official or a full campaign, take time to find out if anyone has used the hashtag before. If you create your own, make sure to include external, more widely used hashtags as well.
- Retweet Strategically. You can gain attention from your elected officials by retweeting their work and amplifying their voice. You will position yourself as a partner to them on social media, which may help to open the door to other collaborations and support.
- Mention Strategically. Use no more than 1 tweet per day, should you want to engage with your elected official on Twitter.
- Create a Spike. To demonstrate broad support for an issue, select a “Day of Action” to also have partners or grassroots community get involved. Oftentimes, policymakers pay extra attention to this type of spike in activity.
Tips for Instagram
- Use authentic imagery. Make sure to share photos and videos taken in your community. Use the album feature to highlight series of events and experiences. Even abstract images can be powerful when tied to an issue position.
- Use locations. Make posts more discoverable to your elected officials by tagging them with a location. This can be general like a city name or specific address for your agency.
- Tagging. When applicable, tag your elected official and/or partners supporters in the image to notify them and expand reach and engagement.
- Expand your hashtag usage. It is common practice to have multiple hashtags on a single post on Instagram. Consider adding a lawmakers name as a hashtag alongside up to 15 other hashtags featuring keywords related to your campaigns. Always make sure to check a hashtag to confirm the content is aligned with your message before pressing post!
Tips for Facebook
- Like your Officials Page. Many elected official have a Facebook page, be sure to ‘Like’ and ‘Follow Them’ on Facebook. Also consider liking other related organizations and causes by to demonstrate awareness.
- Mentions and comments. Use Facebook’s tagging system to engage with your elected official’s official page. You can do this by tagging them on your own page or by commenting on posts on related issues on their page. You can comment as an individual and as an official page.
- Create Photo Albums from Events. Members of your organization attend a lot of conferences and events. Create photo albums with descriptions of what is happening and whenever possible, tie in advocacy messages. Ex. “We had a great community meeting tonight. We need #FY19 funding support to keep these events going!”
- Keep Text Brief. Posts under 90 characters are 4x more likely to go viral and 3x more likely to receive clicks. Give enough to tease the basics and generate a click-through or view.
Multimedia
Social media platforms are undergoing a visual revolution – and nowadays photos and videos receive priority treatment from social media platform algorithms and community participants alike. Purely text content often does not grab and hold attention as users scroll through hundreds of updates in feeds, so it is important to put key messages into visual and video formats.
Producing compelling visual content does not have to be hard, and there are several ways to create image and videos that are quick and easy, often with just a smartphone:
- Overlay key messages or logos on your past photos by using Pixlr on the web, or mobile apps like Photo Blender, Pic Blender, etc.
- Leverage frames or stickers available on platforms – you can even create your own Facebook frame using their Facebook Frame Studio
- Post behind-the-scenes photos and videos from different events, activities, or even day-to-day
- Interview people (of all levels) at your own as well as partner organization events
- If possible, get short influencer video messages from speakers and leaders at relevant events
- Social media platforms change their recommendations for image sizes frequently – so before you post, be sure to research to see what will look best
Crowdsource from Your Community!
Provide opportunities to collect unique multimedia content that will excite your members of your community and demonstrate to your lawmakers that their constituents care. Whether through a contest or a really compelling backdrop, you can inspire your community to participate. Here are some other tips:
- Provide set-ups at your graduations or community events (i.e. booths, step & repeat banners, selfie-stations, etc.)
- Provide “swag” (i.e. props, signs, stickers, etc.) for people to work your brand into their content
- Don’t forget to indicate the account and/or hashtag to post and collect content
- Reward participants by liking and sharing their content
- Compile contributions into photo collages and video slide shows using apps like Animoto or PicFlow
Livestreaming
With the increasing popularity of social media platforms like Instagram and Snapchat, users crave less produced, more personal content. Take advantage of that trend to show the vibrant community around your NFP program. You can leverage this trend with:
- Instagram Stories
- Social channel guest “takeovers”
- Instagram or Facebook LIVE
Examples to Get You Started
Be sure to download up-to-date sharing graphics from our social media toolkit for nurses to accompany your post.
NFP changes lives and makes communities stronger! That’s why I advocate on behalf of Nurse-Family Partnership. I’m working to ensure [CAMPAIGN CALL TO ACTION] and to make [YOUR CITY or STATE] the best it can be. Help me by reaching out to [YOUR REPRESENTATIVE] #[CAMPAIGN HASHTAG]
Know The Rules
Before you start posting, make sure you know what content has been approved for social media. If your local NFP program is run by your county government, you will likely have guidelines or restrictions about what political speech can appear on your programs pages.
Appendix – Civics & Advocacy 101
How Our System Works, and How to Make an Impact
The Federal Government
The Constitution established three branches of government:
- The Legislative Branch: consisting of the House of Representatives and Senate. The House is made up of 435 elected representatives, each of whom represent a different geographic district within the 50 states, each who is elected every 2 years. The Senate is made up of 100 elected representatives, 2 from each state and who serve six year terms. The legislative branch, commonly referred to as Congress, creates laws.
- The Executive Branch: consists of the president and their appointed cabinet members. The executive branch implements and enforces legislation from Congress.
- The Judiciary Branch: consists of nine judges appointed by the president and approved by Congress. The judiciary branch interprets the laws of the land, new and old, and ensures that people and institutions in the United States are following the laws of the land.
How Are Laws Made?
The process for creating and passing a new law can involve all three branches of the government. The legislative process begins when a bill or resolution is numbered. “H.R.” signifies a House bill and “S.” a Senate bill.
At its most simple, a bill is introduced by a member of Congress in either the House or the Senate. Next, the bill is appointed to one of 17 Senate committees or 23 House committees, where it is sent to be more closely reviewed, debated, and amended. The committee sends the bill to a subcommittee where it is accepted, amended, or rejected.
Committees are where bills “go to die” or are often heavily changed. Each committee is staffed by members of Congress, who bring in experts to testify about aspects of the proposed bill. If the full committee votes to approve the bill, it moves to the Senate or House floor. If the bill is not approved by a committee, it goes back to its original subcommittee. The process continues until it is approved by the subcommittee, committee, Senate, AND House of Representatives.
After passing each of these groups, a bill is sent to the President, who can sign it into law or veto it and send back to Congress for further debate.
State and Local Governments
The state governments tend to have the greatest influence over most Americans’ daily lives. The Tenth Amendment prohibits the federal government from exercising any power not delegated to it by the States in the Constitution. As a result, states handle the majority of issues most relevant to individuals within their jurisdiction, such as police departments, libraries, schools, driver’s licenses, and parking tickets. All state governments are modeled after the federal government and consist of three branches: executive, legislative, and judicial.
Local governments are generally made up of two tiers: counties (also known as boroughs and parishes) and municipalities (more commonly known as cities and towns). Municipalities take responsibility for parks and recreation services, police and fire departments, emergency medical services, municipal courts, public transportation and public works.