Advocacy
What you must know
Advocacy is organized action to influence decisions, policies, and systems that shape health - upstream work on the social determinants. Know the ladder: awareness, education, mobilization, policy change. Know grassroots (mobilizing affected community members) versus grasstops (enlisting influential individuals and elites).
Know the campaign steps: define the issue and the ask, identify the decision-maker and that person's interests, map power and stakeholders, build a coalition, select tactics (media advocacy, testimony, letter-writing, town halls, litigation, direct action), and evaluate.
Know media advocacy: framing the issue as a policy problem with a solution rather than an individual behavior, choosing a credible messenger, and delivering an ask the audience can act on. Know framing - individual versus environmental frames determine who is held responsible.
Know the legal boundary: 501(c)(3) organizations may not engage in partisan political campaign activity (endorsing or opposing candidates) and may lobby only within limits; advocacy, education, and issue-based organizing remain permissible. Questions test whether you can keep a nonprofit on the right side of that line.
Traps: confusing advocacy with lobbying (lobbying is a narrow subset involving specific legislation and specific votes); confusing advocacy with direct service; targeting the wrong decision-maker; using individual-blaming frames when the goal is policy change.
Rule of thumb: Advocacy asks who decides, what they need to hear, and whom they listen to. The affected community should be visible and leading, never props.
Worked example: To pass a smoke-free ordinance, a coalition identifies the council health committee (decision-maker), recruits a physician and a business owner (grasstops), organizes residents to testify (grassroots), reframes the issue from smoker rights to workers' right to breathe, and never endorses a candidate.