Prepared by Naomi Berlyne - MSW placement student
For more information, call Maureen Fair at St. Christopher House:
504-3535, ext. 233 - St. Christopher House 1999
Please feel free to reproduce and distribute this manual.

Table of Contents

Introduction 

Planning Process for Doing Advocacy Work 

Starting an Advocacy Group 

Staging Town Halls and other Big Events 

Advocacy Work with the Government

Deputations

Working with the Media 

Advocacy Planning

What is advocacy? The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines it as: "verbal support or argument for a cause, policy, etc". In the context of this manual, advocacy refers to efforts on the part of non-profit organizations, groups and individuals to further the rights and interests of low-income and marginalized people. This usually takes the form of trying to influence and change public opinion, social policy and laws.

We are at the moment living in a time when many of our governments’ actions are making life much harder for those on the bottom of the social scale. As a consequence, there is a widespread feeling of helplessness; of ‘why bother’; that nothing can be changed.

A further problem is that the funding non-profit groups used to receive from the government for doing advocacy work is being eliminated. Yet, despite all these barriers that have been erected, advocacy work is now more necessary than ever. As the rights of those on the margins are diminishing, it is crucial that there is a voice out there to defend them.

Organizations who provide services for those who are low-income and/or marginalised must ensure that advocacy remains an essential part of their work. If their mandate is to improve the living circumstances of their users, then surely this must include looking at the root causes of the problems and finding long-term solutions. If this larger picture is ignored or given up on, then non-profit and charitable organizations will be offering nothing more than band-aid solutions.

Thus the reason for this booklet: anybody who works in such an organization, or who volunteers in it or uses its services, or who at least supports the rights of the people for whom such organizations are intended, needs to be familiar with advocacy work. People often state that they would like to advocate for change, but simply don’t know how to do it. This manual is intended to give basic information on how it can be done.

Note: non-profit organizations should be aware that on January 14th, 1999, the provincial government passed Bill 69, the Lobbyist Registration Act. This legislation has created a public registry for individuals and organizations (including charitable ones), who spend a considerable part of their time ‘lobbying’ the provincial government for such reasons as influencing government policies and programs, or receiving grants or other financial benefits. This legislation also demands that employees of charitable organizations who spend at least 20% of their time in such activities would have to register. Be aware that the federal government also disapproves of political ‘lobbying’, and organizations have lost their charitable status with Revenue Canada as a result of this.

This seems to be one more indication of how non-profit and charitable organizations are losing their ability to do advocacy work. This does not mean that advocacy work will cease. Perhaps employees may have to pass on more of this kind of work to board members, volunteers, service-users, and interested community members.