Has your association's staff been faced with the challenge of motivating members to "take action" on behalf of the association? Some members may feel like their policy input will not matter in a polarized political landscape or they may simply feel they don’t have the time to be an advocate. How does an association overcome this disconnect and motivate someone to participate in the legislative process?
The key to powerful association advocacy is letting your membership know that their individual advocacy actions collectively contribute to their organizations’ legislative goals in a big way. Here are three tips for effective membership-driven advocacy:
Make It Easy
Keeping your advocates engaged can present a challenge if you are asking that they go out of their way on a regular basis to let their voice be heard. Making advocacy easy for your members will increase engagement and make your organization more powerful and effective on the legislative scene. Simplicity does not imply ‘slacktivism’– check out this article on why we believe advocacy can be simple and powerful all at once. Equip Action Alerts with simple “Take Action” buttons and streamline your campaigns to maximize functionality and effectiveness.
Make It Meaningful
Don’t demand action from your members. Encourage and inspire your members to take an action that will benefit your mission and your memberships’ livelihood. It can be hard to empower your members to take action if they aren’t directly affected by a legislative issue, so it’s important to let your members know that their individual voices matter and are important for their community.
Make It Personal
Meaningful advocacy requires awareness. Encouraging your members to take action by empowering them to feel meaningful as an advocate is step one, but step two is to keep your members engaged and educated about legislative issues that concerns your association. Active advocates are passionate, interested, involved and care about the net impact of the legislation at hand. Keep your membership in the loop year-round about legislation that is on the table, and about new and exciting issues and/or events that are developing in your association’s field that affect them or their occupation.
On a side note: if you haven’t yet read our articles about increasing open rates for advocacy alerts and getting your analytics where you want them, click here and here.