2014 Advocacy Skills Training

This interactive workshop will help ease the nerves of first-time lobbyists and refresh those who want to brush up on their skills. Participants will learn the basic “how-to’s” of setting up a meeting with Congressional staff, what materials to prepare and bring to a visit, and appropriate steps for follow-up after a meeting. They will also learn how to clearly and effectively communicate a specific “ask,” and hear suggestions of ways to stay focused while a visit is veering off course. Finally, participants will have the opportunity to put their skills to the test by practicing their own mock lobby visits with this year’s asks and talking points.

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A peer to peer conversation about how young adults around the country are organizing for justice and peace. Come share and learn best practices.

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State-based legislative victories can fuel momentum for national change. Learn how to make an impact on public policy in your state.

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The media can serve as a powerful tool for promoting important issues. This workshop will help attendees raise media awareness of their issues in their own communities. Learn tips on how to get Letters to the Editor, Op-Ed pieces, and more published to advocate for justice for people living in poverty using examples of media generated by RESULTS activists. Then we’ll draft letters you can submit to media back home.

Workshop Resources:

Harnessing the Power of Print Media PDF

Harnessing the Power of Local Media PDF

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Note: This workshop is only offered during the Sunday 3:15 p.m. time slot.

This workshop will give an introduction to community organizing methodology with discussion of the continuum of action and how to integrate organizing models to your current work. The fundamentals of organizing for social change cut across all issues and can help organization and congregations be more effective in building local power to change social policy. There will be specific attention to the importance of the role of faith in building social movements.

Workshop Resources:

See related workshop

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This workshop will introduce the novice to the concept of using social media in advocacy. How does someone get started? What social media platforms have the greatest potential impact on advocacy? This workshop will give basic steps to get started.

Workshop Resources:

Download Workshop Resource

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Songs, story, and beats provide the soundtrack for the work of peace and justice. Come explore singing the story with people from here and around the world as a prophetic act of solidarity.

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We will learn how to make initial approaches to congregations to gain involvement in advocacy for a social cause, using gun violence prevention as a model. We will learn how to spread such commitment to nearby congregations to build local faith-based and grassroots activist coalitions united by purpose. Emphasis will be on interfaith “out-of-the-pews” activism and public pressure for change.

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This interactive workshop will engage participants in identifying seeds of peace planted in the culture of violence and give them tools to nurture those seeds in their own hearts, in their families, in their churches and schools, and in their communities. Participants will take home resources that will enhance their ability to engage others in peace-making.

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This skills workshop will engage participants to explore ways that our worship services can resist violence and build peace. Participants will examine violence and peace in prayer, liturgy, sermons, and communion, leaving the session with both concrete ideas for worship and tools to ask larger questions about violence and peace in their own communities.

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Using Marshall Rosenberg’s practical wisdom and deep spirituality from his book Nonviolent Communication, we will practice:

1. Clarifying/empathizing with the humanizing feelings and universal needs/core values both we and our opponents have;
2. Making bridge-building concrete and in-the-moment observations; and
3. Creating and persisting with positive, doable, timely, concrete requests that move both our relationships and our work for peace and right relations (justice) along.

These simple skills of authentic and connecting “power with” others will deepen, heal, and transform our own hearts, our advocacy work, and our communities of faith and support.

Workshop Resources:

Download handout.

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Bread for the World organizers will introduce their 2014 Offering of Letters Campaign, examine how the violence of hunger impacts the international community, and show how better food aid policies contribute to lasting and sustainable peace. Participants will learn the effectiveness of letter-writing in advocacy and how to leverage their voice to influence their elected officials. The workshop will conclude with an opportunity for participants to write letters to our nation’s leaders.

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Telling your own story and using stories to make your causes “real” is key to being an effective advocate. This workshop empowers participants to speak effectively about social justice issues to politicians, the media, and peers by reviewing what makes an effective “public narrative”. Then, we’ll do a train-the-trainer session on how to develop powerful speaking skills by creating a “laser talk” to advocate on an issue.

Workshop Resources:

Download PDF

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Note: This workshop is only offered during the Sunday 4:15 p.m. time slot.

This will follow the Intro to Organizing workshop and focus on the importance of strategic relationship- building in community organizing work. The workshop will provide new tools in recruitment, team building, and leadership development addressing the importance of one-to-ones as an essential piece to building collective power to win concrete improvements in people’s lives.

Workshop Resources:

See related workshop

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