Structured Advocacy Framework Pillar: All
Structured Advocacy Framework
Government Analytica has developed a systematic approach to government advocacy borne out of 30+ years of experience and thousands of projects in the US and in over 40 countries. The best practices that form this framework provide a step-by-step guide to enable an advocate to amplify the public value of their proposal. The goal is to win hearts and minds of the policy makers and inspire them into action.
CITATION: Story Banking, Communications Pillar, Structured Advocacy Framework, Government Analytica. More on Government Analytica's Structured Advocacy Framework (SAF). IP: All content is the intellectual property of Government Analytica governed by its Intellectual Property and Use Policy.
Simplifying The Complexity of Government Advocacy
Often Government Advocacy is seen as an art rather than a science. The practitioners have you believe that their exotic approach and network is all that is needed. This is far from reality in the lion's share of instances where citizens, nonprofits, associations, and companies reach out to government officials, elected or appointed, to inform, educate, and share pros and cons of issues they care about.
Government stakeholders generally welcome outreach, especially if it is well prepared. They are eager to hear from all their constituents affected by their decisions in order to arrive at a sound judgement. They are often lacking in the full breadth of resources required to become knowledgeable about the many issues that bombard them daily.
Government Analytica's advocacy framework simplifies the complexity of building your case to advocate effectively. Our 6-Step process is the time-tested playbook for effective advocacy.
1. Research
Government research is the process of collecting, organizing, maintaining, analyzing, and presenting data that allows strategic decisions to be made with situational awareness on topics of interest to government. At Government Analytica we use a methodology called OSINT, or Open-Source Intelligence. Research in this step is where we familiarize ourselves with perception of public value for our key stakeholders.
- There are six main sources for such intelligence gathering.
- Government Analytica tools and techniques are available for training those interested in practicing these approaches.
- Alternatively, Government Analytica can perform this type of research for clients as a contracted consulting service.
2. Public Value Positions
Public value describes the value that an organization or activity contributes to society. It can be offered in a proposal, in actions, or in execution of plans that create some greater good.
- Government officials, elected or appointed, respond favorably in supporting proposals of public value.
- However public value is in the eye of the beholder (i.e. policymaker)
- Therefore, it is necessary to understand and profile stakeholders to understand what the target audience's perception of "high public value" is.
3. Stakeholder Maps
Well-articulated proposals inspire policy makers into action. So, who are these policymakers we have to reach out to? Research identifies these key stakeholders. In Government, regardless of country or political system, they are in one of 3 clusters:
- Members of the Executive Branch: President and their cabinet and staff at the federal level, Governors and their commissioners and staff at the state level, County Commissioners and their staff, and finally mayors, and their staff.
- Members of the Policy-Making Branch: Members of congress or parliaments at the federal/national level, state legislature at the state level, and city council members at the city level.
- Pressure Groups: Any non-governmental organization that can create public pressure is important to map. These are often associations, non-profits, media, academia, companies, businesses, and citizen groups. They can be local, regional, national, or international in reach and scope.
Government Analytica's 3-by-3 Stakeholder Matrix using the 3 stakeholder types enables the design and choreography of numerous campaigns.
4. Proposals
You must take your value proposition to your stakeholders in the form of a well-written proposal. Enrich your pitch with a good proposals:
- Acknowledge and are aligned with the policy makers public value drivers.
- Demonstrate why the proposer is ideally suited to offer a solution.
- Describes a solution/offer/ask and frames its public value to stakeholder in their language.
- Pitch the proposal with a rousing call to action.
If a proposal contains data and analytics, the odds of conversion of a neutral stakeholder to a supporter of the proposal increases significantly. Government Analytica has templates, techniques, and even the analytical ability to turn a qualitative proposal into a data driven offering.
5. Stakeholder Engagement
With a well-researched, well thought out proposal solidly anchored in great public value offerings matching the policymakers' expectations, you can now write letters or schedule one-on-one meetings with those identified in each of the 3 stakeholder types. The goals of these meetings are:
- Amplify the voice of those in-favor of your proposal.
- Move those neutral about it into the in-favor column.
- Minimize the impact of those who are against your proposal.
Government Analytica uses over a dozen tools, techniques, and tactics to make sure your public value story is faithfully transmitted to key stakeholders increasing the odds of inspiring them into action.
6. Conversion
Ultimately all of this effort is to see a change in policy, approach, funding, or some other action that the proposer believes will bring greater good to the community. To do so effectively, a continuous count of those in favor must be made to assure the proposer meets the minimum threshold to convince enough people to support the proposal. A tracking system tied to the stakeholder map creates a dashboard to gauge progress and conversion of as many people as possible to in-favor supporters.
