Organizing a Meeting

Meeting with a Board Member How-To: 

1. Use the Arts for LA website and your other networks to organize a small group of parents and students (3-5).  Organize an in-person or phone meeting to plan an agenda and roles for the meeting.
2. Set up a meeting with your district's Board Member. Ask to hold the meeting in the district.  To find your district, check out the map at ww.artsforla.org/groups/lausd.  
3. Prepare your talking points.  Make sure to keep the message positive.
   

Running Effective Meetings

Group meetings are a great way to make group decisions, develop plans, delegate responsibilities, facilitate group trainings, etc. 

Training Volunteers

Overview

The more people who have the skills to carry out a campaign and an understanding of the big picture within which you are working, the more likely you are to succeed.  Running frequent trainings helps you to achieve this.

Planning training is key to effective recruitment efforts.  Invite new volunteers to a training right away.  As part of your recruitment planning, you should have a plan for what trainings you want to run to set people up for success.

Advocacy Event Planning

How to Plan an Event

Have a goal and desired outcome.

Goal of the event - As always, before moving ahead with planning a big event, make sure it is rooted in a specific goal and outcome. Be able to answer the following questions:

Recruitment and Leadership Development

Recruitment Overview

Recruitment is most fundamental part of any campaign.  It takes people to make things happen.  Recruiting a group to work with gives you:

Campaign Planning

Campaign Story

A good campaign story is just that - the story of your campaign. We want people to go on an emotional journey – feeling the depth of the problem, the excitement of the solution, and the motivation to be a part of it. 

Having a concise and compelling campaign story is critical to every part of the campaign process – recruiting new volunteers, coalition members, getting media coverage, and advocating to decision-makers. 

Media and Publicity

Overview

Visibility is one of the most important elements to any successful campaign.  Even with the best cause, coalition, and leadership, without a strong visibility plan, it will be difficult for a campaign to gain traction  and influence enough people to be effective.  

How to Start a Community Advocacy Team

Congratulations on taking the first step to becoming an arts education advocate. This toolkit is here to provide you with all the resources you need to get started organizing in your community.

Working with Public Officials

Defining Advocacy

• Advocacy is defined as the active support of an idea or cause, including the act of informing an individual, group, or body about an issue.
• Advocacy is not the same as lobbying.  Lobbying is defined as a direct communication with a public official in reference to a specific piece of legislation, with a request to support or oppose that legislation.
• Effective advocacy is always POSITIVE!

Tips for strong advocacy

What do you ask a candidate?

Arts for LA's suggestions for participating in candidate forums

Arts for LA encourages all arts supporters to attend candidate forums, whether they're for local neighborhood councils, school boards or city government elections.  Not only is it a great opportunity for all citizens to participate in the democratic process, it's an effective way to let your candidates know about the issues, concerns and challenges you care about.