Advocacy
– effective influencing
You will focus your advocacy on an audience and it is useful to think
of your audience in terms of stakeholders, decision makers and
influencers.
Stakeholders
|
These are the individuals and groups who do, or will, have an
interest in what you want to change. |
Decision Makers
|
These are the key individuals that will bring about the change
you want |
Influencers
|
These are the people who can influence decision makers. They can
act on your behalf or against you. |
To make the most of your limited resources it is useful
- to think hard about your existing, and possible future, stakeholders
and get them involved with the process
- find out about your key decision makers and influencers – How do
they think? What motivates them? If they are not already interested in
your issue how can you introduce them to it?
Lines
of Influence
It can be useful to make a map of your decision makers and influencers
and to connect them with ‘lines of influence’. You can then think
about the sort of information you could feed to the various different
people.
Draw some possible 'lines of influence' on the following table - for
example the Teacher's Union might try to influence the Think Tank which
might influence the media which might influence the Minister of Education
DECISION MAKERS
|
|
Minister of Education
|
|
INFLUENCERS
|
Media
|
Electorate
|
Teachers’ Union
|
Think-tank on education
|
World Bank
|
Opposition party
|
Now draw a map of your own situation. Who are the key decision
makers and who are the key influencers.? |