1. GRASSROOTS ADVOCACY 101 What you need to know to be an advocacy leader in your community!

2. What is advocacy and why is it important?

3. The World Health Organization (WHO, 1995) describes advocacy for health as a “combination of individual and social actions designed to gain political commitment, policy support, social acceptance and systems support for a particular health goal or program”.

4. Why is Health Center Advocacy important?

5. Your voice has a direct impact. Advocates Patients Federal Funding

6. And advocacy is good for our health! Telling your story is healthy and empowering. –Good for confidence, self-esteem, and sense of control –One study found that that when a group listened to others’ stories they better controlled their high blood pressure than another group taking extra medication. http://commonhealth.wbur.org/2012/01/storytelling-for-mental-health-boost The actual things that happen to you may have less of an impact on your mental health than the things you tell yourself about them.

7. Advocacy made possible continued health center funding. HR 2/MACRA! -Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 -Signed by President Obama on April 16 th -$7.2 billion mandatory funding for Health Centers for two years -Continued funding for Teaching Health Centers and the National Health Service Corps Petition signatures 200,000 Calls to Congress 23,000 Emails to Congress 12,000 Boar d resol ution s and letter s to the edito r 100s

8. What are some strategies for effective grassroots advocacy?

9. You have to stay informed. www.saveourchcs.org Facebook. com/cfahc blog.saveourchcs.org @CFAHC #FQHC

10. And take action. Share something on Facebook or Twitter Sign a petition Email your Members of Congress Call your Members of Congress Participate in an event, meet your Members of Congress in person

11. Creating a culture of advocacy is a process. Ask leadership to make the commitment Decide on your goals (and your potential challenges) Decide on a plan of action. Create a space for community feedback.

12. Ask leadership to make the commitment. Designate an advocacy coordinator This will be the point person for advocacy-related events and initiatives at your health center (sample position description here).here The coordinator will also be the point of contact with NACHC and your state’s primary care association (PCA) for advocacy campaigns. Once you have a coordinator, recruit more volunteers. Create a plan, and recruit an internal team (sample advocacy plan here).here Get the Board on-board Ask the Board to pass a resolution (template here).here Create a sub-committee on the Board.

13. Decide on your goals. Who do you want to engage? –Board, staff & patients What issue will you start with? –Federal, state, and local Create some reasonable, quantifiable goals!

14. Create a plan of action & execute. Successful advocacy requires a good plan. You must know... Who your targets, allies, and opponents are How will you reach your targets? Which people and organizations should be on your side? How will you engage them? Who will actively try to stop you? Why? How will you respond? What you want – be specific for both targets and allies When it’s important to take action – timing is everything Where the issue is pertinent – is this a local, state, or federal issue? Why? This might be the most important piece!

15. Create a space for comments and suggestions from the community Make sure you learn what works and what doesn’t work for your community. Create a patient advocacy group Put a comment box in clinic waiting rooms asking for feedback on campaigns Follow-up with advocates with results of your campaign Ask NACHC for stats and data

16. Advocacy is necessary to affect policy, and policy has a real impact. Policy decisions do not happen in a vacuum. There are competing priorities. The numbers don’t always agree. Health policy is about people. Advocacy is not just lobbying. You have to get policymakers to pay attention. Legislative decisions ALWAYS involve politics. Good policy development is not enough. What good is perfect policy that never becomes law?

17. Effective advocacy is power. Power is NOT measured by the number of advocates on a list. Power is NOT measured by the number of small (or even large) victories you win every now and then. Power must be measured by the ability to successfully advance your own agenda and to make it unthinkable that any other political or special interest would ever want to take you on.