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I got an A in geometry. I never cleared calculus, but I know my shapes. Below is my favorite shape, the Health Impact Pyramid, developed by Dr. Thomas Frieden, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Let me tell you why it’s awesome.   This pyramid illustrates the effectiveness of different types […]

I love the Ten Commandments, especially when they aren’t on public property. Not coveting thy neighbor’s animals has always been tricky for me though. How does your campaign measure up to the Ten Commandments of Advocacy below?   Start simple, get fancy later. There’s a lot you can do where you are with what you […]

In the debate over whether we should confront racism by changing hearts and minds or changing policy, I definitely fall in the changing policy camp, when I’m not dreaming about pressuring Hollywood to normalize race in the same way it normalized gay (Thanks, Ellen Degeneres!). Assuming you’re trying to win a specific policy change at […]

Want to beat the National Rifle Association? Me too. I really admire the work of veteran campaigner Vinny DeMarco, who has some gun control victories under his belt. Part of his winning recipe is conducting opinion research, like polling and focus groups, to determine whether voters in a target policymaker’s district would actually vote for […]

When I was in 5th grade my best friend died in a house fire. I didn’t really understand what that meant at the time, but decades down the road I assume the fire was started by a cigarette. According to the National Fire Protection Association, one out of every four home fire deaths is caused […]

Every program you care about needs funding, whether it’s feeding people or protecting kids or funding research for life-saving drugs or saving songbirds. You can help direct Congress to spend money on programs you care about if you follow these steps.   Determine which federal agency carries out the work of the program you want […]

As you think through how you’ll solve big problems in the world, you’ll have to know how to pull a smaller, winnable issue out of a huge, unmanageable problem. Your thinking about the problem, issue and solution will be shaped by how you frame them.   For example, let’s say you want to reduce obesity […]

These common mistakes are easy to fall into if you and your team don’t make them part of your conversations. As you plan, check in with each other to make sure you aren’t committing these crimes against advocacy. Confusing a problem with an issue. “We want to do something about food deserts because all people […]

Get the Guide!   To crush your campaign you’ll need the right combination of grassroots power—a groundswell of regular citizens—plus support from the people your target decision-maker already trusts and listens to. How do you find those people? What do you ask them to do for you? How much of each do you need? What […]

Spoiler Alert: Your mentor doesn’t even have to be alive!   Gone are the days when senior organizers would take the time to guide younger ones. Today older workers, those in their 50s and 60s who may have been part of successful movements, need to justify their salaries. They can’t jettison responsibilities to take younger […]