What is political advocacy?

The goal of political involvement, or political advocacy, is to influence public officials to support your agenda. To have an effective political advocacy system, three components must work jointly and simultaneously: professional lobbyists, political fund raising and grassroots involvement.

Think of the components of political advocacy as the legs of a three-legged stool. If a stool is missing a leg or if one of its legs is shorter than the others, the stool becomes unbalanced. The same is true with political advocacy. If just one critical component is missing, the whole system falters.

When it comes to advocacy on public education issues, ATPE has the first component. ATPE Governmental Relations, including our staff lobbyists, advocates full time for ATPE's legislative program and priorities. But ATPE members must provide the other two components: grassroots involvement and political fund raising.

ATPE members can look to ATPE Governmental Relations for help with both. ATPE's Legislative Alert Network (LAN) and Political Action Committee (ATPE-PAC) are the cornerstones of ATPE member grassroots political involvement and fund raising. ATPE Governmental Relations operates both programs for the benefit of ATPE members.

*Taken directly from ATPE's publication Advocating for Education: The Educator's Guide to Political Influence, 2005.