PTRPSEA103 - Building Relationships and Chains of Communication

Course Description

In any advocacy campaign, as in almost any situation in life, communication and relationship-building are absolutely critical to success. Constituent groups can be helpful — even necessary — for exerting influence on the other side during an advocacy campaign. If a school board or administration is not responding to the union, getting constituent groups to tell their stories or exert pressure may accomplish the end result.

Working with these external and internal constituent groups may give you better ideas to utilize in your campaign, possibly leading you to reframe, modify, or otherwise improve your position. It also manifests the spirit of collective action — we must organize so that we can achieve compromise, instead of it just being their way.

Benefits to the Learner

• Understand the importance of identifying and analyzing key constituent groups

• Develop methods for establishing and engaging constituent groups

• Understand and develop communication chains to insure proper messaging

• Understand the importance of building and cultivating local committees to insure membership involvement in advocacy campaigns

• Develop activities for both internal and external messaging campaigns for constituent groups