Advocacy is a “planned, deliberate, sustained effort to raise awareness of an issue or issues. Advocacy is thus an ongoing process whereby support and understanding are built incrementally.” Advocacy is not strictly public relations or marketing, but incorporates aspects of both of these, as well as lobbying, and storytelling. (Source: Canadian Association of Public Libraries. 2009. Library Advocacy Now! A Training Program For Public Library Staff and Trustees. See the link from SLA’s Advocacy Toolkit.) Advocacy is about creating an advocacy plan directed at the decision-makers, funders, and stakeholders that approaches the issues from their perspective. What’s in it for them? What do they stand to gain by supporting the particular issue?

City councillors, boards, funders, and governments all have demands on their resources from many directions. In order to get our issue on their agendas, we need to be aware of the constraints placed on them, and that includes their time, the resources they have available, and the kinds of things they can take to their electors to show that progress is being made or public resources are not being wasted. We also need to be aware that more often than not it will be staff and other officials to whom we make our appeal and who then must decide to pass on our message.

Approaching an issue from the point of view of a funding body, for instance, is perhaps contrary to the way we typically direct our attentions. For example, we might write letters drawing attention to a funding shortfall and illustrating how library staffing will be affected. We might call press conferences explaining how the library is important to the community and showing how library services and collections are being eroded. These approaches are after-the-fact. A well thought out advocacy approach is set down as a long-term plan, with goals into the future. It is important to note here that advocacy planning can benefit every organization, no matter how small or how little control we feel we have over decisions affecting us.