When your graduate student government takes a stand on proposed new policies, regulations, or legislation in Congress, effectively communicating your position is crucial to garner support, influence decision-makers, and create positive change. To ensure your message reaches your constituents, news media, members of Congress, and other stakeholders, follow these essential steps.
1. Craft a Clear and Concise Position Statement.
Start by creating a well-crafted position statement that succinctly outlines your stance on the proposed legislation. Use straightforward language that is easily understandable to a diverse audience and highlight the key reasons behind your position.
HOW? Don’t overthink it! Keeping it short (one-page-ish) is actually very helpful here. You’re going to be sharing this in a lot of different places, so keep it simple.
FAARM CAN HELP! The FAARM Team can provide language for your statement if you need it.
PRO TIP! Save your statement in a very easy-to-open format (usually PDF, possibly an image file) in a place where it’s easy to generate a permanent link to the statement (Google Drive, Dropbox, a public file folder on your website backend, etc.).
2. Announce your Position to your Constituents (Graduate Students!).
This might seem counterintuitive, but announcing your position to your own volunteers and constituents is a very important second step.
WHY? Reasons why this is essential could fill up their own separate article. Announcing your positions to your constituents helps show that your organization is active and impactful, provides opportunities to engage more volunteers, motivates volunteers to think about related policy topics and advocacy opportunities, and more. Not announcing your position to your constituents leaves a ton of energy and ideas sitting on the table.
HOW? Use all available communications channels! Email announcement (possibly attached to a meeting announcement), announcements section of your regular general body meetings, social media, relevant committee meetings, website, and anything else you can think of.
3. Create Compelling Infographics and Visuals.
Visual content is highly effective in conveying complex information in an easily digestible format. Design infographics, charts, and other visuals to illustrate the implications of the proposed legislation visually. Share these visuals on social media and include them in your presentations.
HOW? Don’t overthink this. Simple quote cards are very effective visuals on many platforms (meeting slides, social media, announcement emails, etc.). Several free platforms exist that make it very easy to produce quality quote cards and other super-simple graphics. The FAARM Team uses Canva.
PRO TIP! Has your organization, or your university administration, conducted any mental health or workplace satisfaction surveys? Do you have statistics on the graduation rates of masters’ and PhD students on your campus? If your administration has an office dedicated to survey research directed at your faculty, staff, and students (‘Institutional Research’ or something similar on many campuses), they might have a bunch of data they can simply send you if you email them. This kind of data is excellent for next-level visuals.
4. Host Town Hall Meetings and Webinars.
Organize town hall meetings or webinars to directly engage with your constituents. These events provide an opportunity to present your position, address questions, and gather feedback. Consider inviting relevant experts or guest speakers to add credibility to your advocacy efforts.
FAARM CAN HELP! The FAARM Team is happy to send a speaker to your remote or hybrid events to discuss our framework and take questions.
5. Collaborate with News Media.
Develop relationships with local and national news media outlets. Send press releases announcing your position on the legislation and its potential impact. Offer interviews or op-eds to provide in-depth insights into your stance and its significance for the graduate student community.
HOW? For students in a field that doesn’t overlap with the news media, this can feel like a mysterious or arcane space where only people that ‘know the tricks’ can be effective. There is no trick. Find the email addresses (or Signal accounts, or Twitter DMs) of local and regional reporters and send them your position statement! Not all of them will answer, but when some of them do, follow-up and discuss your position with them.
PRO TIP! Start with your campus newspaper. They’ll almost-certainly publish any quality material you send them.
6. Leverage Student Networks and Influencers.
Engage influential student leaders, influencers, and social media personalities within the graduate student community. Seek their support in promoting your position and spreading the message to a wider audience.
HOW? Yes, you absolutely have influencers in your student body. Get out on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, etc., find some folks with 10k followers, and ask them to share announcements and posts from your organization.
PRO TIP! Working on compelling issues, like the FAARM Framework, and bringing some data and visuals to the conversation makes it more likely that they’ll say yes!
7. Contact Members of Congress and Decision-Makers.
Directly communicate your position to members of Congress and other relevant decision-makers. Send personalized emails, letters, or make phone calls to express your stance and the reasons behind it. Additionally, offer to meet with them in person or virtually to discuss your position further.
HOW? Start by emailing the congressional offices that serve the jurisdiction where your campus is located. Tell them clearly that you’re an organization that includes a bunch of their constituents.
THEN? Work your way up to other policy decision-makers like congressional committee chairs or the authors of legislation related to your position. For some issues, you may want to contact a federal or state executive agency.
PRO TIP! To maximize the impact of your in-person meetings, join Legislative Action or Lobby Days events in DC. Tell the offices you contact that your outreach is part of a larger organization or event. This helps maximize the likelihood that they reply and agree to meet.
NOTE OF CAUTION: Not all meetings with congressional offices and government agencies are going to feel like home-runs. These folks meet with tons of organizations and voters, and they all respond to both local and national political winds. Government agency staff won’t always tell you directly how they respond to the current political situation, but you can be sure it affects their priorities. When you send a team to DC, fill your schedule with as many meetings as possible. Take a lot of ‘shots on goal’ to maximize the odds you have some good meetings that result in follow-up conversations and forward progress.
MORE PRO TIPS! Learn the rules, schedule, and lingo of the office or agency you’re meeting with. Learn the names of chairpeople, directors, major programs, etc. If you sound knowledgeable, you’ll be more impactful. 5 minutes of Google searching can make a huge difference. (Planning and executing congressional office visits is another huge topic that deserves its own post. Coming soon to a FAARM Blog near you!)
8. Coordinate with your Friends and Allies at other Institutions.
This is how we win. Let your friends and allies at other institutions know which Lobby Days events you’ll be attending, which offices you plan to meet with, and what materials you plan to share. Let your allies borrow your talking points, graphics, docs, and references to help get their efforts off the ground faster and keep your message aligned. Encourage them to meet with their members of congress.
HOW? Don’t have contact info for counterparts at other institutions? Join meetings of the FAARM Coalition and National Association of Graduate-Professional Students (NAGPS) to meet them!
Remember to maintain a consistent and unified voice across all communication channels. Coordinate with your team to ensure everyone is delivering the same key messages. Additionally, monitor feedback and engagement regularly, making adjustments as necessary to keep your constituents and stakeholders informed and involved throughout the legislative process. By following these steps, your graduate student government can effectively share information about your position and build a powerful advocacy campaign that garners support and drives change.
Daniel Curtis
FAARM Co-Founder
Further Reading:
National Association of Graduate-Professional Students, “Legislative Action Days”
American Psychological Association, “Visiting a Member of Congress”
American Occupational Therapy Association, “How to conduct a Congressional meeting”
The author generated this text in part with GPT-3, OpenAI’s large-scale language-generation model. Upon generating draft language, the author reviewed, edited, and revised the language to their own liking and takes ultimate responsibility for the content of this publication. Learn more here.
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