How to Target Your Grassroots Lobbying Efforts
By Drew McKissick
One of the most important questions to answer before starting any grassroots lobbying campaign is “who” are you going to lobby? In pretty much every campaign there is a limited amount of time and resources available, and you want to get the most out them both. That means targeting them where they can make the…
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Basic Political Negotiation Techniques
By Drew McKissick
Grassroots politics or lobbying isn’t always just about conflict. Sometimes it’s about negotiating and compromise. As Sun Tzu put it, “Better to take all under Heaven intact than to fight”. If you can “win” without having to fight, expend resources, or potentially make enemies that you might need as friends in the next fight, it’s…
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Choosing the Right Grassroots Lobbying Methods
By Drew McKissick
As the old saying goes, “there’s more than one way to skin a cat”. So it is with trying to have an impact on your government. There are lots of ways to go about it, but there are tradeoffs between different grassroots lobbying methods that you should be aware of. Generally, the more personal and…
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Local Lobbying (or How to Fight City Hall)
By Drew McKissick
Have a problem with local government? You’re not the first and you certainly won’t be the last. But what can you do about it? That’s were local lobbying comes in. Keep in mind that there are some key differences between lobbying for local change, versus at the state or national levels. And there are some…
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Basic Grassroots Lobbying
By Drew McKissick
No matter how involved you may become in the political process, every citizen – in the serious sense of that word – should know how to lobby their government. (Don’t forget that it IS a Constitutional right, after all) And that means grassroots lobbying! Knowing how to effectively lobby – and actually doing so –…
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Know the Facts Before You Lobby
By Drew McKissick
Do you know everything that you need to know about what you’re trying to have an impact on? Before you set out to have an impact on any particular issue it helps to have more than just a thumb-nail view of the facts in order to be able to make a case for what you…
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The Importance of Political Confrontation
By Drew McKissick
Most people hate confrontation. But given that “politics is people”, (and about people agreeing and disagreeing), effective political participation is almost certain to involve some sort of confrontation at some point. Most people tend to want to “get along”, (or “play nice”, as your mother probably told you), and that’s admirable in pretty much every…
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Tips for Effective Confrontation in Politics
By Drew McKissick
The principles that are at stake in American politics sometimes require that conservatives be willing to be confrontational. If we’re always fighting with one hand tied behind our backs, we can’t very well expect to win. But it’s one thing to point out the need to be willing to be confrontational, and another to go…
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The Five Types of Elected Officials
By Drew McKissick
If you’ve been paying attention to politics for any length of time you’ve probably noticed that there are several different types of elected officials. Not just in terms of partisanship or ideology, but in the sense of how active or vocal they are. If you’ve ever done any lobbying, you’ve noticed a difference in how…
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The Power of Numbers in Grassroots Lobbying
By Drew McKissick
When it comes to grassroots lobbying, there is power in numbers. And numbers can come from a quality grassroots organization that encourages supporters to directly contact their elected officials. The thing that makes phone calls and letters so effective is that they are short and quick means of relaying your message. Changing the mind of…
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