Advocacy 101

Advocacy 101 will teach advocates, impacted people, and not for profit staff how to share their experience with elected officials. Geared towards the Missouri state legislature, these skills can help you advocate for systems change at many levels. Decision makers must hear from the experts, including you. Policy advocacy doesn’t need to feel scary or overwhelming, and you will leave this training with the basic education needed to grow your skills and demystify the process to have the greatest impact on the lives of our neighbors.

Learning Objectives:

• Participants will learn what advocacy is and isn’t, when it becomes lobbying, and the limits imposed by the IRS on most 501c-3 organizations and the staff who work for them.
• Participants will learn how the lawmaking process happens in Missouri as well as how and when it is most easily influenced. They will learn how to track bills and get an overview of an Advocates Calendar.
• Participants will leave with the knowledge needed to have a successful advocacy meeting with a lawmaker and use a media strategy to get extra attention to the issues they care about.

Meet the presenter:

Sarah Owsley is a people lover from Kansas City, MO. She is passionate about ending poverty, and knows that the Missouri state legislature must do more to ease the experience of our neighbors who struggle to meet their basic needs. That can’t happen without lawmakers hearing from the people who know the most about struggle. She spends her day as Empower Missouri’s Advocacy Director providing individual advocates and direct service staff with the training they need to practice legislative advocacy, share their stories, and plan strategies for systems change. She earned degrees from Avila University and the University of Kansas.

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