Chapter 31. Conducting Advocacy Research | Community Tool Box

There are all kinds of advocacy. Your goal may be to raise the profile of an issue, to provide for the needs of a particular segment of your community, to protect citizens from physical or economic harm, to stem a disease before it becomes epidemic in the area, or to expose and oust a corrupt official, among others. You may be concerned with human services, health care, education, the environment, economic development, political issues, human rights, or the overall physical, social, and economic health of your community. You may be trying to influence legislators and other policy makers, to hold officials and corporations accountable for their actions, to change the behavior or methods of health and human service providers, or to increase cultural awareness and competence among all members of the community.

Regardless of what your effort is aimed at, you'll need information before you can do anything else. How many working people in your community have no health insurance? What exactly is that company dumping into the river, and what effects does it have? How do you know that the grant-funded program you want to continue has been effective? Where are you going to get the material for that fact sheet you need for the public meeting on Friday?

In order to persuade legislators or other officials to change laws and policies, to provoke an official investigation, or to sway public opinion, you'll need information. To get it, you'll almost undoubtedly have to do some research. That could mean anything from combing through piles of documents in the stacks of a library to taking photos and talking to witnesses. Some of your searching may be tedious, and some may be exciting, but all of it will involve work.

What do we mean by conducting research?

The word "research" often conjures up images of someone sitting in a library squinting at a large book with very small print, or hovering over a beaker of nasty-looking liquid in a chemistry lab.

Don't let those images scare you, though - research really means doing some work to find the answer to a question. The question may be relatively simple: What percentage of people who visit the community health clinic have no other way to get medical treatment? It may also be extremely complex: What's the most effective way to provide health insurance for working people in the community who don't have it?

Different kinds of questions require different kinds of answers, and different kinds of answers require different kinds of research to ferret them out. Knowing what you need is the first step.

• If the answer you're looking for is one of known fact - What's the chemical composition of a certain substance? What effects does it have on humans? - then you're probably going to find it by looking through books or articles in a library, or by consulting an expert.
• If you're seeking reinforcement for your advocacy for a particular intervention - How effective is that health promotion program? Why use this method instead of that one? Why ban this substance in food products? - then you may have to conduct a study of some sort, or sift through existing records.
• If you're trying to find facts that will help you convince policy makers to move in a particular direction - How many people in the community are employed, but have no health insurance? - you may find yourself working in the municipal archives or studying census data.
• If you're searching for evidence of harmful and/or illegal action on the part of a corporation or government agency - Is that paper mill dumping waste directly into the river again? And why isn't the regulatory agency doing anything about it? - you may have to do some actual detective work: searching through documents, taking pictures, analyzing samples of river water, talking to employees.

Research encompasses all these methods and more. What kind of research you should do depends on what and what kind of information you need.

Why do research?

The advantages of whatever you're advocating for may seem obvious to you, but that doesn't mean they're obvious to others. You'll have to show them that your ideas will significantly benefit the community. Research can help you toward this goal in several ways:

• Research gives your advocacy substance. Your research adds facts and statistics to your belief and passion. The latter two are important, but they won't actually convince too many people who disagree with you. Hard evidence might.
• Research gives you new information to help make your case. Often, your research will turn up powerful information on your side that even you didn't know about. It will also help you determine how much funding is needed, approximately how long it will take to see results, and the likely consequences of doing nothing.
• Research can show you what's most likely to address your issue successfully. (As this item indicates, your research will probably serve multiple purposes. It may help you plan and design your effort as well as advocate for it.) As an advocate, you have to know exactly what to advocate for. What have others done that's worked? What affects the issue in an experimental situation? The answers to these and similar questions will put you in a position to choose and advocate for strategies that are apt to be effective.
• Research can provide you with anecdotes and examples to use. While statistics are most convincing in certain situations, one actual example is often more powerful than reams of data, because it makes the issue immediate and real. An anecdote doesn't prove a case, but it can make it easier for people to understand exactly what the issue is about. Hearing someone else's story makes people realize "That could be me," and gives politicians a way to explain to voters why they favor a policy or bill.
• Research can confirm what you were already sure of. You may "know" that you're right about a particular issue, but it brings a great deal more security to be able to say that all the experts in the field agree with you, or that studies have shown that what you're advocating for works really well.
• Research allows you to make cost-benefit arguments. If 85% of former inmates return to jail; and if it costs $65,000.00 a year to keep one person in jail; and if a program that keeps 85% of former inmates out of jail costs $20,000.00 a year per person - you do the math. The prevention program sounds expensive, but it will actually save the taxpayer an average of $28,500.00 a year per former inmate. Research will tell you the costs of both alternatives and the success rates of both at keeping people from returning to jail.

The math works this way: If you start with 100 former inmates, and expect that 85 of them will be back in jail, those 85 will cost $5,525,000.00 (85 x $65,000) annually to keep in jail. If the same 100 former inmates participate in the alternative program, it will cost $1,700,000.00 (85 x $20,000) for the 85 who are successful, and $975,000.00 (15 x $65,000) for the 15 who go back to jail, for a total of $2,675,000.00. The difference between $5,525,00.00 and $2,675,000.00 is $2,850,000.00, divided by 100 former inmates gives $28,500.00 per person, the savings from using the alternative program. And that's only in the first year, or however long the alternative program lasts: once the program is over, the 85 who are successful cost the public nothing. In fact, they're probably working and paying taxes. It's only the 15 still in jail that taxpayers are funding.

• Research gives you credibility. If you do your research well, it identifies you as a serious advocate who does the groundwork before you try to convince people of your position. It will make people more willing to listen to you, and to believe what they hear.
• Research can short-circuit the opposition. If you've done careful research not only on your own position, but on the opposition's position as well, you'll have the information to answer their charges and questions, and either to disprove their claims, or to make reasonable and logical arguments for the soundness of your position over theirs.
• Research sets you up as the expert on the issue. If you become known as the one with the right answers, people - legislators and other officials, concerned groups, the general public - will come to you with their questions and concerns. When you're recognized as the authority, your advocacy position becomes infinitely stronger.

When should you do advocacy research?

Any advocacy requires some basic research, but there are times when research is particularly valuable.

When you're trying to get legislation passed

You'll need research for two reasons:

• To show the need for the legislation. Federal funding for AIDS research increased when advocates were able to demonstrate that the disease had reached epidemic proportions, and that it affected not only gay men, but other segments of the population as well. Similarly, adult literacy advocates in Massachusetts were able to secure a commitment to adult education and an increased funding appropriation when they presented legislators with a list of more than 13,000 people on waiting lists for programs around the state.
• To show public support for proposed legislation. When legislators know that their constituents really want them to vote for a bill, or to address a particular issue, they'll generally do it, especially in an election year. If you can demonstrate - through surveys, interviews, or other means - that the public backs your effort, it puts you in a much stronger position.

When you're seeking to arouse community concern about an issue that needs attention

Often, the research needed here is statistical. What percent of teens drop out of high school in the community, and how does that compare to other, similar communities? Have there been increases in homelessness over the past year, or the past several years? Are there more homeless families than there were? Has youth violence increased in the community, and, if so, who are its victims? Numbers are what's required here, so that people can see trends in issues of importance to the community.

Do numbers lie? Mark Twain said that "there are lies, damned lies, and statistics." By that he meant that you can make the same statistics seem to mean different things by manipulating them in different ways. If there has been a five-year upward trend in homelessness, for instance, one group may state that and stop there, while another may point out that the trend in fact peaked three years ago, and has been heading downward since. It may not have gotten down to where it was five years ago, but it's headed in that direction. So two groups, using the same statistic, can come to different conclusions: that growing homelessness is a problem; or that homelessness is on the decline, and is not a problem.

An intelligent opponent - and, if you have opponents, you should always assume they're at least as smart as you are, and that they'll do their homework - could demolish your argument if you aren't careful how you use the numbers you find. Your research has to be impeccable - always make certain that information that seems to prove your point
actually does so, that you don't exaggerate to make your case stronger, and that you pay attention to anything that seems to show the opposite.

You should never have to argue about whose numbers are "right." Yours should always be right, because you've checked them carefully, and analyzed them so you know what they really mean. If they don't agree with what you're advocating, you can reframe your issue - present it in a different way, or restate the problem it presents. In the case of homelessness, for instance, you may want to argue that whether it's rising or declining, it's still a serious problem that the community should tackle: "One homeless person in our community means we're not doing what we should. Even one is too many, and we have 450."

If your research in fact shows that you're dead wrong about what you're trying to prove, you may have to rethink it. No matter how much you may "know" emotionally that you're right, if the evidence says otherwise, you have to admit it and make sense of that.

When important programs or services or whole groups of people are under attack

Some examples:

• Food stamps and fuel assistance programs are often characterized by opponents as "unnecessary." Employing research to show how many people in the community need and use them helps voters understand why they are necessary.
• Immigrants may be blamed for employment shortages, when in fact those shortages are usually the result of economic trends and factors that have little to do with immigration. Furthermore, many immigrants take jobs that employers have difficulty filling - low wage, dirty, and physically demanding (migrant labor, for example). Your research can demonstrate that those who accuse immigrants of responsibility for unemployment actually have no argument.

When government officials are corrupt or otherwise guilty of wrongdoing

Research can serve to find the proof that exposes corrupt, dishonest, or unethical officials. From the small town treasurer who helps herself to a few thousand dollars from municipal funds to Richard Nixon, whose coverup of the Watergate break-in cost him the Presidency, officials who violate the law are generally caught by careful research rather than by some dramatic event. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's interviews with various participants in the Watergate affair, for instance, eventually led them to the source known as "Deep Throat" who blew the whistle on the Nixon administration.

When government or another entity is lying to the public

At some times, there are things the public, even in a democratic society, should not know. If, in World War II, the press had routinely published the locations of Allied ships, for instance, the enemy would have been extremely pleased - and the ships in question would have been sunk. When the government or another entity lies to the detriment of the public good, however, or to protect itself politically, that is another matter.

Two examples:

• Cigarette manufacturers for years produced phony scientific studies that "proved" that smoking was harmless and non-addictive, while reputable scientists invariably found the opposite. The reputable research convinced the Surgeon General's office, and a large majority of the American public, that profits were more important to the cigarette companies than people's lives, and smoking in America dropped sharply.
• During the Reagan administration in the U.S., James Watt, the anti-environment Secretary of the Interior, constantly found himself contradicted in the press by scholars or journalists who had researched the accuracy of statements he had made, and found them to be false. Ultimately, Watt became such a political liability that he had to be replaced. Had no one bothered to check his accuracy, he could have continued to misrepresent environmental issues for political reasons, at the expense of the public interest.

When it's necessary to prevent harm

The source of acid rain in the eastern U.S. was a mystery until research showed that it was caused by substances released into the air by factories in the Midwest. If you're wondering why there are no more fish in the local river, or if there's some question about your drinking water, you might want to look into acid rain effects, or spend some time in the town archives and in the library finding out what substances local factories are dumping in the river, and what chemical effects those substances have.

Environmental threats to public well-being aren't the only kinds of harm that research can help prevent. Looking into the effects of proposed government policies can save citizens from unfortunate social or economic consequences... or help to correct those consequences, if the policy is one that's been shown to be successful. Research into the relationships among corporations, accounting firms, and Wall Street analysts could perhaps have saved investors from such financial disasters as the collapse of Enron, one of the largest American corporations. Many thousands of middle-income citizens lost their retirement money in that debacle, either directly or through pension fund investments.

When it's important in order to further the public interest

In these situations, you may not be looking for anything specific. Health care advocates, for instance, often conduct research to determine a community's health care needs, and what could best meet those needs, so that they'll know exactly what to advocate for.

How do you do research?

Since, as we'll discuss in more detail below, there are many different types of research, there's no one set method for doing all types. We will, however, propose some general guidelines that apply to any kind of advocacy research, and try to give you some more specific pointers on conducting each of the types of research you're likely to encounter.

General guidelines for research

Ask for help

You don't necessarily have to do everything yourself. There may be many possibilities for assistance out there.

• Other activists. If you're concerned about an issue, the chances are others are, too. If you can find them, you may also find that much of the information you need is already available, or that they're willing to help you get it.
• Academics or other experts. Depending on what you need to find out, help may be as close as the relevant department of a local university. If, for instance, you need to understand the chemistry of a pollutant, a chemistry grad student or professor may be more than willing to help. You may be able to find someone who's an expert on a particular area of law or business or public health who can save you countless hours of searching on your own.
• Librarians. Libraries are obviously great sources of information, and librarians are usually both eager and able to help. That's their job, and many librarians view difficult research requests as interesting and enjoyable challenges. They, too, may be able to save you enormous amounts of time.
• Journalists. If the issue you're addressing, or your area of advocacy, involves an interesting story or something the public clearly needs to know (Is the community's drinking water safe?), an investigative journalist may be more than willing to work with you. Many of the biggest news stories of past decades - the questions about American intelligence gathering before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, for instance - have resulted from investigative journalism. Most reporters would love the chance for a big story, and they have vast information resources available.
• People inside an entity you're researching. If there's something illegal or unethical going on, there may be someone inside the entity whose discomfort with the situation will make him willing to talk to you.

Try to find out if someone's already done the research you're planning

There may already be studies relating to the issue you're concerned with, or someone else in the community may already have spent weeks finding the information you're looking for. Don't make life any more difficult than it has to be: look around before you begin.

Learn the basics about your issue

Your research will do you no good if it isn't accurate and to the point. If there are laws involved, make sure you have read and understood them before you look for evidence that they've been broken, or need to be changed. If you suspect that someone might be violating professional ethics, find out whether that profession has a formal code of ethics, and study it carefully. If there's an environmental issue, learn the science behind it, at least well enough so that you can explain it, and so that you can understand and counter arguments against your position.

If you read something you don't understand, find help. Consult an attorney or legislator, a science teacher, your brother-in-law - whomever you can find that actually knows about the area you need to understand. If your information is wrong, or if you don't fully understand what you're talking about, you'll undermine your position, and your advocacy will fall on deaf ears.

Know what you're going to use the information for

Knowing the reason for gathering the information will help you decide exactly what to look for, how much you need, and what form it needs to be in. Some common reasons for advocacy research:

• To call public attention to an issue. In this case, you might look for information (statistics or anecdotes) that will help people understand how the issue relates to their community.
• To demonstrate public support for an issue. A survey could show that the community overwhelmingly supports funding for a new school, for instance.
• To guide your advocacy efforts. Survey results that tell you what the public, or particular segments of the public, actually think about an issue will help you decide how to approach it.
• To bolster your argument with facts, theories, respected opinions, or others' experience.
• To counter opponents' false or mistaken claims or counter-arguments.

This is a situation in which your research must be, as we mentioned before, impeccable. Don't fudge anything - someone will be waiting for the opportunity to pounce on the least inaccuracy or error, and to use it to try to discredit your whole argument. Use only real, reliable figures, and don't over- or underestimate their meaning. Don't stretch a point - assuming that all high school dropouts are illiterate, for instance - or it will come back to haunt you. Don't mistake anecdote for fact: one story doesn't prove a point. Perhaps most important, don't give in to the natural tendency to overestimate the value of a piece of information that supports your point of view. If you can't make a strong case with the information as it is, you may need to reexamine your assumptions.

• To demonstrate that addressing the issue would have benefits for the community or society as a whole, as well as for those directly affected. You might want to show the benefits to business resulting from adult education programs, for instance, or the increase in local real estate values that increased spending on education could bring.
• To prove wrongdoing or questionable practice on the part of an entity or official. This might mean doing research to show that the entity was actually committing the wrong or harmful act - bribery, illegal polluting, stealing public funds - that you said it was; or it could mean finding evidence that what the entity freely admits doing - using a given substance in its products, engaging in particular practices in the Third World - is in fact wrong or harmful.

Be skeptical about your sources, and check all your facts twice

All sources of information are not equally reliable. Reputable news organs like the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Newsweek, for instance, demand that all stories be carefully checked before they're published. That doesn't mean that they never get anything wrong, but it does mean that they're less likely to than, say, the National Enquirer.

The Internet is a great source of information, but there's no guarantee that any of it is accurate. Anyone can establish a website and put on it practically anything she wants to, without regard to whether it's accurate or not. If you find information on the Internet, unless it's from the website of a generally reliable source - the New York Times, the Encyclopedia Britannica, your state university, the U.S. Treasury Department - it's best to be cautious about using it without first checking it elsewhere.

As mentioned several times in this section, if your facts - even facts that aren't necessarily an important part of your argument - are wrong, your opposition will make you pay for it. Even something as apparently reliable as a chemistry textbook might not be trustworthy. If it was published 30 years ago, it might contain "facts" that have since been reinterpreted. Always check your findings if your source is even the slightest bit questionable.

Be persistent

Information may be difficult and tedious to find. An agency or organization - not necessarily one you're researching - may throw up roadblocks. You may have to cut through mountains of red tape just to gain access to a paper you want to see, or to get some small piece of information. It's common for citizens' groups to have to sue under the Freedom of Information Act (see below) to get the government to release public documents. Keeping at it is perhaps the most important research tool there is.

Types of research, and some suggestions for each

"Academic" research

This term refers here to seeking facts, general information on a topic, historical background, study results, etc., that have been published, or exist in public documents. There are a number of ways to get this kind of information:

• Use libraries. Both public libraries and more specialized ones - university libraries, law libraries, genealogical libraries, Presidential libraries, etc. - are open to the public for research on some basis (sometimes free, sometimes for a fee or membership charge, for instance). Librarians at all types of libraries tend to be both knowledgeable and helpful. If you have easy access to Washington, D.C., New York City, or Boston, the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, the Boston Public Library, and the Harvard University library system are four of the largest and most comprehensive in the world.
• Take advantage of newspaper archives. Newspapers keep archives - generally consisting of a complete collection of past copies of the newspaper - in many cases going back over a hundred years. Many are now on microfilm or electronic media, and are often available through library information services or on the Internet (sometimes for a fee).
• Consult government and other archives. Federal, state, and local governments in the U.S. keep archives of government documents. They are generally available for research to any citizen, but, in some cases, you may have to travel to a particular place (Washington, DC, or a regional archive branch, e.g.) to find the documents you're looking for. Some organizations, corporations, and institutions also keep archives that may be helpful.

Use the Freedom of Information Act to gain access to public documents. The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) provides for public access to all executive branch documents and records of the U.S. federal government, except those whose release might jeopardize national security or compromise the safety or privacy of individuals, or which are otherwise exempt under the provisions of the law. FOIA applies only to federal government documents, however, and only to those of government agencies and other parts of the executive branch. It doesn't apply, for instance, to the records of Congress, a corporation, a private organization or institution - for-profit or nonprofit - that receives no public money, or a private citizen (although some of these may be public documents as well).

However, most states do have their own versions of the FOIA (often called Public Records Acts) that cover state and local agencies and officials. For links and more information about individual states, the Freedom of Information Center at the University of Missouri, which also has information on FOIA.

Other government and corporate documents

Use other government and corporate documents. There are a number of websites of watchdog organizations that try to hold governments or corporations accountable for what they do. They keep track of the activities of these entities, and try to publicize them when they are not in the public interest.

• Use census data. Demographic (population, age, race, education, income, etc.) and a surprising amount of other information is available by census tract, town, county, state, etc. from the U.S. Census.
• Surf the Internet. The Internet, with literally millions of websites from all over the world, is probably the single largest source of information on the planet. It may also be the least reliable, in that, as explained above, there is no control on what information may be posted. You have to be cautious, unless the website is one that is known to be reliable and accurate. Given that caution, however, there is almost no limit to what you can find if you search persistently enough.
• Ask sympathetic experts. People who are experts in the issue or field you're involved with, and who are sympathetic to your cause (or simply interested in what you're doing) are often willing to provide you with information, or even conduct some of your research pro bono (as a public service).

Interviews and conversations

When the information you're looking for concerns the community's past experience with an issue, the relationships between key people, what's happening inside that factory, or someone's personal experience, the best way to find it is usually by talking to individuals. You may use informal conversations, structured interviews, or something in between, but the purpose in all cases is to get as much information as possible. How to find and talk to the right people:

• Start with people you know. Even if they themselves may not have the information you're looking for, the folks you know - who trust you and can vouch for you - can lead you to those who do. Furthermore, your friends and acquaintances may have helpful information you haven't even thought of asking for.
• Network like crazy. Ask everyone you interview to recommend others who might be helpful. Put the word out to networks you're already a member of (friends, clubs, e-mail lists, professional associations, church groups, etc.) You never know just who might have that one crucial piece of information, or know the person who has it.
• Decide whether you'll get better results from informal conversations or structured interviews. In some cases, people are more likely to open up in a relaxed and informal atmosphere. In others, you'll get better information if you use a formal interview. Where people are likely to be mistrustful of strangers, it can be a toss-up: a formal structure may help them focus on the content of what they're saying, but it may also increase the distance - and the mistrust - between them and the interviewer. Often, you have to make a gut decision about what will work best.

Structured interviews

A structured interview is constructed in a particular way in order to yield particular information. Formal studies that depend upon interview information from participants usually use structured interviews in order to assure to the extent possible that all participants respond to the same questions. In informal research, you might not be quite as careful, but the structured format really does assure that various people's answers to the questions are comparable.

In constructing such an interview format, you should:

• Think about and carefully define the information you need.
• Ask directly for the information you're seeking.
• Make questions clear and unambiguous. Think out what you're asking, so that questions aren't vague or subject to too much interpretation (unless interpretation is what you're looking for).
• Ask open-ended questions. These are questions that require an "essay" answer, rather than a yes-no response. For example, instead of asking "Did you enjoy being in the program?" you might ask "What did you like and not like about being in the program?" or "What was participating in the program like?"
• Probe. Ask follow-up questions to get at what people are really saying, or to keep them talking about a topic. ("Why did you like it when the teacher asked your opinion?") Don't be afraid to pursue what may seem to be a sidetrack. Sometimes the best or most important information lies off the beaten path.
• Don't cut people off too quickly. Their stories, or what you can read between the lines, may give you information as important as what they tell you directly.
• Confirm what you're told by checking with others to the extent that you can. Remember that you're getting people's perceptions, which aren't always the same as objective reality. Rashomon, a film by the great Japanese director Akira Kurosawa, examines the nature of reality. In it, an incident is described from the perspectives of four participants, each of whom sees it totally differently. In fact, the phenomenon of Rashomon lurks everywhere: get everyone's side of the story

Surveys

If you want to know what most people in the community think about something, or how many people would take advantage of a service if it were available, a survey is a way to reach a lot of people quickly. A survey usually consists of a list of simple questions on a topic, and may include as well some chance for respondents to express a broader opinion or comment on the issue. You can conduct surveys by mail, by phone, in person, by e-mail, on a website, or by making them available in public places (leaving fliers in doctors' offices, for instance, or publishing them in the newspaper) and providing drop boxes for returning them. Each method has its advantages and disadvantages.

Here are a few key points to remember in constructing surveys.

• Make questions or items clear and easy to respond to. If a question is vague, the answers to it will be vague, too, and will vary so much as to be all but useless. In addition, vague questions are harder to answer, and therefore make people less likely to complete the survey.
• Ask for the information you need. Think carefully about what you're actually trying to find out, then design questions that will give you that information.
• Don't ask for information you don't need, just because it might be interesting, or because you haven't considered your purposes carefully. If you're not going to use the information in a substantive way, don't ask for it.
• Keep it as short and simple as possible. The less time it takes to complete a survey, the more likely people are to do it.
• Translate your survey into other languages, if you want to reach other-language populations.

Randomization and self-selection

Try to ensure randomization of your sample. If you want to get an accurate idea of the community opinion - or, more likely, the diversity of community opinion - about anything, you have to get a cross-section of the community to respond to your survey. That means males and females from all walks of life, all ages, races, cultures and ethnicities, etc. Professional pollsters - who generally use only a small percentage of a large population to stand in for the whole group - make sure they get a random sample of people in a community by using such strategies as picking every tenth name in the phone book, and/or making sure that calls or mailed surveys go to all parts of the community proportionally.)

• Be aware of the implications of self-selection. People who are willing to respond to a survey are almost always self-selected, meaning that they are the ones who are interested enough to care about the issue the survey concerns. The responders probably know more about the issue to begin with, may have strong feelings about it, and don't necessarily represent the opinions of the majority of the community. If your respondents are all or mostly self-selected, your survey won't really give you the information you're looking for. Phone surveys are somewhat more likely than most other methods to get responses from people contacted, thus at least partially dealing with the issue of self-selection, but they require a lot of people-hours (and often money).

A special case of survey technique, one that shares some elements of a survey and some of a structured interview, is a focus group. This is a group, recruited either from a random sample or from a particular population, that then engages in a structured discussion with a facilitator who tries to gain specific information from the group members without telling them directly what that information is. (The idea is to get information that's more accurate because group members won't edit what they say in relation to the topic.) Focus groups can be a useful research tool in some situations.

Studies

A study is an investigation, based on the principles of the natural or social sciences, of a phenomenon or issue. Studies are used for such purposes as looking at the effectiveness of an intervention, finding ways to prevent or treat a medical condition, or examining the economic and other effects of a social condition (homelessness, for instance) on a community and its members.

Studies can be conducted in different ways. For instance, they can be quantitative - with results dependent on numbers and statistical procedures - or qualitative - based on observations of behavior, participants' reports of how they or their lives have changed, etc. Some studies seek to understand cause and effect - what causes something else to happen. Others look for correlations - connections - between two factors. Still others are concerned only with the answers to very specific questions: How quickly can participants learn a new skill using method A as opposed to method B?

If you're planning to conduct a study, or to have someone else - a university researcher, a watchdog organization - conduct one for you, consider these important points:

• Determine what your resources will allow you to do. If you plan a study that's going to take lots of time and involve a number of people as researchers - interviewers, data enterers, etc. - then you'll need a way to pay them, or a source of volunteers who have the background to do those jobs well. Make sure you have the money, time, and skills available to conduct the study you want.
• Clearly define what information you're looking for. A study is usually focused on answering a particular question. The question you choose is extremely important in determining how useful the study results will be. If, for instance, you're trying to show the necessity for addressing a particular issue, what about that issue does it make the most sense to study? Its economic impact? Its impact on children? Its connection to some other factor, such as unemployment or lung cancer rates? The first step in conducting a useful study is defining what you're looking at.
• If you're using statistics, use them properly. There are a great many statistical procedures that can be used for analyzing information that comes in the form of numbers. It's important to choose the procedures that will give you the information you're looking for. It's equally important not to try to make your results mean anything more or less than what they actually mean.
• Design the study so that it in fact answers the question you're asking. The issue of study design is far too complex to discuss in detail here - a university library will have several shelves of books that deal with that topic - but be aware that a careless study design can yield results that either mean nothing, or that answer a different question from the one you meant to ask.

For example, in studying a group of people, you may find that people who eat a low-fat diet live longer... but people who eat that diet may also exercise more, or take vitamins, or do something else that influences their health. A better-designed study would have at least two groups: one that ate a low-fat diet, and another with a very similar lifestyle (same amount of exercise, vitamins, etc.) that ate differently. A comparison of those groups would give more accurate information than looking at the target group and a random group. Even then, you have to be aware of the difference between correlation and cause and effect. If two factors go together - e.g., low fat diet and longer life - that doesn't necessarily mean that the one causes the other. The cause may in fact be genetic: certain genes might predispose people toward a low fat diet and longer life. Understanding that issues like these can be involved in research will help you prepare for countering opponents and bolstering your own argument.

A badly conceived or badly run study not only will yield no useful information, but can discredit your argument, or even your whole effort. If you're doing a study, and don't have the expertise yourself, then confer with experts, get professional researchers to help you, attach yourself to the coattails of a larger organization - do whatever it takes to make sure that the results of the study are accurate and will be respected.

The investigation of facts, events, etc., where finding information requires some detective work

In an interview, Don Kent, a legendary TV weatherman in Boston, told how he differed from others in the early TV days. They would check all their devices, call the US Weather Service, and determine that it was sunny, but would rain later that day. Kent would do all that, but then, a minute before the broadcast, he'd stick his head out the window, come on TV, and say, "It's raining hard in Boston at the moment, and it should continue into the evening." As a result, viewers trusted his weather forecasts.

For the most part, that's the kind of detective work we're talking about here. Do you want to know what the physical conditions in that housing project are really like? Go down there and look for yourself. Talk to tenants, walk around, and take notes or pictures, or both.

Don't rely on your media "experience" alone. We've become used to thinking we know what other neighborhoods or other places are like, but what TV - even TV news - or movies show us may be far from reality. Especially if you're gathering information to use as a base for advocacy, the best way to understand conditions is to explore them yourself: go there physically and observe first-hand.

Detective work may also involve sifting through documents of some sort. The real Erin Brockovich, whose story was told in the movie of the same name, went through water department records and other documents, looking for water quality ratings and for the chemical substances found in the water that people in Hinkley, CA, were drinking. Her detective work called for enormous attention to detail and amazing patience; but it paid off in the evidence that led to a huge settlement for people who'd been sickened and otherwise injured by the tainted water.

In movies, TV, and books sleuthing always sounds romantic, and always makes everything fit together neatly at the end. (One of the good things about the movie Erin Brockovich is that it didn't romanticize the detailed and painstaking nature of the work Brockovich did.) In reality, searching for evidence is usually tedious, seems to take forever, and often yields no information at all. It may mean combing through thousands of pages of public records, or sitting in one place for days watching an outflow pipe. That happy coincidence that so often leads to evidence on-screen or in the pages of the latest crime novel rarely occurs in real life.

Also contrary to TV and movie images, it's unlikely that anyone will try to harm you physically, or even to discredit you, if you investigate something. The greater hazards are that your search may take far longer than you thought, that no one will answer your questions, and that most of the process will be boring and frustrating. It takes persistence and concentration on your goal to carry out a successful investigation.

The search for stories and anecdotes to illustrate your issue

An important part of an advocacy effort can be the first-person stories of people actually involved in or affected by the issue at hand. Legislators, juries, and the public are often more easily swayed by stories they can identify with than by statistics or warnings, no matter how telling. Thus, finding people with compelling stories who are willing to tell them (and who can do so simply and powerfully) may be a crucial piece of advocacy research.

If you don't work with people who might be likely candidates, then it's best to confer with those who do - line staff, agency directors, volunteers, and others who have direct contact with those affected. They'll know whose stories are gripping, and who can pull an audience into understanding.

If the issue is not one where health or human service staff are likely to have contact with those affected, you have to use other networks to find appropriate stories. Personal acquaintances, key people in the target community, and other community activists may all be good sources.

In Summary

Effective advocacy requires research. Learning all you can about your issue allows you to back up your statements with facts and statistics, and arms you against the arguments of your opponents. It gives you credibility, and establishes you as the expert on the subject. When your advocacy is adversarial - aiming to prove harmful action on the part of a polluter and stop it, for instance - careful research helps you to prove your case, and to know how to change the situation once you've done so. In short, research is indispensable to successful advocacy.

Research is especially helpful in certain situations:

• When you're trying to get legislation passed, or put new policies in place
• When you want to make the community aware of an issue
• When necessary services or innocent groups of people are under attack
• When officials are corrupt
• When the government or others are lying to the public
• When you're trying to prevent harm to the public
• When you want to further the public interest

Research takes a number of different forms, from "academic" - involving finding information from published or original-source material available in libraries and archives, on the Internet, or in other, publicly-accessible places - to talking to people, to conducting surveys and studies, to engaging in real detective work.

Regardless of the type or types of research you do, however, there are some general guidelines:

• Ask for help
• Find out if someone else has already done the research, so you won't have to
• Learn the basic information about your issue, and know it cold
• Make a clear decision about what you want to use the information for
• Check everything twice: there are very few absolutely reliable sources
• Be persistent: there's no substitute for keeping at it

If you follow these guidelines, and do the work, your research will stand you in good stead when it comes time to reinforce your passion with evidence. You'll have it at your fingertips.

What do we mean by conducting research?

___You conduct your research by working, in whatever way necessary, to find the information you need to support or strengthen your advocacy

Why should you do advocacy research?

___It gives your advocacy substance

___It gives you new information to help make your case

___It can show you what's most likely to address your issue successfully

___It can provide you with anecdotes and examples to use

___It can confirm what you were already sure of

___It allows you to make cost-benefit arguments

___It gives you credibility

___It can short-circuit the opposition

___It sets you up as the expert on the issue

When should you do advocacy research?

___When you're trying to get legislation passed

___To help you make the community concerned about an issue that needs attention

___When programs, services, or groups of people are under attack

___When you want to expose corrupt officials

___When government or some other entity is lying to the public

___When it's necessary to prevent harm to individuals or the public

___To further the public interest

How do you conduct research?

___You ask for help

___You check to see if someone has already gathered the information you need

___You learn all the necessary basics about your issue, and know them cold

___You determine clearly what you'll use the information for

___You check all your facts carefully

___You're persistent

You know how to do the different kinds of research and how to choose which is appropriate for your circumstances:

___You do "academic" research

___You gain information from conversations and interviews

___You construct and administer surveys

___You design and conduct studies

___You do detective work

___You find people with personal anecdotes and stories to tell

Tool 1: Specific research tips

The first step in research is to find out what sources of information are available. The Internet has vastly increased the amount of information accessible to the average person, and libraries also use the power of computer networks for research. For each area of concern, there are many sources you can use.

Laws and regulations

If you think a law is being broken, it's obviously necessary to know exactly what that law is and what its provisions are. There are several possible places to find state and federal laws.

• Law libraries. Law libraries are generally located in or near county courthouses and in law schools. While many public libraries may have complete copies of the state law code, law librarians are generally more knowledgeable, and can more easily and quickly help you find what you're looking for.
• Sympathetic lawyers and politicians. You may be able to find an attorney willing to research a particular law or legal question for you because he's interested in the issue. By the same token, a simple call to a politician's office may obtain the same result. Your elected representative may ask an aide to help you find the appropriate material as a form of constituent service.

In either of these cases, you should have a well-defined idea of what you're looking for. You can't expect someone to go through all the state environmental laws, for instance: you have to be able to explain what type of law you think is being violated.

• The Internet. There are several websites with listings of or links to state and federal statutes. There are sites with links to all state law codes. One of the best is the Legal Information Institute of Cornell Law School. It contains all state statutes, searchable by topic, as well as federal laws. Another site for federal laws is the US General Services Administration, searchable in a number of different ways.

Information about the past and current activities of government and corporations

Some of the most prominent websites that track government and corporate documents and activity are the Government Accountability Project, which tries to protect whistleblowers and make sure they're heard, the Congressional Accountability Project, concerned with Congressional ethics reform, the Corporate Accountability Project, keeping watch on multinational corporations, with links to Corporate Watch, a massive data base on corporate activity worldwide, and its sister organization, Corporate Watch USA. The latter three of these websites contain links to corporate filings, where you can find corporate annual reports and other documents.

In addition to these and similar websites, there are also newspaper archives, accessible through newspaper offices and - often - on the web. The New York Times, for instance, offers archived articles (at a small cost) going back five or more years. Newsweek also offers a fee-based archive. Many public and academic libraries subscribe to newspaper and magazine archive services, and you may be able to take advantage of that as a library card holder. State university libraries, particularly, many of which offer library membership to any state resident, have a broad range of research services.

General information

You may need information ranging from the chemical structure of a particular substance to the details of a five-year-old episode of community history. All the sources referred to above - libraries, the Internet, experts, newspaper archives - are useful for general as well as specific information. Your best sources depend on the information you're seeking. If you're looking for the results of scientific studies or the outcome of a high-profile lawsuit, printed sources may be your best bet. (Once again, libraries are good places to start.) If you're looking for evidence of current wrongdoing, it's probably not going to be in print.

Your most important source may be people. You may want to consult an expert to explain, as we've discussed, the ins and outs of a state law or the ecological implications of the use of a weedkiller. If you're looking for community history, you'll certainly want to talk to those who took part in it - probably to people with a variety of perspectives on what happened.

People as information sources have a huge advantage over libraries, printed material, and the Internet: they can answer questions. You can find out exactly what you want to know, although it's important to remember that you're getting the point of view of the person you're talking to. But even given that restriction, you still have an advantage. With many Internet sites, especially, it's difficult to judge the quality and accuracy of the information you're getting. With people, it's often easier to sort out whose information is most nearly accurate.

Another advantage of people as information sources is that they may come to you. A whistleblower, a witness, a friend of a friend who knows something or someone - any of them might come to you, once they hear you're looking for information.

Tool 2: Some sources to use if you have opponents

These sources can provide information about corporations, organizations, groups or individuals.

Corporate registrations

Contains information about the place of business, date of incorporation, nature of the business, and names of directors and officers, as well as some financial information. These are public records, and can be found in the records of the state of incorporation. For more information, see the links to corporate sites in Tool #1.

Uniform Commercial Code (UCC)

The Uniform Commerical Code records whether a company has borrowed against assets other than real estate. This is a great source for learning about creditor relationships. The UCC is federal legislation that is reflected in state laws, and the filings reside with state Secretaries of State. From the same source, the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School, there are links to the specific state laws that reflect various sections of the UCC. You can also find information on the websites of, or by contacting the offices of, the Secretaries of State of individual states. The Texas Secretary of State's website includes a reasonably coherent explanation of where and what companies must file.

Real Estate Records

Real estate records list ownership information, property tax records, and zoning and building information. These records are maintained at the city or county level. From these records, you can find out if your opponent is being undertaxed, or has committed zoning or licensing violations.

Voting records

Registration records, which are public documents available in every community through the Town or City Clerk's office, may show a person's address, telephone number, employer, age, citizenship status, party enrollment, and elections in which the person voted. A local town census may also provide similar information.

Court records

Court records cover criminal and civil cases filed by or against individuals, groups, companies, or government organizations. You may be particularly interested in cases involving bankruptcies, complaints about a business by consumers, claims by one business against another, and government prosecutions of an individual or organization for illegal acts or practices. In addition to information about the specific case, you may glean other information from these documents, available through the appropriate court (state or federal district court, county court, probate court, appeals court, etc. Most of these are available on the Internet, and can easily be found through a web search.)

For example, does a certain person own land? What is it worth? Is it mortgaged, and to whom? (These are probate court issues, and may often be found in the Register of Deeds.) Has the person been sued, sued someone else, been arrested, or been the target of legal judgments?

U.S. agencies

If your opponent is a bank or other type of financial institution, it should be easy to gather information. Various government bodies keep track of these institutions, monitoring their assets and keeping track of whom they lend money to. Here are four U.S. agencies that may have information you can use:

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency

This office collects information on nationally chartered banks, foreign banks with U.S. branches, and bank-holding companies. In order to obtain information from them, send a written request to:

Communications Section
Comptroller of the Currency
490 L'Enfant Plaza East, SW
Washington, D.C. 20219

The Federal Reserve System

This regulates state banks in the federal reserve system, bank-holding companies, and international subsidiaries of U.S. banks.

Federal Reserve System
20th and C Streets, NW
Washington, D.C. 20551

The Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation

The Community Reinvestment Act requires that banks maintain records on bank lending to low-income and minority borrowers. Check with your local financial institutions.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation

The FDIC monitors banks that are not members of the Federal Reserve System. Among other data, they gather information on the bank's condition and income.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
Data Request Section
550 17th Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20429

• What do we mean by conducting studies of the issue?

• Why would you want to conduct studies of the issue?

• How do you conduct studies of the issue?

What do we mean by conducting studies of the issue?

A study is the process of gathering information for a specific purpose. Studying the advocacy issue is similar to studies you may have done to help you understand the problem when you began your campaign. They go beyond this however. You want to study the issue as fully as possible and identify opinions, facts, and information about historical events that can be used to help you choose your tactics.

Why would you want to conduct studies of the issue?

You and your group have probably already done some broad research when you were learning about the problem. So why would you want to do any more research?

Here are some good reasons to conduct studies of the issue:

• With extensive knowledge about the issue, it will be easier to identify your options, opponents, and allies
• It will help group members get involved in the issue and doing something important
• It will help strengthen your group's resolve
• It will increase your group's credibility
• With specific knowledge, you can present your arguments more forcefully and effectively
• Both doing and communicating the results of well-rounded studies will increase your likelihood of success

How do you conduct studies of the issue?

There are a number of ways you and your group can conduct studies of your issue. The two main approaches are to use existing data and to generate your own data. In most cases, you and your group will do a little of both--gather all the information you can on you issue from existing sources, then conduct your own studies to collect information on your issue that was not available.

Documenting the issue using existing data

As we've said before, there's no reason to make any more work for yourselves than is necessary. Conducting studies of the issue is one area where you and your group may find that some of your work has already been done for you. There's plenty of studies that have already been done on a variety of issues, so in many cases you and your group just have to determine were the information you need on your issue is located.

What kind of organizations may have the information you are looking for? Well, ask yourselves the following questions:

• Who "sells" your community?
• Who does business in your community?
• Who serves your community?
• Who has already stated a particular concern about an issue in your community?
• Who is studying or has studied you community in the past?

What other communities have done

You or someone in your group may have already heard about an advocacy group in a neighboring community that had a problem with one of their major industries dumping untreated waste into the river. Now a similar problem seems to be developing with a pet food processing plant in your community. One of the first steps you and your advocacy group should do is find out; "What did they do about it?" Many times, someone in another community is dealing with or has already dealt with your issue in the past. You and your group can ask these people what they did in their advocacy campaign and how they did it. You can find out what was most effective, what did not work, and possibly what went wrong with the things that didn't work. Most people willing to share all this information. After all, the issue is important to them - and who knows? - next time it could be them asking you and your group for information.

More potential sources of information about your issue

• The local media - the library will have many current subscriptions and files of major newspapers, magazines, etc. Special reports published by periodicals are one example of a valuable resource for information about the background of your issue. They may treat an aspect of your community in depth, such as an influential leader or some major economic force that affects your community
• Issue papers, study reports, annual reports - these are special reports issued by groups such as public interest groups, business organizations, social services, and others that are released to the public. Who publishes the report depends on the nature of the information you are looking for. For example, The Sierra Club would produce such reports on environmental issues, while banks or development corporations might have economic profiles of your community
• Existing surveys - local and state government organizations usually have a wide variety of survey data available. Some of this is available in larger city or university libraries. You may be able to obtain other data by calling the people who are responsible for conducting the surveys.
• Archival records - these also contain many government and private records of information. The agency that collects the information usually keeps it in storage for a number of years after they use the information

Generating New Data

Once you and your group have gathered all the information you can about the issue from existing sources, you may want to get some more specific information about various aspects of you and your group's issue. You may not find everything you need to know about your advocacy issue from existing sources.

You and your group may want to try the following techniques for studying your issue:

• Community leader survey - an interview or a survey with leaders in your community can provide valuable insight into you and your group's advocacy issue. Community leaders help shape the opinion of, and have influence over, community members. They can provide you with information that you might not otherwise be able to obtain. Thus, it's a good idea to involve leaders who may not only have information themselves but have contact with other people who may have insights into the community.
• Community opinion survey - this can be a standard mailed or telephone survey conducted by your group on the issue. This method can provide your group with a large amount of information about your issue with little expense in time or money.
• Personal interviews - generally, the personal interview will provide your group with high quality and highly detailed information about the issue. They also require more time and money to conduct the interview and analyze the results.
• Focus Groups - a focus group is a moderator led small group discussion conducted for the purpose of data collection. Members of the group are selected based on their representativeness of your community. The moderator keeps the discussion on track and makes sure all members have a chance to express their opinion.
• Guided discussions - this can be either a face-to-face discussion (ideally) or by telephone with community members. Members of your group should have a set of questions to guide the discussion, but the idea is to let the conversation flow naturally on the issue you are studying.

Guidelines for collecting data

One important thing in the collecting of data that you must keep in mind is that you should be extremely careful about the source of any facts and figures you use. You will probably be up against very well-informed and well-financed opponents. If there's anything wrong with your facts and statistics, you can be sure they will find it out.

As you begin gathering information, keep in mind these guidelines from the Children's Defense Fund:

• Use data from official sources only. For example - The local board of education, the U.S. Census Bureau, or other government agencies; trade or professional organizations. Take figures from other advocacy agencies and never from the media.
• Check your numbers, then check them again. It only takes one error to give your opponents permission to throw your entire argument out of the window and undercut the credibility of your whole organization.
• If possible, don't rely on outside "experts" to analyze data. The most polished report isn't going to do you much good if you can't explain where the figures all came from or what they mean. If you need to hire someone (for example, from a local college), make sure you understand what's being done every step of the way.
• Keep figures simple. Most people will understand rates and percentages. Anything more complicated is likely to make the general audience glaze over or turn the page. Of course, if you're making a presentation to experts, you can be as complicated as you like -- as long as you understand what you are saying.
• Try to show change over time. If your issue involves keeping track of factors that change (like increased pollution, homelessness), use as many points in time as possible, over a period of years. A good suggestion is at least two points in time separated by at least five years.
• Use the most recent data you can get. You're not going to make impression if you come up with a dramatic reading based on figures from eight years ago. If you can't get current figures, and the ones you use are more than one or two years old, be sure to identify them as "the most recent data available."
• Always try to use data that show how some intervention will make a difference. If things look hopeless, you're not likely to get people galvanized into action. Try to emphasize the fact that improvements can be achieved. This is one case where it's useful to borrow examples of successful programs from other communities or organizations.

Other tips for gathering your own data:

• Don't get too ambitious. Reliable, limited data is much better than sweeping statements you can't quite back up.
• If doing a survey, get help from someone with statistical savvy - a graduate student from the sociology department of your local college or university.
• Use graphs. They can make your case stronger, but need to be used with care.
• Use real life. Always try to give your case a human face. As politicians know, a good anecdote is worth a ton of data.

In Summary

So now you're prepared to start conducting studies of the issue. Remember to check and double check when your work is done, and never use a fact or figure that hasn't been checked and re-checked. Far better to use no figures at all than to present some that can be shot down in minutes.

___You know what it means to conduct studies of the issue

___You know why you would want to conduct studies of the issue

___You know how to conduct studies of the issue

___You know how to document the issue using existing data

___You understand what other communities have done

___You know how to generate new data

___You know the guidelines for collecting data

Example: Interview with Catie Heaven

Catie Heaven is proficient in the art of conducting studies on issues. When she worked for the Work Group on Health Promotion and Community Development at the University of Kansas, she was involved in a project called "Girls to Women," during whichshe conducted interviews with dozens of seventh and eighth grade girls. Her new project is a child care analysis that includes a survey on about 600 students in a quantitative/qualitative forum. Here she comments on her experience conducting surveys.

"Do you know how hard it is to get a hold of thirty thirteen-year-old girls?" Catie asks, referring to her survey effort in the "Girls to Women" project. "Getting a hold of everyone was the most difficult thing. The time window wasn't very wide, so getting everything done on time was also difficult. But it all worked out. I think overall we found that the "Girls to Women" program was very successful. It's very good for the students. For me it was a great experience because it was the first time I interviewed a large number of people."

Catie thinks that conducting surveys is important because it provides an opportunity to select her goals. "A well-rounded study is well-researched," she says. "That's the first crucial issue: What you want to ask about? The next component is having carefully worded questions. The way you word a question dramatically impacts the outcome you receive when you ask that question. So, you bounce the questions off of a few people and make sure that they are asking what you want them to ask and that people perceive what you would like to know through the question. The third important component of a good survey is that it reflect different members of the community, so you can say with assurance that the results that you get don't reply only to one specific population, but to the community as a whole."

Catie said that she tries to make her sources as diverse as possible, but each source had its own advantages. "I think official sources are important if you want to generate community action from it. If you have official sources on the data, it lends credibility to your study and that's one component of a good study. Then the other component would be public opinion. We are increasingly relying on public opinion for our public policy, for community actions. And so it is important to have the survey of a lot of individuals in the community."

"Every study is difficult to conduct", Catie said, "because it is hard to get a large number of people willing to sit down and talk to you for 30 or 45 minutes about an issue. It may be even more of a problem if the issue is sensitive, such as dealing with teen pregnancy in schools. "Sometimes doing a survey or study on that is difficult because of all the issues that surround it, like the religious issues, political issues. You might have the students in class saying what they think you want to hear when you interview them and then parents denying things that they know about their children because they don't want you to think poorly of their parenting skills on either end. So, I think the more controversial the issue, the more difficult it is to study."

Once the study is ready, presentation becomes the most important issue. Catie believes that it's hard to present results well using simply one format. "I know that a lot of academics use journal article in order to present their findings and that is very useful when it comes to the global community and getting your outcomes well known. But I think that a combination of a published article and giving speeches on the subject, specifically to the people that you have worked with, is very effective. When you do a survey or a study, everyone gets involved with it and they want to know what are the results going to be. It's good to present to the people that you worked with and also to have a written format for everyone to access.

"I think gathering data for your organization is a great idea because it helps you in two ways," Catie suggests. "In one way, it helps you get the information out. In other words, every time you survey a person, they find out about your organization and about what you are doing, so it's a great way to advertise what you are doing. And on the other hand, you also get a feel for what the community is doing. A lot of the times we have programs that fail, not because they weren't good ideas, but because they were misplaced. In other words, people didn't exactly need what the organization was offering. It is a good thing to do resource match-ups. The only pitfall probably would be when people focus too much for community organizing."

"Whenever you do survey the best thing to do is to start off with is what information is available in the community and in the library already." Catie suggests the one should ask around to find out what's going on in the community, what are the issues. From there one can decide what questions need to be asked to further the knowledge of that particular study. "Just don't sit and wait", Catie said. "Sometimes, just getting yourself out there and doing the best you can with the survey is a good thing to do, and you can increase your data and expertise each time that you do a study."

• What does it mean to gather data on public opinion?

• Why do you want to know what people think?

• What kind of information are you looking for?

• Whose opinions are you trying to measure?

• What are you going to do with the information?

• How do you gather data on public opinion?

What does it mean to gather data on public opinion?

Are you sure you want to find out what people think? Of course you do. Finding out what people think about a particular issue, topic, or organization is an important step in better serving the public, or at the very least finding ways to improve the way issues or organizations are seen in their eyes.

The role of public opinion is crucial in a democracy. Leaders rise and fall on public opinion. It doesn't really matter if elected officials are the "best choices" as long as citizens think they are. There are many things that effect public opinion, although that is not the focus of this section. Our focus will be on the why's and how's of gathering information on opinions.

Knowing what people think about your organization or initiative is crucial to the success you will have. In order to know what people think about something, it is necessary to gather information about their opinions. This section will attempt to show you how to do so.

Gathering information on opinions is the process of finding out where people stand on a particular subject. This is done in a number of ways, and some issues require different ways of gathering that information than others.

Just deciding to gather information on opinions regarding your issue or initiative is a step in the right direction. But before you act, there are some questions that you may want to ask yourself. Your answers to these questions will be the building blocks for your information gathering.

• Why do you want to know what people think?
• What kind of information are you looking for?
• Whose opinions are you trying to measure?
• What are you going to do with the information, once you get it?
• How do you gather information on opinions?
• What are some obstacles you may encounter? And how do you get around them?

For example, your neighborhood organization thinks that there needs to be a new soccer field built for the kids in your neighborhood. It sounds like a very reasonable idea, but soccer fields are expensive and city hall is not necessarily going to act on the suggestion of a handful of residents. This is especially true when those residents do not necessarily represent the diverse community of the neighborhood in which they live. Why should city hall believe your neighborhood organization speaks for the entire neighborhood community?

City Hall may ask you to prove it or at least back it up. In this case you'll want to know if the rest of your neighborhood is behind the idea. If they are, you'll have a better chance of building community support for the initiative. City hall will take your requests more seriously.

A good strategy in this case would be to first find out if there had ever been any other initiatives like yours in your neighborhood, or elsewhere in the city for that matter. You'll also want to see the outcome of those initiatives. You need to find out the opinions of those who live in your neighborhood as well as the opinions of the city officials that will be making the decisions that affect your initiative's success or failure.

Once you decide why you want the information, what kind of information you're looking for, and whose opinions you're looking for, you can begin deciding what you will do when you get it. It is then that you should decide how you are going to get the information. And then try to foresee obstacles and sidestep them.

Let's come back to the key questions above and go through them one at a time.

Why do you want to know what people think?

Are you just seeking knowledge, or do you have a specific purpose in mind? Advertisers gather information on public opinion to see if their advertising is working. If it isn't, they try different strategies. Politicians running for office poll the public to see how they're doing. When the polls show them ahead, they continue what they’ve been doing; when the polls say they’re behind, they, too, try new strategies.

Just like advertisers and politicians you can use public opinion to your benefit. But you can't use it unless you know what it is. There are several reasons you may want to gather information on public opinion.

Are you trying to:

• Get public support for your organization or initiative?
• Find out what people think about a controversial program that is already in effect?
• Win an election?
• Sell a product?
• Start a new organization?
• Raise money?
• Determine if a program is working?
• Determine if tenth graders need more geography in their curriculum?
• Assess community needs or assets?

There are many other reasons why you might be seeking information about what the community thinks, but the important one is the one that describes your particular need.

Once you have figured out your reason... Write it down! This may sound silly, but writing things down is very important; you don't want to waste time trying to remember what you’ve already decided. If you write down the answers to questions as you go, you will save time and trouble.

What kind of information are you looking for?

Naturally, this will depend on your reason for gathering information in the first place. Nonetheless, it is important to clearly articulate what you are looking for. It will make your life much easier when you finally get down to the information gathering stage.

Basically, what do you want to know? Do you want to know what people think of your organization or initiative? Or maybe you’d like to find out if people are even aware of its existence. Your curiosity may be very general or very specific or somewhere in between.

You could be trying to gather information about something as broad as whether or not the general public is aware of the dangers of HIV/AIDS; something less broad, such as whether or not Kenyans feel there should be AIDS education in the public schools; or something more specific, such as whether parents of students in a particular high school are in favor of condoms being available to their children. In any of these cases, the information you want is the information that tells you how people feel about the issue you’re concerned with.

You’ll want to know not only whether people are in favor of your initiative or organization, but whether they’re neutral toward it or opposed to it.  Knowing that most community members oppose your initiative or issue is at least as helpful as knowing that they favor it. People can be swayed, and knowing how they feel is very helpful.  It tells you where you have to start – raising public awareness of the existence of the issue, perhaps, or education about its impact or importance – in order to bring the public to the point of support.  Gathering information can be a tool for learning how to approach the community.

You should be most cautious when you discover that public opinion is neutral about your initiative. (Think about the fact that the outcomes of many democratic elections hinge on the opinions of undecided voters.) Although neutral public opinion suggests that there is not a lot of support either for or against your initiative, it may be hard to tell which way public opinion will go once you start introducing your program. You have to prepare the community carefully, so that by the time you actually start your action plan, the public is at least willing to give it a chance, if not actively behind you.

Whose opinions are you trying to measure?

Do you want to know what the average Joe thinks about your initiative, or do you have a more specific target population in mind? The scope of whose opinions you are trying to measure may also vary from very general to very specific.

For example:

• If you are one of the president's advisors just before an election you may wish to know how the public feels the president is doing
• If you are looking for city funding for a new park you may want to find out how your community feels, but also how the city counselors feel about funding new parks
• If you are thinking of starting up an English literacy program for Latinos in your community to be held on Sundays, you may want to find out how the Latino community feels about English literacy programs and meeting on Sundays

In addition you may find it necessary to gather information on the opinions of specific groups such as leaders, experts in a field, men, women, minorities, residents in a specific area, age, socioeconomic group, or occupation.

For instance, if you are thinking of seeing a movie, do you check what movies the nine-year-olds are raving about? Of course not; you check what the experts are saying (movie critics), and ask your friends what they thought of the movies you’re interested in.  If you are not careful about whose opinions you are listening to, you may end up seeing more movies about extremely large turtles with exceptional verbal and martial arts abilities, and fewer movies like Casablanca.

What are you going to do with the information, once you get it?

So you've got the information you wanted. Now what?

Getting the information is a large part of the battle, but it's not everything. To have gotten this far, you have already shown that you know why you wanted the information, what kind of information you're looking for, and who you want it from. Now what are you going to do?

• You could use the information to develop strategies to build public support for your initiative
  • Information on opinions can form the basis of press releases, commercials, etc.
  • When properly presented information on opinions can keep issues on community agendas
  • Public opinion can reinforce the views of your supporters and weaken those of your opponents
• You may have been mandated by a funding source to measure public opinion of your organization/initiative to receive continued funding. Or maybe you're seeking funding and felt that conducting a needs assessment based was the best way to show that people in your community feel that there is a need for the services your organization/initiative provides.
• You may have just been curious and not have had any plans to do anything. If the opinions are supportive you may pat yourself and your initiative on the back, and if they're not you may just sigh and say "oh well." But then why would you have wasted all your time and effort gathering information you were not planning to use?

Remember: Have a clear idea of how you will use the information before you bother getting it. Gathering information on public opinion is only helpful if you use it.

The Anystate Public Schools District is considering changing its curriculum so it is doing a "needs assessment" within the schools. The Anystate School District may want to find out not only what the children need but what their parents feel they need.

Suppose the suggested new curriculum included studying geography, a subject that had never been taught in the Anystate Public School District. It would be helpful to try to determine if parents feel their children should be studying geography. They might feel, for instance, that it is unnecessary and it takes away too much time from instruction in reading and math.

The needs of the children, in this case, would be easy to measure. The children could be given tests in geography. If a large percentage of children could barely locate the continents, let alone identify all the countries of South America or Europe, it may become clear that children in the Anystate School District would benefit from geography classes.

Differences in how parents perceive their children's geographical knowledge and their actual knowledge could be compared, and this information would be helpful in educating parents as to the need for such curriculum changes.

How do you gather data on public opinion?

Where should you look first? Good question. Remember, you are trying to make your life as easy as possible while gathering as much good information as possible.

Look at existing sources

Once you have a pretty good idea about what you are talking about and what you are looking for you will want to start collecting information. You should start looking to see if anyone has tried to do whatever you are trying to do in the past. The exact information you are looking for may be just sitting there waiting for you in a neat package. Government media archives and files, the records of other local organizations, national or local polls – all of these may contain some of the information on public opinion that you’re looking for.

Without such luck you will want to ask around.

Whom should you ask about public opinion?

You will probably have the most luck asking government agencies and non-profit groups. When you contact those agencies, remember to be friendly and patient on the phone. You are the one looking for information. A friendly attitude will usually get you either the information you are looking for, or at least a contact name or transfer over to someone who can help you. A poor phone attitude will probably not get you anything other than frustration.

Private for-profit companies may be less willing to help out, although you never know unless you ask. The same phone friendliness applies.

You may want to check out sources such as:

• Government, universities, planning and marketing companies
• Community service organizations like the United Way
• Public interest organizations (such as environmental or business groups, consumer advocates and anti-crime organizations)
• The Internet – the Internet is full of information - just be careful to make sure the sources of information are credible.

You may also want to get the opinions of leaders and specialists in your community as well as the general public.

It is always a good idea to check with journalists that may share an interest in your issue, or large service agencies, universities, and foundations. Someone is bound to know of on-going public opinion research relating to your issue if any is occurring. Checking the local or community newspaper can often give you a good sense of how the local population feels about something, just from the tone of stories and editorials, or from quoted comments.

Leaders in your community:

• Action leaders may help you get other people in the community to do things
• Opinion leaders can help shape the views of others in the community
• Representative leaders such as elected officials represent your community to the outside world

Specialists in your community have specific knowledge about your issue:

• If you really want to know how serious the AIDS problem is in the United States and the rest of the world you might ask the the National Institutes of Health or the World Health Organization

The general public:

• If you want to know how the general public perceives the problem you would just ask the average person on the street. Whether or not their views on the subject are accurate, their opinions are still important. Policy is often made when politicians listen to the views of their constituents rather than those that know how some things truly work.

By cross-checking the opinions of the experts and those of the general public you will be able to see where great divides in knowledge about an issue exist. For example, a city may institute meningitis screening for students in its school system if a case is discovered. This may be done for all the children, even though many of the students may have had virtually no contact with the affected child, and health experts explain that there is no danger. The worry of the parents may cause the school system to act regardless of what health experts have to say.

In Summary

Anticipate obstacles that may occur. Things don't usually run perfectly, and anything can and sometimes does happen. Be prepared to overcome possible obstacles. A hurdler doesn't worry about tripping over hurdles; he or she hurdles them. You must be prepared to also. Though, once again, it will help if you have a plan.

___You know what gathering information on opinion is

___You know why you want to know what people think

___You know what kind of information you are looking for

___You know whose opinions you are trying to measure

___You know what you are going to do with the information, once you get it

___You know how do you gather information on opinions

___You now you may encounter some obstacles, and you know how to get around them

Example 1: What you should ask yourself

George took on the challenge of doing a citizen satisfaction survey so he could see how well his new division at city hall was doing. He asked himself some important questions:

Why do I want to know what people think?

George thought long and hard. Finally he just realized that it was important for him and the rest of his new division to see how well they were doing. Were the citizens of the city happy about the services the new division provided?

What kind of information am I looking for?

This made George really think. Of course he wanted to see how people felt, but what kind of information was he really looking for? Good information may be a cause for celebration, but somewhat negative information may point out some potential areas in the division that require some improvement.

Whose opinions am I trying to measure?

This question was easy. George knew that he wanted to know the opinion of every citizen in the city that used the services of his division-and that was everybody. George knew that there would be a few difficulties in getting what he wanted. Since his city was very diverse, with a population speaking several languages, George knew that he had to either have translation services available or miss out on gathering information from non-English speaking members of the community. This was especially important because he hadn't yet figured out how to implement the survey yet. There was no set budget allocated for the survey yet.

He hadn't yet chosen a method. Face-to-face interviews would be expensive and time -consuming and would require a lot of people power. Mailed questionnaires would cost as much as the stamps involved and the paper.

George knew he couldn't forget about translation services. Face-to-face or telephone surveys would require having several volunteers or paid staff that could speak the diverse languages of many members of the community. A mailed survey would require the initial translation services as well as translation services in the analysis phase of the survey project. Also, George knew that translating the survey into 7 languages would drive up the costs of the paper and the postage. And he knew mailed surveys should be sent more than once, with a reminder post card or phone call.

By now George was feeling a little overwhelmed, but he just thought of all the good that knowing how the people really felt would do his department. He knew that the survey was the best way to find out what his division really needed to do to improve things. He was determined to find out what people thought.

What am I going to do with the information, once I get it?

George knew the answer to this question. His proposal to do a citizen satisfaction survey was not merely lip service. George was dedicated to the idea of actually improving things for the people of his city. The main goal of this survey was to find out where his division needed to improve. After finding out, he intended on working to improve it.

How do I gather information on opinions?

After mulling it over and speaking with his bosses, George decided that a mailed survey would be the best route to take. He figured that he would have the best chances of getting a representative sample of people in the city if all the surveys were mailed out to everyone in 7 languages.

He knew the answers would be anonymous, which was important for many of the refugees living in the city who came from countries in which giving their opinions to government officials was not a good idea.

Also, George's staff and budget was small and he only had a few volunteers to work with him. They would be able to mail out all the surveys with little effort.

Also another benefit of mailing out questionnaires was that the closed questions could be statistically analyzed with little effort.

What are some obstacles I may encounter? And how do I get around them?

George's biggest worry other than getting the approval of his boss to actually do the survey was the response rate. He had spoken to a city official in another city that had done a citizen survey and had received only a 12 percent return rate. Also, that city official was happy and damn proud of it.

George hoped that a representative sample would return his survey to him, but most importantly he hoped to get some good information about the good things his division was doing and a feel for what needs improvement.

Example 2: Report of an opinion poll

This is a sample report from an opinion poll, taken from public opinion surveys on child passenger safety legislation.

Citizen Opinion Report on Child Safety Legislation

The issue of the safety of child passengers in automobiles has been growing in recent years. Prior action toward the issue has been weak, providing for only oral warnings and/or information about child passenger safety.

A survey of the attitudes of Kansas citizens about child safety restraints and the Child Passenger Safety Act was conducted by random telephone survey

The results indicated overall:

• 73% of respondents support a law requiring proper use of safety restraints for all children under age five

This can be further broken down into:

• 25% were very willing to support the proposed law
• 48% were willing to support the proposed law
• 12% were neither willing nor unwilling to support the proposed law
• 9% were unwilling to support the proposed law
• 4% were very unwilling to support the proposed law
• 2% did not know

Of the 27% who opposed the proposed legislation:

• 68% felt there was already too much government interference in their lives
• 55% felt the law was impractical
• 45% felt the law unfairly burdens poor families and those with too many children

Tool: Opinion Poll

Here's a general poll about local issues in a community that you can use when gathering information on opinions.

Instructions: Please complete the following survey and return in the enclosed postage -paid envelope. All answers will be kept confidential and will be used for statistical purpose only.

1. Generally speaking, what do you think is the most important problem facing our state today?

___Economy (go to 2)

___Agriculture (go to 4)

___Environment (go to 4)

___Don't know (go to 4)

___Other - specify __________(go to 4)

2. If your answer was ECONOMY for the above question, then what part of the economy do you think is the biggest part of the for us now?

___Unemployment

___Interest rates

___Taxation

___Budget deficit

___Inflation

___Other - specify__________

___Don't know

3. In general, how good a job would you say the local legislature is doing in solving your economic problems?

___Excellent

___Good

___Fair

___Poor

4. How do you feel about an income tax break for school tuition? This would be a tax break for parents who send their children to private or parochial schools must pay tuition.

___Favor (go to 5)

___Oppose (go to 6)

___Don't know (go to 6)

5. Would you favor an income tax break for tuition even if it reduced the money available for public schools?

___Yes

___No

___Don't know

6. Some people think current environmental policy hinders the community's economic growth. Others do not think so. Do you think current environmental policy hinders economic growth?

___Hinders growth a great deal

___Somewhat hinders growth

___Has no effect

___Helps growth somewhat

___Helps growth a great deal

___Don't know

7. One issue of current concern is the new wastewater disposal policy under consideration by the Legislature. How concerned about this issue are you?

___Greatly concerned

___Moderately concerned

___Slightly concerned

___Not concerned at all

___Don't know

8. Regardless of how you may vote in the upcoming election, do you generally consider yourself to be a Democrat, Republican or Independent?

___Independent (go to 9)

___Democrat (go to 10)

___Republican (go to 10)

___Don't know (go to 10)

9. Do you generally consider yourself to be closer to the Democratic or Republican parties?

___Democratic

___Republican

___Neither

___Still don't know

10. When it comes to receiving information on local current events, which information source do you rely the most? (choose only ONE)

___Television

___Newspaper

___Radio

___Other - specify __________

11. What is the highest level of education you have completed?

___Some high school

___High school diploma or GED

___Some college

___Bachelor's Degree

___Other - specify __________

12. What year were you born? __________

13. What was your reported income year, before taxes?

___Under $25,000

___Between $25,000 and $40,000

___Over $40,000

• What does it mean to study your opponents?

• What will you gain from studying your opponents?

• When should you study your opponents?

• How should you study your opponents?

• How far should you go?

What does it mean to study your opponents?

Most advocacy campaigns meet with some opposition, and part of the planning process involves identifying the particular opponent that you will be taking on, and the type of resistance this opponent is likely to put up. This section of the Tool Box will help you to study your opponents in more detail and put your knowledge to good use.

Of course, not every community issue will have opponents. If you want to train new parents, or keep the library open on Saturdays, or put town government meetings on cable television, you may not have opponents at all. But if you are for (or against) a school bond issue, or against (or for) a commercial development, or if you take a position on a controversial issue of the day such as gun control, the death penalty, or abortion, then, almost always, some people will oppose you. Those people may be at least as powerful as you. And in those cases, gathering information about your opponents can help determine your group's strategy and tactics.

If you are running a full-fledged campaign that fits within the definition of advocacy, an opponent is probably part of the mix. You'll be trying to get a larger agency or institution to do something that it probably does not want to do. And this body (plus its supporters) is your opponent.

Who are your opponents?

In many cases, the identity of your opponents will be crystal clear. They are the reason you started this campaign in the first place. In other cases, you may find that some agencies or groups which seem at first sight to be opposed to you are either not really opposed, or are easy to win round. It's important to remember that, on many issues, there is likely to be a spectrum of opinion – people will support or oppose the issue in varying degrees. It's helpful here to be aware of the full spectrum, to see the whole landscape of community opinion, to know who stands where.

But let's suppose that you have a clearly defined opponent--and let's look at the advantages of a little research.

What will you gain from studying your opponents?

Studying your opponents can give you the following benefits:

• It will give you up to date knowledge of the opponent's positions on the issue
• You will know why the opponent is taking those positions - what he, she, they or it can gain from taking the line that they are
• You will learn about strategies and tactics they have used in the past, and this knowledge can help you plan your own tactics and strategies
• It can tell you where your opponents are vulnerable - and, perhaps more important, where you’re vulnerable to them
• It will force you to refine your arguments, your message, and your strategy in order to put yourself in the strongest possible position
• It will help you identify the moral and ethical high ground - if there is one: both sides could be engaged in something that each believes is in the best interests of all - and to occupy it

How can you use this knowledge?

There are a number of immediate advantages:

• You may be able to identify potential problems earlier on, and sort them out before they become bigger problems. For example, let's look at drug use. It can begin as a small problem among a few friends. This can escalate to a large drug abuse problem through peer pressure and lack of education.
• You may find that you and your opponent have at least some things in common and that you can use this common ground as the basis for negotiations. Who knows - you might actually be able to collaborate on common goals.
• You can use your knowledge of what makes the opponent tick to develop more effective counter-arguments, as well as more successful strategies and tactics.

When should you study your opponents?

Unless you and your group are planning a quick-hit advocacy campaign and don't plan on doing anything more about the issue, you will probably want to conduct at least some study of your opponents near the beginning of the campaign. After all, your whole strategy may depend on knowing:

• Why the opponent takes this line
• What the realistic alternatives are
• How likely the opponent is to negotiate

And so on.

Remember: Studying your opponents is not a one-time deal – it's an ongoing process. Your opponents, and the nature of their opposition, are likely to change over time; your response may need to change as well.

How should you study your opponents?

If you have the resources, an in-depth investigation will have the most value. But even informal investigation can help, as you'll see just below.

Informal methods

In general, it is a good idea to keep your eyes and ears open. Start by looking at your opponent's previous activities and campaigns. Read their in-house publications and annual reports. Talk to organizations who have dealt with your opponents in the past. Read the newspaper regularly. Seek out other people in the community who are or have been close to your opponents – they may have a pretty good idea of what your opponents may be up to.

If your main opponents are individuals, you can come up with these (and other) facts:

• Where do your opponents work?
• Where do your opponents live?
• What clubs and associations to they belong to?
• What boards of directors are they members of?
• Where do they do their banking?
• Who gives them legal, political, and other advice?

If your main opponents are agencies, companies or organizations, you can dig up this type of information:

• What have your opponents done in the past?
• What are their favorite tactics?
• What are their resources?
• What are their strengths and weaknesses?
• Who are their principal decision makers?
• Why are they opposing you?
• What power do they have?
• What other organizations and sectors of the community do they have strong connections to?   Who are their active allies?  Whom do they influence?

If you can't get answers to questions like these by checking around town informally – and checking a few directories – you may need a more formal method of inquiry.

Formal methods: the tactical investigation

A tactical investigation is more elaborate and time-consuming than the informal methods mentioned above. It's not for casual use. Instead, it's best suited for situations in which you have powerful opponents who are heavily invested in positions opposite to your own, and who are willing and able to act forcefully against your deepest beliefs.

A tactical investigation can help you and your group identify weaknesses of your opponent, which you can then exploit to your advantage. So they want to play hardball? You may decide you want to play hardball, too.

Here are four steps that will show you how:

Develop an investigation plan

You don't have to be an expert to conduct your tactical investigation. However, you do need a plan to tell you specifically what to look for. Your investigation plan should answer the following questions:

• What are you trying to accomplish?
• What information are you looking for?
• Where can you find it?
• What is the timeline for each phase of the investigation?

When you can answer these questions, you still have to find the information, which can be a big job in itself. But you'll know where to start.

Here's a worksheet that might help you, complete with a sample case.

In order to	We need:	Where to look?	When?
Discredit state environmental commissioner	Evidence he lied, mishandled funds, failed to enforce regulations, or issued inaccurate reports	Newspapers Disaffected former employees	By August

 

Gathering the information

With your investigation plan complete, you and your group are ready to start gathering information and evidence. It can seem like a lot of work, but remember: Somebody somewhere has probably already found out everything you need to know. You just need to locate the information.

If the information has not yet been made public in any of the usual sources, you may be able to assign someone to dig it up. College professors may assign the task to students; journalists may be interested; or large service agencies may be willing to look up the facts for you.

The following tips will help simplify your information gathering:

Find helpful friends.

You may find allies among public officials with an interest in the issue. Although it can be frustrating to work with a bureaucracy, individual public officials are often sincerely committed to solving the problems that face their communities, and can be an excellent resource for your organization. Many librarians and professors are also eager to help. Be polite and persistent and find the best people to work with.

Freedom of information laws, public records, etc.

Laws at the federal level, and in many states give you access to certain information. This information is yours by right, but you have to know specifically what you want and how to go about asking for it. If you need help, your local librarian, town or county clerk, or local legislator might be good places to start. A good place to look for information on the Freedom of Information Act is The National Security Archive: The Freedom of Information Act.

Published sources of information.

There is a wide variety of sources of published information. Depending on what your issue is, and who your opponents are, you can probably dig up useful material from the sources in the following list. You can search through many of these sources in a public library or a college campus, or in the comfort of your own home – you can find most of them on Internet websites.

Don't hesitate to ask for help from librarians or others on how to conduct these searches. If you don’t know how to do computer searches, what better time to learn than now?

Business and trade publications.

You and your group should subscribe to any business and trade publication that run a lot of stories about your interests. Browse through others at the library. Reading them will familiarize you with trends and issues, and will help you identify strategies to deal with the opponent.

Clipping files.

All newspapers keep back copies. Most are on microfilm, and can be found at your local library. (If it's a small-town newspaper, or if the information is very old, a reporter or other staffer friendly to your cause may be able to help you.) Major city newspapers are likely to have bound annual indexes by topic as well. And most newspapers now have web-based databases of their archives, so you can search for a particular topic by keyword from your library or home.

Reference works.

In the U.S., larger libraries may have comprehensive reference books about businesses, such as Funk & Scott's Index of Corporations and Industries, Standard & Poor's Register of Corporations; Directors and Executives; Directory of Corporate Affiliations; and The Thomas Register of American Manufacturers. These directories contain company information such as financial data, products and services, number of employees, and information on directors and executives of the company. Similar but smaller directories may exist with information specifically about businesses in your own state or province.  In addition the website of Rhodes-Blakeman Associates, a UK consulting firm, provides links to registration and financial information for businesses around the world.

Directories.

Directories exist for almost everything. For example, "Who's Who" directories, social registers, and city directories can provide you with a wealth of information, from professional affiliations to people's home addresses.

Government files on businesses.

The Federal government collects data on many companies, but the easiest access to this information is often through state and local agencies. The first step in getting access to these records is finding the agency or official who has the relevant information. For example, The Reporter's Handbook, available in larger libraries, lists contacts for business and financial information. The State Capitol library, and the state website are also helpful places to start looking for the right document or official. Some helpful basic government files on businesses are:

• Corporate registrations contain information about the place of business, date of incorporation, nature of the business, and names of directors and officers, as well as some financial information.
• Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) records whether a company has borrowed against assets other than real estate. This is a great source for learning about creditor relationships.
• Real Estate Records list ownership information, property tax records, and zoning and building information. These records are maintained at the city or county level. From these records, you can find out if your opponent is being undertaxed, or has committed zoning or licensing violations.
• Voting records. Voter registration records may show a person's address, telephone number, employer, age, citizenship status, party enrollment, and elections in which the person voted. A local town census may also provide similar information.
• Court records cover criminal and civil cases filed by or against individuals, groups, companies, or government organizations. You may be particularly interested in cases involving bankruptcies, complaints about a business by consumers, claims by one business against another, and government prosecutions of an individual or organization for illegal acts or practices. In addition to information about the specific case, you may glean other information. For example, does a certain person own land? What is it worth? Is it mortgaged, and to whom? Has the person been sued, sued someone else, been arrested, or been the target of legal judgments?
• Government agencies with records on financial institutions. If your opponent is a bank or other type of financial institution, it should be easy to gather information. Various government bodies keep track of these institutions, monitoring their assets and keeping track of whom they lend money to. There are four agencies that may have information you can use:
  • The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. This office collects information on nationally chartered banks, foreign banks with U.S. branches, and bank-holding companies.
  • The Federal Reserve System. This regulates state banks in the federal reserve system, bank-holding companies, and international subsidiaries of U.S. banks. They can be reached at:
  • The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The FDIC monitors banks that are not members of the Federal Reserve System. Among other data, they gather information on the bank's condition and income.

Think like your opponents

Once you have gathered the information in your tactical investigation, you will be able to put yourself in your opponents' position – to think like them. What will they do in their present situation? And how might they react to different tactics you might try? At this point, you know enough about the histories, habits, and interests of your opponents to make a very educated guess; and this can help you immeasurably in planning and carrying out your advocacy work.

For example, in the book Organizing, Si Kahn writes, "For a few hours, the leaders of our organization become the board of Realtors of our city. Instead of talking about how to build people's power, we talk about how to destroy the community organizations that are opposing us and how to get our platform adopted by the city council. Working with this group, we go through the process of making strategy as best we can – for the other side... For some reason, it seems easiest to anticipate what the other side would do when we actually begin to think like them... By pretending to be them, we can to some extent start thinking the way they think, looking at it from their perspective, and therefore seeing as they see us. We begin to recognize from their perspective what their and our strengths and weaknesses are. (Kahn, 1982, pp. 170-171)."

As this example shows, thinking like your opponents means just that. It’s not enough to put yourself in your opponents’ place, to think “If I were in that situation, what would I do?” If you were in that situation, you’d do something different from what your opponents are doing: that’s why you’re in your own situation instead. To think like your opponents, you have to work to understand them more clearly, and to predict what they’d actually do, not what you’d do in their place.

Use the information

The final step in your investigation process is to put the information you have gathered to use, on behalf of your cause. You want to make sure that all of your hard work bears some fruit. But how?

Here are some possibilities:

• You can now tailor your own advocacy actions so that they will be most effective. You know what your opponent's interests are, so you can address those interests if you want to. But you also know where their vulnerabilities are--so if you choose, you can hit them where it hurts.
• You can publicize your opponent's vulnerabilities. Sometimes the simple threat of going to the media will be enough to make your opponents back down. If not, you can use the media to let your audience know that your opponents have acted at odds with their own public statements, or have not delivered on their promises, or have acted unethically in other ways. In the great majority of cases, the media will be very interested in factual information you dig up.
• In some cases, your opponents may also have acted illegally. These instances are rare. But if they occur, and it is your group that has dug up the dirt, you have both the right and the responsibility to bring the facts before the proper authorities, and to seek legal redress.

How far should you go?

Ethical issues can arise when you are studying your opponents. For example, would you want to plant an informant in your opponent's camp? This strategy might yield valuable information you might not otherwise obtain. It might even provide the extra edge you need to defeat the opposition and win your advocacy campaign.

On the other hand...  For openers, in most circumstances, it’s unethical. In addition, what would be the consequences if you got caught? Besides being embarrassing, it might damage your credibility in the community, and thus ruin any chance of your issue being addressed. It could be grounds for a lawsuit, or it might draw attention away from your issue. Or your opponents might use the same tactics on you, perhaps planting a spy, or obtaining private records under false pretenses about you and your group.

So what are the boundaries of what is permissible, and how do you judge? There is no easy answer. You and your group will have to weigh those decisions when you plan your investigation.

There are really two kinds of opposition you’re likely to encounter, with variations. The first is raised by good people who simply disagree with you about what’s best for the community. They may be wrong, at least in your view, but they’re not self-serving or willing to ignore the needs of others. They simply think that what you’re advocating isn’t of benefit – or is actively harmful – to the community.

If these are the folks you’re dealing with, then you might want to apply the Golden Rule when choosing tactics: don’t use any tactics you would feel were unethical or outrageous if they were used against you. If you don’t want spies planted in your camp, don’t plant spies in anyone else’s. Do try to change their minds. They care about the same things you do; you ought to be allies. If you can convince them with logic and facts, particularly statistics, that your ideas are likely to accomplish the goals you both have, they’ll come over to your side.

The second kind of opposition is raised by people, organizations, corporations, or institutions (sometimes including government) that are indifferent to others’ needs, and concerned only with their own profit or power. They’re willing to foul drinking water, rig elections, and take emergency food shipments meant for the hungry in order to make a profit and hold on to power.  When you’re dealing with that kind of opponent, the rules have to change, because the stakes are higher. The community – or the country – may be in real danger, and you and your allies may be the only ones protecting it. If they’re willing to do anything to get their way, you may need to adopt at least some tactics that might otherwise be unethical in order to stave off disaster.  (To be fair, some moral philosophers might dispute this view.)

A third variant – one that has elements of both of these types of opposition – is that raised by true believers of one sort or another.  The true belief in question may be religious or ideological, or a combination of the two.  True believers are so convinced they’re right, and that their way is best for everyone, that they’re sometimes willing to do anything – in extreme cases, up to engaging in murder and terrorism – to gain power for their ideas.

In most cases, these folks aren’t violent, but they may be willing to use almost any other tactics to get what they want.  They’re usually not persuadable, because their beliefs are just that: beliefs.  Their minds can’t be changed by logic and facts, because their beliefs are based on blind faith – in a political or economic system, a particular religious view, or the rightness of a particular way of seeing the world.

In Summary

If you're running an advocacy campaign, and particularly if your opponent is a large organization or otherwise yields a lot of power, you need every edge you can get. By doing just a little bit of digging, you can uncover information about your opponent that will help you meet their strengths, exploit their vulnerabilities, fully understand their position, and possibly even negotiate with them. The end result for you is a stronger, more focused advocacy campaign.

Studying your opponents:

___Gives you up-to-date knowledge of the opponent's positions on the issue

___Tells you why the opponent is taking those positions

___Tells you what strategies and tactics the opponent has used in the past

Knowledge about opponents is useful to:

___Identify potential problems earlier on, and sort them out before they become bigger problems

___Help you find ways to negotiate

___Help you develop successful strategies and tactics

With regard to the timing of research:

___Studying the opponent should be an ongoing process

___Your opponents’ position may change over time; your response may need to change as well

Studying can be either informal or formal. Informal methods may include:

___Keeping your eyes and ears open

___Looking at your opponent's previous activities and campaigns

___Reading their in-house publications and annual reports

___Talking to organizations and individuals who have dealt with your opponents in the past

Studying individuals may involve:

___Finding out where they live and work

___Finding out how and where they manage financial transactions

___Identifying their advisors

Studying agencies, companies or organizations may involve:

___Finding out their past records and tactics

___Finding out about their resources, strengths, and weaknesses

___Identifying their principle decision makers

___Finding out how much power they have, and why they are opposing you

A formal, tactical investigation may be necessary:

___If the opponent is powerful

___If the opponent may be willing to act forcefully

A formal investigation may involve the following steps:

___Develop an investigation plan

___Gather the information

___Think like your opponent

___Use the information

Information can be gathered:

___Through informants with an interest in the issue

___Through "freedom of information" laws

___Through published sources of information

Among published sources of information are:

___Business and trade publications

___Clipping files

___Reference works

___Government files on businesses

___Voting records

___Court records

Gathering information about an opponent may involve some ethically questionable tactics. Groups should balance the benefits of these tactics against:

___Their own sense of what is ethically permissible

___The risk of getting caught

___The risk that the opponent would also adopt hardball tactics

Thinking like the opponent will help a group:

___Predict what that opponent will do next

___Predict how the opponent would react to specific tactics

Studying their opponent can help advocacy groups:

___Plan actions that will be most effective

___Publicize the opponent's weaknesses

___Perhaps act as whistle-blower, and seek legal redress

Example: Investigation worksheet

In order to:	We need:	Where to look?	When?
Disprove the city engineer's accusations on over-budgeted construction	Written proof of the transactions (receipts, bills) Witnesses	City archives Construction company's records	By the end of the fiscal year
Prove that the bank is withholding information on whom it lent money to	Documented proof of loans	Governmental archives	End of the month
Show that the mayoral candidate has been sued for not paying taxes on land	Copy of the law suit Witnesses The person who sued the candidate	Court records Phone directory	By next week
Prove that the state representative is using public funds for private use	Find records of his sources of income Receipts of the representative's purchases	Goverment files Find corporate registrations	Before elections

 

Tool: Investigation Worksheet

In order to:	We need:	Where to look?	When?

 

 

• What is accountability?

• Why might you seek accountability?

• When might you seek accountability?

• Who is accountable, and to whom?

• How do you request accountability?

Sometimes, when entities - institutions, governments or government agencies, corporations, non-profit organizations, or other groups - aren't, or don't consider themselves, accountable to society or to those they serve, harm can result. It's up to citizens to make sure that the entities that have an effect on their lives are accountable, and to help construct ways to make that happen. In this section, we'll discuss how you can request accountability, and how to use research - the subject of this chapter - and other methods to help you get it.

What is accountability?

An entity (or individual) is accountable when its actions, practices, and policies are open to inspection by those whom they affect, those to whom they have obligations, and those who regulate them, and when there are clear consequences for actions, practices, or policies that are illegal, harmful, unethical, different from what was agreed upon, or incompetent. Accountability assures stakeholders - those who have an interest in or are affected by the entity's operation or actions - that the entity is telling the truth about what it's doing, and that its actions, practices, and policies are legal, ethical, and reasonably effective.

Requesting accountability thus can have two aspects:

• To ensure that the actions and policies of an entity or individual are actually known, so that they can be judged
• To urge the passage of laws, policies, or regulations adequate to keep the entity or individual behaving legally, ethically, and competently

There are many kinds of accountability, and a broad range of ways to be accountable. Even a partial list - one that highlights accountability issues that might be subject to advocacy - shows how varied the topic is:

• Governments, government agencies, and officials should be accountable to the public for their use of money, the quality of their service, and their attention to the public interest
• Government agencies and regulators should be accountable to the public for regulating those areas and entities for which they are responsible
• Elected and appointed officials should be accountable to the public for honesty, integrity, competence, ethics, service, and the quality of their decisions
• Organizations should be accountable to funders and contributors for the use of money
• Organizations should be accountable to participants/beneficiaries for the quality of service/financial benefit they offer
• Corporations should be accountable to the public for the safety of their operations, and their attention to the public interest
• Corporations should be accountable to shareholders and regulators for their financial operations
• Businesses should be accountable to consumers for the safety and quality of their products
• Businesses should be accountable to workers and regulators for the treatment of their work force
• All entities should be accountable to the public for the environmental, economic, political, and social effects of their actions or operations

Individuals should also be accountable to the public they serve for their actions. It's important for citizens to know if they're paying a judge who hardly ever shows up for work, for instance, or if a doctor at the local hospital often sterilizes low-income women without their consent. Individuals in positions of responsibility who break the law, abuse power or the public trust, simply don't do their jobs, or act unethically should have to face the consequences of their actions just as larger entities should.

Why might you request accountability?

While it's important that entities with public responsibilities be accountable, requesting accountability is often time-consuming and difficult. It's unlikely that you would attempt it without a good reason. So what are some good reasons? Actually, there are quite a few.

• To assure that people are getting what they need. In a community, if public safety, services to elders or to low-income residents, environmental issues, or other important concerns are being ignored, those who are ignoring them - or the community as a whole - should be held accountable for changing the situation.
• To protect the public from harm, physical or otherwise. The demands of anti-smoking advocates and, ultimately, government, in the U.S. to make cigarette companies accountable to those who bought their products had a lot to do with reducing smoking. Other possibilities:
  • To deter polluters from dumping toxic waste into the water, ground, or air
  • To help eliminate discrimination in housing, employment, and other areas
  • To assure public safety by keeping track of noise levels, hazardous materials or sites, building practices, transportation, etc.
  • To protect people from economic harm. Businesses are audited to assure that their finances are what they say they are. The Securities and Exchange Commission oversees trading in stocks and bonds, and enforces the regulations that govern the actions of stock brokers to keep them from cheating investors, or from convincing them to make decisions that enrich the broker rather than the investor.
  • To prevent wrongdoing and corruption by those in power. When people are appointed or elected to positions of power or authority, it is assumed that they will act according to the highest principles. When police practice brutality or single out minorities for no other reason than the color of their skin, when politicians favor corporations or industries in return for bribes or kickbacks, citizens become angry, and can lose faith in their institutions.
• To protect the public's right to know. In a free society, knowledge is the basis for political, economic, and social decisions. It's therefore important that the public be aware of what government, corporations, and institutions are actually doing. Some instances where the right to know is or has been important:
  • Watergate. The Washington Post, with its reporting on Watergate, held President Nixon and his aides accountable for their criminal activity, and was ultimately responsible for forcing Nixon out of office. As Nixon himself said, the American people had a right to know whether their President was a crook.
  • Environmental and energy policy. It is important to know who has a hand in the formulation of environmental policy. If policy makers follow the lead of energy producers, the resulting policy is less likely to be in the public interest than in the interest of the energy producers.
  • Product labeling. Warnings on dangerous products, such as the health warnings on cigarette packs or the cautions on a bleach bottle, inform consumers about the products they're using. Food labeling regulations and truth-in-advertising laws help citizens make informed choices about what to buy.

When a product or processing method is controversial, activists often advocate for labeling that would show citizens what they're getting. Currently, for instance, many consumers would like labeling regulations for genetically-modified food products.

• Campaign and election laws. Laws designed to hold politicians accountable for their fundraising and political practices help to ensure clean elections.
• To encourage, and prevent retaliation for, whistleblowing. Whistleblowers are people who see corruption, illegal or unethical activity, or incompetence within their own organizations - whether government, corporations, or institutions - and try to put a stop to it by reporting it. Although there are laws to protect them, their reward is often to be demoted, ostracized, or fired. By demanding that companies be held accountable for their treatment of whistleblowers, citizens both help to bring to light the offenses the whistleblowers discover, and to assure that they're not punished for their integrity.
• To see that citizens are compensated for injury or loss caused by the intentional wrongdoing of some entity. A high-profile example of a corporation being held accountable for injuring citizens is the case portrayed in the movie Erin Brockovich. Brockovich, a para-legal who took up the case and did the relevant research, and her employer, attorney Ed Masry, won $333 million from Pacific Gas and Electric for several hundred residents of the town of Hinkley, California. The Masry firm showed that PG&E had known of the potential harm to residents, yet continued dumping chromium-6 into Hinkley's groundwater. Residents who had suffered health problems and whose property had lost its value because of the contamination shared the PG&E settlement.
• To prevent the misuse of taxpayer funds that could better be spent elsewhere. We've all heard about the hundred-and-fifty-dollar hammers and five-hundred-dollar toilet seats purchased by the U.S. military from corporations with government contracts. The Inspector General's office was directed to try to control such spending abuses, but only after research by journalists and watchdog groups called attention to the issue.
• To assure that consumers get what they pay for. State lemon laws, which allow consumers to return cars that simply don't work as they should, hold car dealers accountable for the condition of the vehicles they sell.
• To keep government, businesses, and institutions from acting unethically. A business may promise jobs and other benefits that don't actually exist in order to obtain the permits it needs to locate in a particular community.
• To procure simple justice. Sometimes the point of holding an entity accountable - in any of the situations described here, and in others as well - may be the need for justice to be done, for the good guys to win one. When an entity or individual, driven by greed, self-interest, or lust for power, injures or otherwise treats average people as if they didn't matter, we have a need as a society to see balance restored. That's often the real reason that citizens seek accountability, and it may in fact be the best.

When might you seek accountability?

As discussed above, requesting accountability can be a long and difficult process, so it's best to do it when your reasons are most compelling.

• When some members of the community are in need, and nothing is being done. When homelessness is on the increase, or low-income elders can't afford heating oil, and officials don't react, calls for official accountability are likely to be heeded.
• When an entity is about to, or continues to, do something harmful. When a paper mill is freely dumping sludge in the river, or sexual harassment at the local high school is being ignored, these situations require accountability, both from the offenders and from those who should be preventing the situations.
• When economic damage to either the public at large or individuals is being, or about to be, done, such as:
  • A federal bail-out or subsidy for a corporation that repeatedly violates laws or the public trust (or is consistently unable to compete in the marketpklace).
  • Funding for programs that have been proven not to work.
  • Government contracts awarded to cronies of politicians, or to firms from particular legislators' districts.
  • Price fixing by airlines, industries, or other groups.
  • Charities that are scams (5% of what the administrators collect goes to charity, for instance, and the rest lines their pockets) or are not what they seem (group homes where children are abused rather than nurtured).
  • "Businesses" that convince elders over the phone to send money to an address that is simply a mail drop, in return for a service or product that doesn't exist.
• When a business wants to locate in a community. The community should have the information to decide whether or not a prospective business would make sense for it.

The citizens of Greenfield, Massachusetts, after a long and public examination of the facts, decided against allowing a Wal-Mart to locate there. Local residents felt that its presence would endanger the viability of their downtown commercial district.

• When an elected official or someone running for office has violated the public trust, has misrepresented his positions or background, or is otherwise unfit for public office. Candidates and elected officials have to be accountable to the public for their past and present actions, and for their expressed ideas. If they are or have been corrupt, that's a crime. If their actions don't match their stated positions, that's certainly not criminal, but the public has a right to know about it. If their actions or speech, past or present, are unacceptable in our society - racist, sexist, antidemocratic - the public has a right, and a need, to know that, too.
• When some individual or interest has unfairly or illegally influenced official policy or the votes of elected officials. While it is every citizen's right to try to persuade legislators to vote in particular ways, or to advocate for a given policy, it is not legal in the U.S. to try to buy a vote, or to influence a politician or judge with gifts or favors.
• When a blatant injustice is about to be done. When the federal government was about to allow strip mining on public land in an area immediately adjacent to Kings Canyon National Park in the Sierra Nevada range in California, advocates raised the alarm. The public outcry was such that not only was the plan scrapped, but the area in question was protected from exploitation. Holding the government accountable for what it does with public lands kept a national treasure safe.

Who is accountable, and to whom?

Any individual or entity whose behavior affects the well-being of others should be accountable to them or their representatives. For example, parents who neglect or abuse their children, fail to send them to school or otherwise educate them, or sell them for adoption should be accountable not only to the children themselves, but to society, as represented by the courts and social service agencies.

These are some individuals and groups who should be accountable in a free society. In most cases, it is clear to whom they are accountable, while in others their constituencies may be mulitiple.

• Elected and appointed government officials. Have they broken any laws? Are their actions consistent with what they say they believe, and with the public interest? Do they hold the public interest above their own and that of their largest contributors?
• Law enforcement. We rely on the police and the court system to protect us and to ensure that the law applies equally to everyone. Police brutality, or judicial decisions that consistently favor the white and affluent over minorities and the poor, deny us protection and equality under the law. Law enforcement officials must be held accountable to the public. A civilian review board that oversees police conduct, for instance, is a way that some communities gain that accountability.
• Government agencies. Bureaucracies at all levels are the engines that turn the actual wheels of government. They should be accountable in several areas:
  • Use of taxpayer funds. An agency's financial dealings should be appropriate to its mission, and accurately recorded.
  • Upholding laws. Agencies shouldn't discriminate against groups or individuals, engage in arbitrary decisions, or harass employees or citizens, for instance.
  • Efficiency. The public has a right to expect that government agencies will be reasonably efficient within the bounds of the resources available to them.
• Government contractors. These can range from huge corporations like Boeing and Lockheed-Martin to community-based organizations that receive a few thousand dollars to provide local services. In both cases, contractors should be accountable to the government funding agency, and, through it, to the public, for their use of the funds (no five-hundred-dollar toilet seats!), and for making a reasonable effort to accomplish the terms of the contract.

The effectiveness of community-based and other nonprofit service providers is often best judged over a long period. It may take time to get a new program started, and individual participants may differ greatly in their capacity to take advantage of a service. For this reason, such organizations should be held accountable in a different way from corporate and similar defense contractors, for instance, who have the experience and expertise to estimate accurately the time and cost of a job, and to complete it within those limits. The point here is that accountability has to be tuned to what it's appropriate for an entity to be accountable for. If a contractor wastes money, it should be held accountable. If wholesale prices rise, or if there are unusual factors in a community that affect an organization's service, the contractor can't be blamed.

• Nonprofits that seek money directly from the public. If people contribute to the operation of an organization, they have a right to know what their money is spent on. If most of a charity's income goes to administrative salaries rather than to the target population, for instance, the public might choose not to contribute. Most organizations are required to file financial statements with the state, which can be consulted by donors, the media, or anyone else with an interest.

After the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., the American Red Cross was criticized by donors because it did not use all the donations it received to benefit the families of the terrorists' victims, though its fundraising publicity seemed to indicate it would. The agency ultimately was forced to explain and change its policies for distributing funds, and its Director resigned.

• Corporations. U.S. corporations are chartered by the state or federal government (or both), and have both legal and ethical obligations to the public and to their shareholders. Their annual reports, which include financial statements, are available to the public. Two web sites with good information on corporate research and links to sources for these documents are the "Researching corporations" page of the Corporate Accountability Project, and the Corporate Research Guide from Corporate Watch. In addition, some questions you might want to ask about a corporation are:
  • Is it obeying the law in all respects?
  • Is it telling the truth about its activities, and about the safety, results, and implications of what it's doing or producing?
  • Does it treat employees fairly and decently?
  • Does it operate ethically in all parts of the world? (Does it refuse to use child labor, for instance?)
  • Is it paying its fair share of taxes? Are its accounting practices proper and ethical?
  • How does it choose and appoint directors, executives, and others?
• Individuals trying to influence policy. Lobbyists and major political contributors have legal obligations to report contributions, gifts, etc. and are not allowed to receive anything in return. If there seems to be a pattern of payment for political considerations, that's illegal, and both the contributor and the politician involved should be prosecuted.
• Individuals within an organization whose jobs give them power. People with authority have ethical obligations to those whom they supervise or employ. They should be accountable to the organization for following organizational policy (assuming that policy is, in itself, ethical), for treating people fairly and with respect, and for their financial management. In the last case, there are legal issues as well: if people mismanage or embezzle money, or use public funding in inappropriate ways, they are accountable to both the organization and the funder, and, often, to the law as well.

How do you seek accountability?

Do the necessary research

Regardless of whether there are current laws or regulations governing the actions you're concerned about, or whether you don't yet know if there are actions to be concerned about, you'll need information before you can do anything else. In order to provoke an official investigation, support a lawsuit, convince an agency to change its practices, or persuade legislators or other officials to change or institute laws and policies, you'll need both evidence and a clear understanding of the issue involved.

In some cases, that will mean doing "academic" research: reading books and documents in libraries and newspaper archives, consulting with experts, and perhaps even conducting studies. In other situations, it might mean interviewing people, conducting local surveys, taking photographs, or doing some nitty-gritty investigation. There are three general rules to remember about any advocacy research:

• Do your homework carefully and thoroughly. There's no substitute for knowing what you're talking about. Whether it's the chemical properties of a polluting substance, the five-year experience of the community with a particular intervention, the provisions of an existing law, or the actual number of homeless families with kids in the school district, if you know your subject cold, you won't be caught stammering trying to answer an opponent's argument or a policy maker's question.
• Seek help when you need it. Whether you need an expert - a professor from the local university, a community historian, a carpenter - or some reinforcements, because there's too much material for one person to go through, don't hesitate to ask for help.
• Keep at it. Persistence is probably the best research tool available, and it will often get you results that other methods won't.

Some specific resources for research to support requesting accountability

• State and federal laws
  • Law libraries. Law libraries are generally located in or near county courthouses and in law schools. While many public libraries may have complete copies of the state law code, law librarians are generally more knowledgeable, and can more easily and quickly help you find what you're looking for.
  • The Internet. There are several web sites with listings of or links to U.S. state and federal statutes. Most state web sites (most reachable by www., followed by state.[two-letter state abbreviation].us/) will give access to the laws of that state. In addition, there are sites with links to all state law codes. One of the best is the Legal Information Institute of Cornell Law School. It contains all state statutes, searchable by topic, as well as Federal Laws. Others site for federal laws are the U.S. General Services Administration and the Reference Center and General Government, which is searchable in a number of different ways. Pending and recently passed federal legislation can be researched at Library of Congress, and Federal laws of Canada can be found at Department of Justice Canada
• Information about the past and current activities of government and corporations
  • There are a number of web sites of watchdog organizations that try to hold governments or corporations accountable for what they do. Some of the most useful of these are Government Accountability Project, which tries to protect whistleblowers and make sure they're heard; the Congressional Accountability Project, concerned with Congressional ethics reform; the Corporate Accountability Project, keeping watch on multinational corporations, with links to Corporate Watch, a massive database on corporate activity worldwide, and its sister organization, CorpWatch USA.
  • In addition to these and similar web sites, there are also newspaper archives, accessible through newspaper offices and - often - on the web. The New York Times on the web, for instance, offers archived articles (at a small cost) going back five or more years. Newsweek also offers a fee-based archive. Many public and academic libraries subscribe to newspaper and magazine archive services, and you may be able to take advantage of that as a library card holder. State university libraries, particularly, many of which offer library membership to any state resident, have a broad range of research services. Libraries and librarians in general are often tremendously helpful, and can turn up sources you might not have considered.

So... you've done your research. You have evidence that someone isn't doing her job, or that a company is breaking the law, or that a government agency is ignoring an issue that screams for resolution. Now what?

What you do now depends on what kind of accountability you're seeking. If what you're looking for is open access to information, you may have already gained it in the course of your research, or you may have to try to get it through negotiation, public pressure, regulation, or legal action. If you're requesting changes in policy or laws that will create a freer flow of information, establish penalties for lawbreaking, and ensure that agencies and organizations are doing their jobs, you'll probably have to engage in advocacy with legislators or other policy makers.

Decide what kind of accountability you want

There's a broad range here, from requiring something as simple as a list of the chemicals that an organization uses (already a requirement in some states) to passing strict laws that impose heavy financial and criminal penalties for certain acts.

Some of the possibilities:

• More (voluntary) openness on the part of the entity. In this case, all you're asking for is that someone be available to respond to citizens' questions and concerns. The entity might appoint an ombudsman or community relations officer to perform this function, or it might try to satisfy the community need informally, referring people to whoever is closest to the area the question or concern covers.
• A change in, or enforcement of, internal policy. Sometimes, what you want an organization or other entity to be accountable for has nothing to do with the law. Suppose you want to change the way the state welfare agency treats those it serves. To change such a situation and make the people in question accountable for their actions, you need a change in the organization's internal policy, or, if that policy already has reasonable standards for these situations, enforcement of that policy.
• Regular reporting. An entity might be asked to submit regular reports of its financial dealings, its use of specific materials, its contacts with citizens, etc. The type of report would obviously depend on the issues involved.

Part of any reporting requirement should be how the information would be made available, and to whom. Will it be public, or will it be seen only by certain officials? Will it be available on line and/or in the media, or will people have to go somewhere or do something special in order to find it? Who will oversee its accuracy?

• Regulation or government oversight. An example of this might be regular state monitoring of the effluent (outflow) from a manufacturing plant into the ocean or ground water.
• Community oversight. Where alleged police brutality is an issue, for example, many communities have established review boards, made up both of police officials and of citizens from affected neighborhoods, that review and hold police accountable for their actions and decisions, and make suggestions about needed training and community or cultural sensitivity.

In this type of situation, it makes sense to involve the entity itself in planning. How can you set up oversight that allows the entity to do its job, while still providing the level of accountability the community feels it needs? In the best-case scenario, this process can build bridges between the entity and the community, and improve long-term relations.

• Penalties or added teeth for existing laws and regulations. No amount of monitoring will make any difference unless there are reasons for an entity to obey the laws or regulations the monitoring is meant to enforce. Many environmental laws, for instance, involve penalties so small that large corporations can actually save money by breaking the law and paying fines.
• New laws, regulations, or policies. You may want a new law or policy to close a gap. (The Clean Water Act of 1972, for instance, set water quality standards where there had been none, and imposed penalties for the dumping of hazardous waste and sewage.) Or one may be needed to deal with an issue that is itself new. (We are still discussing whether and how laws might hold people accountable for the contents of their web sites, for example.) Or a new policy may be needed to deal with a longstanding community issue, such as care for frail elders or adult literacy.

Appeal directly to the entity

If you're seeking information, you may be able to convince someone in authority that the entity would be better off giving it to you now than waiting for you to go to regulatory agencies and the media.

If what you're seeking is a change in internal policy, a direct appeal may, in some cases, be the only way to achieve it. A government agency of some sort may be swayed by public pressure, but a private entity - a business, for instance - is unlikely to change its internal functioning because someone outside it disapproves.

If you're trying to bring about accountability that would lead to a change in social policy

Go to a regulatory agency for help

If you have hard evidence, or strong circumstantial evidence, of wrongdoing, a regulatory agency may be willing to use its power to make the entity disclose more. This step assumes, of course, that the regulatory agency is not part of the problem, and that there is an agency that oversees this particular entity.

Go public

If you have facts that indisputably show that an entity is engaged in questionable practices, making those public may be enough to persuade the entity to be open about what it's doing before it gets hit with a lawsuit or penalties. How well this tactic will work depends to a large extent on how much the entity values its self-image, and to whom it is responsible.

In order to accomplish this, you'll need the cooperation of the media. If you already have good relationships with individuals or groups within the media, gaining that cooperation should be a simple matter of a phone call. If you haven't yet established those relationships, you may have a lot of work ahead of you.

Institute direct action

If media attention isn't enough, calling attention to the issue with some sort of public demonstration (picketing, a rally, etc.) may be called for. Another possibility, if you're dealing with a commercial enterprise, is a boycott of its products, which can apply both public and economic pressure.

Engage in legislative advocacy to get new laws passed

This can be a long and difficult process, but it may also be the one that gets the best results in the long run.

To do it right, there are some steps to follow:

• Define clearly what you want done, so that legislators, potential allies, and the public can easily understand it.
• Establish relationships with legislators and their aides, so that they know who you are, understand your issues, and will take your phone calls and work with you.
• Find a legislative champion to sponsor your bill, someone who believes in it as strongly as you do.
• Marshal your allies for support, including people with whom you may disagree on other issues.
• Do your homework. You should know everything you need to know about accountability in this situation: why it's necessary, what its results should be, what will happen without it, and any science or psychology or economics or anything else that will help explain what you're working toward.
• Advocate with legislators, policy makers, and the public.
• Be willing to take small steps. You may not reach your goal all at once: accept anything that works toward it as a positive move.
• Keep at it forever. Even after your bill is passed, or the regulations are changed, you have to make sure that someone doesn't convince legislators to repeal or change it again.

Sue

This tactic is costly, takes a long time, and is often weighted in favor of large entities - big corporations, government agencies - that can afford to retain high-powered lawyers at huge fees for long periods. Unless your attorneys are dedicated, you can be forced out of the suit because you've run out of money to pay them. The time required for the suit to come to court may be so long (several years, or even decades, may pass) that the issue can no longer be resolved. For all of these reasons, a lawsuit should be the last option on your list.

One or more of the above strategies should make it possible for you to request and gain accountability for government, corporate, organizational, and institutional entities, as well as for individuals. Holding such entities and individuals accountable is an important step in gaining citizen participation in and ownership of health and community development.

In Summary

Holding government, business, institutions, organizations, and individuals accountable is an important part of fostering and supporting policies that work toward the betterment of a community. Making sure that all these entities' activities are open to public scrutiny, and that laws, regulations, and policies, as well as public opinion, are strong enough to assure that they always consider the public interest, is a giant step toward maintaining effective advocacy.

Seeking accountability helps to make sure necessary public services are provided; to protect the public from harm; to defend its right to know; to encourage whistleblowers and shield them from retaliation; to provide compensation for loss or injury caused by an entity's negligent or illegal activity; to prevent the misuse of public money; to assure consumers get what they pay for; to guard against unethical behavior; and to administer simple justice.

There are times that are particularly appropriate to request accountability. Most are when holding an entity or individual accountable will prevent or halt an activity that is likely to cause physical, psychological, political, or economic harm to citizens. Those who should be held accountable in these areas include politicians and other government officials and employees; law enforcement and the court system; government and its agencies and branches; government contractors; organizations that solicit money directly from the community; corporations and other businesses; individuals and groups that try to influence policy; and individuals who hold power within entities.

Requesting accountability starts with research. Some general guidelines for effective research include asking for help from good sources; doing your homework and learning the basics; and being persistent. Once you've applied these general rules, and used libraries, the Internet, interviews and other contact with individuals, and your own ingenuity to gain access to information, you can begin to go about trying to obtain accountability for whatever entity you're concerned with by taking one or more of the following steps:

• Decide what kind of accountability you need
• Appeal directly to the entity
• Appeal to the appropriate regulatory agency
• Go public
• Institute direct action
• Advocate for official changes in laws or policy
• Initiate a lawsuit

Ultimately, one, or some combination of, these steps should bring success. Once you've obtained the level of accountability necessary, you're on your way to positive community change.

What is accountability?

___You hold entities (and individuals) accountable for the openness of their actions, practices and policies

___You advocate for laws, regulations, and policies that provide strong enough sanctions to assure that entities (and individuals) are accountable for the legality, ethics, and effectiveness of their actions, practices, and policies

Why might you seek accountability?

___Ensure that citizens get what they need

___Protect the public from harm

___Protect the public's right to know

___Protect the rights and information of whistleblowers

___Ensure that people harmed by the intentional wrongdoing of entities are compensated

___Guard against the misuse of public money

___Ensure that consumers get what they pay for

___Assure the ethical behavior of governments, corporations, organizations, and institutions

___Procure simple justice

When might you seek accountability?

___Members of the community are in need and nothing is being done

___An entity is about to, or continues to, do something harmful

___Economic damage to either the public at large or individuals is being, or about to be, done

___A business wants to locate in a community

___An elected official or someone running for office has violated the public trust, has misrepresented his positions or background, or is otherwise unfit for public office

___Some individual or interest has unfairly or illegally influenced official policy or the votes of elected officials

___A blatant injustice is about to be done

Who might be held accountable?

___Elected and appointed government officials

___Law enforcement

___Government agencies

___Government contractors

___Nonprofits that seek money directly from the public

___Corporations and businesses

___Individuals and entities seeking to influence public policy

___Individuals whose positions within an organization give them power

How do you request accountability?

___You do the necessary research

___You decide what kind of accountability you want

___You appeal directly to the entity

___You go to the appropriate regulatory agency

___You go public

___You institute direct action

___You engage in legislative advocacy

___You initiate a lawsuit

Parsons High School was old - everyone was in agreement on that. It had been built in 1928, and the last time it had had any major improvements was in 1964. Its electrical and phone systems were inadequate for proper computer hook-ups, its science labs were hopelessly out of date, and its heating system gave out at least once every winter. When it rained, the roof leaked in so many places that it was no longer possible to determine where to patch it. The gym and cafeteria were too small, and there was no auditorium at all.

Many residents of the community felt it was time to build a new school, but many others worried about the cost. Elderly residents, particularly, many of whom were retirees with no families dependent on the schools, were concerned about the new school's effect on their income. Working families were dubious, too: they wanted to know how the school would change the tax rate. These groups favored fixing up the old high school. Rather than uniting in support of a new high school, the community was dividing over the issue.

A group of citizens that favored a new school decided to do some research. They found that the state had set aside money for building schools, and would absorb 80% of the cost, as well as providing design resources and the opportunity to obtain building materials at a reduced rate through the state buying consortium. The result was that it would cost considerably less to build a new school than to fix the old one. The tax increase to build the school would be minimal, coming out to just over $50.00 a year for the average homeowner.

Furthermore, the group learned through visits and state census statistics that other, similar communities that had built new high schools in the past ten years had experienced significant economic growth as a result. Businesses were more willing to locate in communities with new schools: attention to education showed a commitment to families that their managers found attractive, and they brought high-paying jobs into town.

Once the community understood that the new high school would cost them only a small tax increase, and was likely to bring new jobs, most of the objections melted away. The new Parsons High School project was approved by an overwhelming vote.

Successful advocacy often depends on being able to present a change in economic terms. If you can show people that they or their communities are likely to benefit from a proposed change, they are apt to be in favor of it. By the same token, if you can show them that a change - or resisting change - will prevent them from economic harm, they will usually support your position. In this section, we'll examine how demonstrating economic benefit or harm can be part of an effective advocacy campaign, and discuss how to go about doing it.

What do we mean by economic benefit and harm?

The economic consequences of a particular circumstance, action, or policy are those which affect the overall economic health of a community or region, or those which affect its commercial sector, or both. These two areas are closely connected, but they're not exactly the same. The first has to do with the financial and other economic issues that touch the lives of individuals and families and act upon the overall well-being of the community. The second bears specifically upon the financial circumstances and possibilities of a community's businesses. The second may profoundly influence the first, and vice-versa.

Advocacy covers a very broad range of possibilities, so you may be advocating for or against the establishment or continuation of a health or human service program; for or against a legislative action; for or against funding in a particular area; for or against actions or policies that affect the environment; for or against the actions or establishment of a particular business or agency.

Community economic benefit or harm

Communities, like families, need a certain amount of money to operate. They are generally expected to fund schools and such other municipal services as police, firefighting, road repair, garbage collection, perhaps some health and/or human services, and water and sewer systems. In addition, they have to pay the elected and appointed administrators who keep all of this running. In general, the majority of this money comes from taxes - in most places in the U.S., property taxes and taxes on businesses - with a much smaller amount from fees.

In order for a community to have enough tax money to function well and provide necessary services, it needs a strong tax base - a foundation of citizens and businesses that are making money, and own buildings and land that hold their value. When a large employer moves out of a community, it takes a big part of the tax base with it. When one moves in, it often brings prosperity to the community as a whole as well as to those individuals whom it employs. So the ability of a community to attract and keep employers that, among them, provide steady work at good pay for large numbers of people, and to maintain the value of its housing and land, has a lot to do with its overall economic health.

That health includes the ability of its citizens to be productive in several ways - as workers, as citizens, and as family members and parents. Citizens need the skills and attitudes necessary to get and keep jobs that support them and their families. They should have the knowledge, ability, and opportunity to contribute to the community by voting intelligently, volunteering, voicing their opinions, and serving as appointed or elected officials. And they have to raise the next generation well to maintain the community after they're gone. Helping citizens who need it to gain the foundation for that productivity through employment training, adult literacy, youth leadership programs, mentoring, and other services is an important element in community economic benefit, and ultimately leads to a more prosperous community.

Economic benefits aren't measured only in dollars. For most people, it's the balance of the various things they need to live a decent life. Many may be willing to sacrifice a certain amount of money or other material wealth for such considerations as personal satisfaction, low stress, clean air and water, open space, a warm and friendly community, cultural opportunities, etc.

We all face economic decisions that take a lot of different elements into account. Should I take the job that offers the most money, or the one that I'll be happiest at? Do I want to live in the country badly enough to face a long commute every day? Should we trade the satisfaction of being parents for the freedom of remaining childless? Although not all of them involve money directly, these are all economic decisions.

Factors that might be considered in determining community economic benefit or harm include:

• Job opportunities. This includes both job opportunities that currently exist in a community, and the potential job opportunities that could be attracted or discouraged by some of the other factors below.
• Health issues. An out-of-proportion incidence of cancer in the community, or a number of "dirty" industries may discourage families from moving there, while the presence of a good community hospital or clinic might be a positive factor.
• Quality of life. Physical surroundings, opportunities for outdoor recreation, safety and security, good neighbors, and low stress might all contribute to a high quality of life, attracting residents and businesses. Negatives in these areas might work against a community.
• Opportunities for children, including schools and recreation.
• Cultural life. A vital cultural scene - performing arts, libraries, museums, etc. - can be a cornerstone of economic development for an area, attracting restaurants and cafes, bookstores, and other culturally-related businesses, as well as tourism.
• Expenses. The cost of a house, of commuting, of recreation, of medical care are all part of the desirability of a community.
• The civic climate. How friendly is the community to business? To the environment? To minorities? To children? To low-income residents? Are there opportunities to serve?

Commercial economic benefit or harm

In general, economic benefit or harm in the commercial sector is fairly simple to identify. Circumstances, actions and policies that support or help area businesses - and don't harm other areas of community well-being - are of commercial benefit. Circumstances, actions and policies that discourage businesses from coming into the community, or make it hard to operate once they're there - again, assuming those actions or policies aren't necessary to protect or sustain the community - are likely to bring commercial harm.

As with community benefits and harm, not all these factors directly concern money. Many do: the tax structure, for instance; the community's willingness or unwillingness to provide subsidies for a new plant, or other incentives for new businesses to move in; whether or not citizens buy from locally-owned businesses; the local availability of natural resources and transportation; and the skills of the existing workforce. All of these speak directly to a business's bottom line.

Other factors, some of which have already been mentioned, make a difference as well, however. These include:

• Good schools. By and large, businesses look for communities where their executives can feel comfortable raising children.
• Job training or skills training programs (English as a Second or Other Language, computer skills) can increase the community's pool of workers.
• Environmental preservation may help established businesses or set the stage for new businesses in the area - eco-tourism, restaurants, sporting goods and clothing stores, etc. - by increasing tourism and making the area a more desirable place to live.

By the same token, environmental laws may pose a problem, at least in the short term. New England fishermen struggle with the balance between maintaining stocks of commercially valuable fish, and being able to fish enough to make a living. Problems like this often don't have simple solutions.

• Pollution may harm businesses that depend on clean water (breweries or fisheries, for instance), or scare away businesses because of quality-of-life issues.

Why should you demonstrate economic benefit or harm?

Economic consequences are often the easiest for people to understand. Many may not be swayed by arguments about fairness or social justice, but will be convinced if they can see some potential economic advantage or disadvantage to themselves. We would all prefer that everyone understood and responded to arguments of conscience, but that is not the reality.

Legislators, for instance, tend to see most issues in terms of benefit or harm to their constituents and/or to their chances of reelection. They are constantly beset by questions about how people's tax money is being spent, and as a result, they tend to look at the economic results of nearly anything they fund - whether or not that's appropriate. They may be beholden to business interests, whose main concern is generally their own bottom line. If you can't demonstrate an economic reason for doing or not doing something, most legislators aren't interested.

Many legislators will be very open about their concern with economics and elections. At a meeting with human service providers, a state senator said, "You people have us at a disadvantage, because you're thinking in the long term: we think only two years [one election cycle] at a time." Another state senator often uses a quote that refers to the same thing: "A politician looks to the next election; a statesman looks to the next generation."

Another issue here is that at least a sizeable minority of the public doesn't understand the point of taxation. They see it as a way for the government to take away their money and do who knows what with it. They think that everyone's lining his pockets except them, and they feel cheated and taken advantage of. Practically the only argument that will move them is an economic one: if you can show them that you're saving them money, or keeping their money from being wasted, they'll support you.

Economic arguments are powerful because they touch everyone in a community. Whether the business you own is the largest employer in town, or whether you're the lowest-paid worker in that business, economic factors that act on the community will act on you as well. When someone talks about economics in a way that relates to you, you're apt to listen.

Finally, as we said earlier, economic arguments are often easy to understand. They boil down to a simple matter of one thing being more or less expensive - usually in money, but sometimes in other resources, or in quality-of-life issues - than another. If they have clear choices, people don't have to apply high-level analytical skills to decide whether they want A or B.

For all these reasons, demonstrating economic benefit or harm can be a very effective advocacy tool.

When should you demonstrate economic benefit or harm?

• When you're trying to get legislation passed or policies changed. If you can demonstrate the economic benefit of a piece of legislation or policy, you're much more likely to convince legislators to support it. Several states, for instance, have passed legislation in support of adult literacy, largely because of the argument that it strengthens the workforce and makes businesses more competitive in the global marketplace.
• When you're opposing legislation or policy change. The same economic arguments are likely to work in opposition as in favor: if it's going to cost more in the long run than it saves, or if it's going to injure constituents, don't do it.
• When you're supporting an action or policy that will have clear economic benefits. If you're in a position where you can advocate for a win-win situation - pushing for a youth program that's been shown to keep at-risk teens in school and out of jail or juvenile detention, for instance - you can emphasize the economic advantages. It costs a great deal more to keep someone incarcerated than it does to provide services. Most preventive programs of the sort mentioned spend between $1,500.00 and $5,000.00 a year per participant; incarceration costs upward of $50,000.00 a year per inmate in most states. It's easy to see that an effective preventive program can save the taxpayers a great deal of money.
• When you're opposing an action or policy that will have clear economic drawbacks. A development plan in a rural area that will adversely affect a lucrative tourist industry, for instance, or the building of a mall that will effectively put downtown merchants out of business, might look like an economic plus, but can contribute to real economic problems in a community. Although there are many reasons you might oppose these possibilities - on environmental grounds, preserving the character of the community - the economic consequences are likely to be most convincing to the greatest number of people.
• When your advocacy involves a controversial issue. If people have strong feelings about an issue, there are few lines of reasoning that are likely to change their minds. If you can make an economic argument, however, you have a chance to get them on your side.
• When you're alerting the public to the importance of an issue. Most people don't know the costs of ignoring such community problems as hunger, homelessness, and unemployment. The costs of addressing these problems are almost always less than the costs of ignoring them. If you can demonstrate those costs to the public, they'll better understand the necessity for dealing with the issue at hand.
• When you're engaged in a community planning process. Calling attention to economic factors is vital, whether you're planning for education, services, or long-term development. People often don't look beyond the immediate future. They may see a particular action as having a short-term gain, and not realize that that gain brings with it a much greater loss over the long term. You have a chance, by demonstrating the real economic advantages and disadvantages of various courses of action or policy, to influence the future of the community for the better.

How do you demonstrate economic benefit or harm?

In order to demonstrate convincingly that an action or policy will have economic benefit or harm for the community or a particular group, there are three steps to take. You have to start by doing the research - this chapter is about advocacy research, after all - to make sure you know whatever you need to know to make a convincing case. Then you have to analyze carefully what you've learned, so that you can intelligently discuss the short- and long-term consequences of different courses of action or policy. And finally, you have to frame an economic argument that speaks to the people who most need to hear it.

It should be mentioned here that advocacy for an action or policy can be either a push for change or a protection against change. Doing nothing can be an action or policy in itself.

Do the research

You may have to engage in several different types of research to get all the information you need.

• "Academic" research to learn the science, psychology, sociology, economics, politics, educational theory, or whatever else is necessary to clearly understand the issue and be able to explain it to those you're trying to convince and counter the arguments of opponents.
• Studies to find out what works and what doesn't, or to find out the consequences of particular methods or procedures.
• Interviews with both experts and those affected about the actual effects of the issue in the community.
• A combination of library and archive research and interviews to find out what happened elsewhere when similar things were tried. In this situation, you're looking for the real results - not just what was presented to funders, or what people "thought" happened. Rather, you'll want to find out, among other things:
  • What happened in relation to what people expected?
  • What would they have done differently (or what have they already changed)?
  • What were the unexpected consequences, positive and negative?
  • Do all the stakeholders - those directly or indirectly affected (that could include both participants and staff members of an intervention, for instance, as well as the families and employers of participants) - feel the same way about what happened and about the consequences?
• Research to find credible experts to refer to. "Credible" in this case means people with no particular axes to grind, who have not only research credentials, but actual in-the-field experience in whatever the issue is.

Determine the possible short- and long-term consequences of the actions or policies in question

Don't look only for economic consequences here: understanding what all the consequences are will make it easier to understand economic consequences as well. Sometimes these are linked to other outcomes that seem at first to have nothing to do with economics at all. The self-esteem developed by participants in a literacy program may strongly influence their ability to find and maintain employment over the long term, for example.

No one can be sure of predicting the consequences of a current action or policy. Many well-meaning policies have turned out to be disastrous, while others - meant only to address a small problem, or even simply to profit a small group - have been unexpectedly positive. There are, however, several ways to try to predict consequences:

• Look at past experience. What's happened in other communities, or in your community in similar situations. Is there anything in the literature that talks about this?
• See what the experts say. Are there theories about what might happen? What are they based on? (The fact that someone's an expert only goes so far, as implied above - they don't necessarily know any more than anyone else unless they have some real experience.)
• Brainstorm with a group. Assemble a group of people who have some experience with the issue - including people directly affected by it - and try to think of every possibility you can, no matter how outlandish. When you're done, you can sort out what actually might happen, and decide how likely it is.
• Be aware of and think carefully about the possibility of unintended consequences. What are the possible downsides of ideas that look beneficial? The "obvious" solutions to problems often have their own, sometimes worse, problems built in.

Providing job training for people on welfare, for example, looks like a self-evident way to get them off the public dole and onto the work rolls. It's a good idea, but it often fails to take into account whether the trainees have the basic skills to be successful in the training. If not, they often fail, and end up back on welfare with the sense that their quest for a job is hopeless, because they simply aren't capable of being trained. Only if basic skills are taken into account, and provided where they're necessary, is job training an effective way to help welfare recipients become wage earners. If basic skills aren't considered, the unintended consequences of the program might be to mire trainees even more deeply into unemployment.

Analyze the short- and long-term consequences of the actions or policies in question

Once you have an array of potential consequences to the actions or policies you're advocating for or against, it's necessary to analyze them to determine who will benefit from them, and how, and who might lose by them, and how.

Some questions to use in analyzing short- and long-term consequences:

• What exactly do short- and long-term mean for the issue at hand? In the case of an environmental clean-up, for instance, even short-term consequences - positive or negative - may be years in the future, and long-term might be measured in decades. In the case of employment programs, or programs meant to keep former inmates from being reincarcerated, short-term results might be measured in months, and long-term might be two or three years.
• Who, specifically (if anyone), will benefit - economically or otherwise - in the short and long terms from the action or policy in question?
• Who, if anyone, will be harmed - economically or otherwise - in the short and long terms by the action or policy in question?
• Do short- or long-term benefits - economic or otherwise - come at a cost to someone else? To whom? That cost may be in money, or may be in other areas - health, services, or quality of life.
• What's the balance between costs and benefits, and in whose favor?
• Who is making the decisions about this issue? How could they benefit from their decision? How could they be harmed by it?
• What do the decision-makers know or care about what's at stake for those most affected?

Policy decisions are often made by legislators or legislative staffers who have no experience with the issue about which they're deciding, and little or no connection with the people whom it will affect. That's one of the main reasons that advocacy exists - to provide the perspective of those who will actually have to deal with the consequences of policy decisions.

• What might short-term consequences lead to over the long term?

Understanding how long-term consequences grow out of the short-term consequences of actions and policies can be a complex exercise. In the 1960's and '70's, many American cities set out to "revitalize" their downtowns. They cleared what they considered slum neighborhoods of row houses and tenements, and put up showcase high-rise office buildings. The new buildings and improved services attracted business, and it looked like urban renewal was a great success.

Within a few years, however, the real consequences of the urban renewal projects became clearer. The neighborhoods that had been cleared - many of them filled with three generations of working class families who had grown up and lived their whole lives on the same streets - had been the life blood of the city. When their residents were forced to move, inner cities became empty and dangerous ghost towns, inhabited only by those who couldn't afford to leave, and those who preyed on them. During the day, downtown looked fine: after dark, it turned into something out of a science fiction nightmare.

Middle class citizens ran for the suburbs, destroying the tax base for schools and city services. Industries often moved out, because the workers they had depended upon - those working class families that had been cleared out of the "slums" - were no longer available. Cities like Newark, New Jersey, and Hartford, Connecticut, which had been vital communities, were suddenly poster children for urban problems - dirty, dangerous, and overwhelmingly poor.

Even by the turn of the 21st century, many of those cities had not recovered. The boon of urban renewal, meant to be of huge value to the cities that experienced it, often benefited only businesses, many of which, like their employees, left for the suburbs when the cities became unlivable.

That's why it's important to consider all facets of the issue when trying to determine the short- and long-term consequences of actions and policies.

Make the economic connections

To find economic connections if they're not immediately apparent, there are a number of areas to examine:

• The tax base. Will the action or policy in question increase the tax base by adding more workers to the taxpaying rolls? By collecting more taxes from business? By attracting new business to the area, or increasing the profits - and therefore the taxes - of existing businesses? Or might it hurt the tax base by reducing area jobs, or acting to keep away new businesses or to reduce current business?
• Jobs. Will the action or policy provide more or better jobs for community members? Or will it reduce the number of available jobs, or reduce the quality and pay scale of jobs available to the community?
• The use of taxpayers' money. What kind of return will the public get on its investment or lack of investment?

Successful interventions that provide preventive health maintenance or training in such skills as adult literacy, job readiness, and money management, usually can be shown to save far more money in the long run than they cost. People who practice preventive health maintenance lose less time at work, and thus both make more money themselves (paying more taxes and spending more in local businesses) and earn more money for their employers (increasing the tax base). In addition, preventive health maintenance saves vast sums on medical treatment and insurance costs, thus reducing those costs for everyone. The training programs mentioned have been shown to help participants increase employment, reduce incarceration, and reduce debt, thereby becoming contributors to, rather than recipients of, public funds. Such programs are usually estimated by advocates to return about four dollars (in tax revenue and savings on welfare and incarceration costs) for every dollar spent on them.

Tax reductions, which are attractive to voters because they can see an immediate benefit to themselves, often cost taxpayers money in the long run, because they necessitate cutbacks in exactly the kinds of programs that save money over the long term. A million dollars in tax cuts, in a populous state, may mean a difference in taxes of a dollar or so per family per year, but a million dollars in program cuts may mean the difference between 200 people spending a year in jail, or spending a year working. The cost to taxpayers of keeping 200 people in jail for a year in most states is about $13 million. Even if that number is off by a factor of four, a million dollars in tax cuts could still result in a net cost of $2.25 million.

• Effects on business. Does the action or policy have the potential to increase the profits of local business? The designation of a wilderness area or wildlife preserve could create more business for outdoor guides, equipment suppliers and renters, restaurants, motels, campgrounds, etc., through an increase in tourism. The establishment of a regional theater may bring more traffic to some of the same businesses, as well as book and record stores and other cultural attractions. An improvement in the school and/or adult education systems can result in a better educated work force that will increase the competitiveness and profit potential of area businesses.
• Quality of life. Will the action or policy affect the non-money economics of the area by affording a benefit - or detriment - to the general quality of life? Ultimately, these non-money factors are tied to money, also. Businesses decide whether or not to locate in an area, for instance, at least partially because of the quality of life - schools, the environment, safety, cultural opportunities, recreation, etc. But quality-of-life issues are part of the economic balance for community residents as well, as discussed above. The possibility of catching and eating trout from the river, for example, may be worth more to citizens than the jobs a potentially polluting industry will bring.
• Fairness. Part of the equation for a community should have to do with the fairness of the economic benefit or harm. If an action or policy brings great benefit to one group at the expense of serious harm to another - even if that second group is a small minority - that may not be fair. If it's a case of the powerful prospering at the expense of the powerless, that's an even more serious issue for a community to tackle. There are not always easy answers in this situation. Sometimes, it makes both economic and ethical sense to do what's best for the larger community at the expense of a smaller group; more often, perhaps, the ethical issues outweigh what's economically best for the majority. The ideal situation is one where everyone benefits, but that's not always possible. In any situation where there are economic winners and losers, the fairness of the actions or policies applied have to be considered.

Determine your target audience

You may be aiming what you have to say toward the whole community, but you may not. Perhaps you need to convince only a certain group - legislators, for instance. Or perhaps you realize that you should tailor your message for different groups, slanting it to speak to each group's concerns. No matter how compelling your economic arguments are, they won't do you any good unless they reach the people who should hear them. In order to make sure that happens, you have to decide who those people are.

Some groups that could constitute some or all of your target audience:

• Opinion leaders, those who influence others - these could include clergy, community leaders, activists, large employers, or just average citizens with above-average credibility
• Political leaders
• Legislators
• The business community
• Particular ethnic or other groups - language minorities, or families with young children
• People who live in specific neighborhoods or areas

Frame and deliver your message with your audience in mind

Once you've clearly defined your audience, you can frame and deliver your message accordingly.

There are some basic communication guidelines to consider here.

• Use language that your target audience can understand. That may mean putting your economic arguments into plain, simple English, or it may mean translating them into the languages spoken by many in the target population or the community. Your message is useless if it's not understandable.
• Be culturally sensitive. Make sure you understand the culture(s) represented in the target audience and the community well enough so that your message isn't offensive or incomprehensible to those you want to reach.
• Use communication channels that your audience is familiar with. The Hispanic radio station, the Internet, the Chamber of Commerce newsletter, the bulletin board at the laundromat, the local-access cable TV channel - whatever means of communication the people you want to reach already pay attention to - are possible places to deliver your message.
• Use spokespersons the audience trusts and can identify with. Popular or trusted community leaders, sports heroes, clergy, people directly affected by the issue - all might be effective spokespersons in the right circumstances, especially if they're affected in the same way as the audience by the economic issues in question.
• Make your message memorable. This doesn't mean you have to scream it out, but rather that it should have a "hook" that sets it aside from all the other messages that bombard people every day. A slogan, a symbol, a distinct and familiar spokesperson, or an eye-catching question ("What are the health costs of your drinking water?") might all serve to catch your audience's attention.
• Use themes familiar to your audience to attract them to what you have to say and make it more understandable. Talk about families, for instance, rather than governments, to introduce the idea of spending money with the expectation of a future return, or of some positive outcome you're willing to pay for (a child obtaining a college degree, perhaps).

If you follow these steps, and repeat your message at every opportunity, you should be able to make effective use of economic arguments to accomplish your advocacy goals.

In Summary

Most public policy initiatives have economic outcomes of some sort as either their main or subsidiary goals. Whether an effort is aimed specifically at increasing employment or attracting businesses, or whether it's directed toward community health issues that affect citizens' economic status through lost work time and increased health costs, it will have economic consequences for the community, for the commercial sector, and/or for particular individuals or groups.

Economics is not always a matter of money. Public health and the overall quality of community life, for instance, are economic issues as well. They are part of a larger economics of community that defines whether a community is a desirable place to live. They also affect the finances of a community, by attracting or repelling new business, residents with education and skills, and visitors who might spend money in the area.

Advocates can use arguments about the economic benefit or harm of a particular action or policy to great advantage, whether that economic consequence concerns just commercial interests or the community as a whole. Many segments of society are moved more by the bottom line than by appeals to justice or need. Furthermore, economic arguments are, at bottom, easy to understand: over the long term, you make money, break even, or lose money. If you can show people that they will incur economic benefit or injury as a result of a particular action or policy, they are likely to respond.

Economic arguments may be most useful when:

• You're advocating for particular legislation or policy change
• You're opposing particular legislation or policy change
• You're advocating for a local action or policy with clear economic benefits
• You're opposing a local action or policy with clear economic drawbacks
• You're engaged in advocacy over a controversial issue
• You're trying to alert the public to the importance of an issue
• You're engaged in a community planning process

To demonstrate economic benefit or harm effectively, follow this process:

• Do the research, including reviewing existing research and theory; conducting studies and surveys; interviewing those affected; finding out about others' experience; and finding and consulting credible experts
• Determine the short- and long-term economic consequences of the action or policy in question
• Analyze those consequences, defining who loses and who gains economically and otherwise from the action or policy contemplated or needing to be changed
• Make the economic connections, based on the analysis
• Define your target audience for advocacy
• Frame and deliver your message with your audience in mind

If you follow this procedure, the chances are that you can successfully use economic arguments as part of an advocacy campaign.

What do we mean by economic benefit and harm?

___You divide economic consequences into community economic consequences and commercial economic consequences

___In looking at community economic consequences, you consider both money issues, such as the community's ability to attract business, and other issues, such as:

• Job opportunities
• Health issues
• Quality of life
• Opportunities for children
• Cultural life
• Expenses
• The civic climate

In looking at commercial economic consequences, you consider both money issues, such as tax breaks for new businesses, and other issues, such as:

• Good schools
• Job training or skills training programs
• Environmental preservation
• Pollution

Why should you demonstrate economic benefit or harm?

___Economic arguments are the most powerful for most people and organizations

___Economic issues affect everyone in the community

___Economic arguments are usually straightforward and realtively easy to understand

When should you demonstrate economic benefit or harm?

___You are advocating for a new law or change of policy

___You are opposing a new law or change of policy

___You are advocating for an action or policy that has clear economic benefits

___You are opposing an action or policy that has clear economic drawbacks

___Your advocacy involves controversial issues

___You are trying to alert the public to the importance of an issue

___You are engaged in community planning

How do you demonstrate economic benefit or harm?

___You do the research

___You determine the short- and long-term economic consequences of the action or policy in question

___You analyze those consequences

___You make the economic connections

___You define your audience

___You frame and deliver your advocacy message with the audience in mind

 

• What is documenting a complaint?

• Why should you document a complaint?

• Who should document complaints?

• When should you document a complaint?

• How do you document a complaint?

Mark Johnson was absolutely certain he was a victim of discrimination. A Black professor at a prestigious university, Mark was widely recognized as an expert in his field and an excellent teacher. He had just been granted tenure, and he and his wife - who also taught at the university - decided to buy a house in a leafy neighborhood where they could walk to work, and run home to check on their kids after school.

When Mark called real estate agents, they rhapsodized about the wonderful homes available that would just suit his needs. But when he and his family appeared in their offices, the homes had suddenly been sold, or had been taken off the market. He was sure there was a pattern here, but he had no proof. He decided that he needed to document what was happening, so that he could go to the state Commission Against Discrimination to file a complaint.

Mark first recorded, as best he could remember, his calls and visits to real estate agents, the descriptions of the houses they gave him over the phone, and the substance of their face-to-face conversations. Then he called his friend Richard, who was white, and explained the situation. He asked Richard to call the same agents with a request similar to Mark's, and report what happened.

Just as Mark had suspected, the agents touted what seemed to be the same houses to Richard as they had to Mark. They took Richard to see houses for sale in the neighborhood in question, and invited him to make an offer. When Mark called back, however, "to see if the situation had changed," as he put it to the agents, they said there were unfortunately still no houses available in that area. There were some lovely homes for sale in a neighborhood across town, however.

That was enough for Mark. He took his records, Richard's testimony, and his notes from the follow-up calls to the Commission Against Discrimination, which immediately issued a call for several real estate agents to appear at an exploratory hearing. Even before the hearing, a number of houses in Mark's preferred neighborhood "came on the market unexpectedly." The real estate agents were cited for discriminatory practice and warned that they would be monitored. Mark found a house in the neighborhood he wanted, and now happily takes his tree-lined morning walk to work.

When you have a complaint - whether it concerns housing discrimination, environmental violations, or poor treatment from a community-based organization - it's important to get the details, and to provide evidence when you can. This section explains how to approach the research and information gathering you'll need to do in order to document your complaint properly, and successfully get some action on it.

What is documenting a complaint?

Documenting a complaint means backing it up with as much provable fact or information - documentation - as possible. Mark Johnson, for instance, made a record of all his and Richard's dealings with real estate agents before he went to the Commission Against Discrimination. He knew that his word, or his complaint alone, wasn't necessarily enough to start an investigation.

As we'll discuss below, documenting a complaint can be as simple as taking notes on a conversation, and as complicated as engaging in extensive library research and collecting many pieces of evidence.

Some of the things you may have to document:

• That the action or condition or policy you're complaining about actually happened or exists
• That the action or condition or policy in question was intentional, or at least that those responsible for it knew, or should have known, its consequences, or known that it was illegal or unethical
• That a particular individual or entity was or is responsible for the action or condition or policy in question
• That you or others actually had particular experiences or conversations
• That someone was actually harmed or otherwise negatively affected by the action or condition or policy in question
• The particular physical, social, economic, health, psychological, environmental, or other results of the action or condition or policy in question
• Your own credentials, or those of any experts you consult or cite

This doesn't mean that you have to have a doctorate in chemistry to document an environmental complaint, for instance, but rather that you've had some relevant experience. That experience could be personal - with the negative health consequences of a particular environmental violation, for instance.

Whatever the case, you can't expect a regulatory agency, municipal officials, a newspaper reporter, the entity you're trying to change, or the public to accept your version of events unless you can back it up. That's what documentation is all about.

Why should you document a complaint?

The most important reason to document a complaint is that already mentioned: regulatory agencies, courts, and ombudspersons need evidence in order to sort out the reality of a situation. (That's why we have trials - so that the judge or jury can figure out who's telling the truth.) If you can prove the substance of your complaint, or at least show that all the evidence points in the direction you're suggesting, you've gone a long way toward getting something done about it.

There are other compelling reasons to provide careful documentation for any complaint, however, such as:

• It establishes you as a credible witness. In other words, it shows you're telling the truth.
• It establishes that you were concerned enough to pay attention to and record the details of the situation.
• It may determine whether or not your complaint is taken seriously.
• Having the proper documentation may make a difference as to whether or not the complaint can be acted on by a regulator or court. A regulatory body or judge may not have the authority to act without a certain piece or a certain minimum of information. There may be an inspection requirement (in the case of a consumer complaint, for example). It's vital to know what's needed and to make sure you have it.
• Having the proper documentation may make a difference as to how the complaint is acted upon. Careful documentation, for instance, could determine whether or not the law was violated, to what extent, and if there were extenuating circumstances. All of these could make a big difference in the outcome of your complaint.
• Proper documentation can protect you against libel or slander charges if you make public accusations. You can't lose a libel or slander suit - and may be able to dismiss one - if you can prove that you're telling the truth.

Libel and slander are the legal terms for damaging someone's reputation by publicly making untrue statements about her. The difference between the two is that libel refers to written statements, and slander to those that are only spoken.

• In most cases, proof of your complaint automatically gives you the moral advantage.

Who should document complaints?

As should be obvious by now, anyone who wants to file or register a complaint should document it. If you think there's a problem, you need evidence to convince others that that's the case. There are some people, however, whose documentation may be particularly important.

• Experts in the field. If you're worried about practices or possible leakage at a local nuclear power plant, for instance, having a nuclear engineer help you document the situation may be more effective than doing it alone. He may see things that you wouldn't have thought to look for, or understand why a particular procedure is important to your complaint.
• People on the inside. Whistleblowers or others who are willing to document practices or actions within the entity you're complaining about may have access to information you'd never have found otherwise.
• People directly affected by the issue. Those who have been harmed, endangered, or otherwise negatively affected by the subject of the complaint, should be documenting every detail of their experience. Those details may eventually supply the most convincing support for the complaint.
• Community leaders or other respected individuals. Your documentation can take on added strength and credibility if some of it comes from people in the community whom everyone knows and looks up to.

When should you document complaints?

The great irony about documenting complaints is that - as you often find out later - you should start before you realize you have a complaint. If you take that seriously, you can spend your whole life documenting everything. Since that's probably not how you want to spend your time, you have to make some choices about when you actually try to document what's happening. In fact, there are some specific times when it makes sense to gather evidence.

• When you're seeking evidence to bring before a regulatory body or court. This is perhaps the situation in which there is the clearest need for documentation. Your documentation in this case needs to be as detailed and accurate as possible, and needs to have been obtained legally. It won't hurt if it's corroborated by several sources as well.
• When you're looking for facts to back up advocacy for or against legislation or policy. If you're advocating for legislation or policy that would address the subject of your complaint, your chances of success will be far greater if you have documentation of the practice or condition you want to change.

The Voting Rights Act was passed at least partially because Civil Rights Movement activists were able to produce documentation of clear discrimination against potential Black voters in the South. Illiterate White people were regularly allowed to register, while Black people with college degrees were consistently turned away. Faced with the evidence of this practice, the federal government had little choice but to yield to public opinion and act to rectify the situation.

• When you're trying to convince an organization to change its procedures or policies. If the staff of the welfare office often humiliates welfare recipients, for example, bringing documentation to the administrator in charge may be enough to change organizational policy about the treatment of clients.
• When you're accusing an organization, business, or government body of wrongdoing, malpractice, or incompetence. Unless the entity has actually broken the law, you'll generally have to provide documentation of a series of events that show a pattern, rather than just a single one.
• When you suspect a pattern of consumer fraud. When elders in the area receive phone calls offering spectacular deals or investment possibilities too good to be true, they usually are too good to be true. There are numerous stories of phone solicitations that lead to people - older people particularly - losing their life savings, or paying outrageous prices for inferior aluminum siding that they didn't need. Documentation can help to stop this practice, and can also be used to prosecute those responsible.
• When you suspect that the target of your complaint might accuse you of slander or libel, or might falsely accuse you of some other wrongdoing. As explained above, truth is the ultimate defense against slander or libel. If you carefully document not only the details of your complaint, but the details of theirs against you as well, you'll be able not only to prove your case, but to demonstrate your opponents' true colors.

How do you document complaints?

The first step in documenting a complaint is understanding what kind of documentation you'll need. It will vary, depending upon whom you're registering the complaint with. Once you've settled that question, you then have to make a plan for collecting the documentation, and actually do it.

Determine what kind of documentation you'll need

You may be complaining to an official body - a regulatory agency, a labor union, the personnel department of a company - or you may be taking your complaint public in some way. Whatever the case, you'll have to provide documentation in the form and of the type that's required.

Complaining to an official body

Most regulatory bodies, businesses, institutions, and organizations have some sort of official complaint or grievance procedure. If you're using such a procedure, make sure you know it cold, and follow it carefully. Failing to do so may mean that your complaint won't be heard at all, and to refile it may take months.

• Submit the complaint to the proper entity, and to the proper department or individual within the entity. It may take some research to find out beforehand who's responsible for the type of complaint you're submitting.
• Submit the complaint within the time limits imposed by the procedure. There may be time limits involved (the statute of limitations, for instance, or fiscal year considerations), or complaints may have to be submitted within a certain time after the actual violation or incident that sparked the complaint.
• Submit the complaint in the proper form. You may have to record the complaint on an actual form generated by the oversight body, or the complaint may have to be notarized. There may have to be a certain number of copies; you may need a separate form for each incident you're reporting. You may have to make a personal appearance, in which case you'll need notes so you can document the complaint properly.
• Find out exactly what documentation is necessary for the official body to act on the complaint, and make sure you have it. Sometimes, you'll need to be able to document specific instances, rather than a pattern of behavior. In other cases, it will be the opposite. You may have to find out informally - through a contact at the entity you're submitting the complaint to - exactly what's required, or what the entity prefers.
• Deliver the complaint at the required place and time.

In addition to making sure you get everything right, it makes sense to try to identify the actual individual (or panel) that will review the complaint, and try to develop a contact either with that individual or with someone else within the entity who can help you track the progress of the complaint, and answer questions.

Complaining to the entity that's the object of the complaint

Unless you're going through something like an official corporate or organizational grievance procedure - in which case, you should follow the instructions above - you'll need documentation that's both specific enough and powerful enough to convince the entity to change its ways. That may mean proof that it's been doing something illegal, or close to illegal, or simply enough evidence that what it's doing is harmful that it would prefer not to have to face public pressure on the issue. In either case, your documentation will need to include specifics - dates, times, places, people involved, exactly what happened - to make it clear that there's really no room to slide out of the situation.

In order to gain cooperation in this circumstance, your initial approach should probably be low-key and cooperative in itself. Rather than "We've caught you red-handed," a friendlier "We all want to make sure this situation is corrected; let's work together on it" might be more effective. You can always get tough later, if it becomes clear that the entity doesn't want to cooperate.

Using the media to make the complaint public

Just as in the two instances above, the media will want documentation of the specifics of the complaint, but they'll need some other support as well.

When you approach the media, remember the three C's:

• Coherence. Your story has to be understandable, and able to be told in a not-overly-complicated way. The media will be interested if they feel that your complaint is one that the public can or should understand and be moved by. Your documentation, or at least some of it, has to support your complaint clearly, and show both reporters and the potential audience that your complaint has substance.
• Consequences. Your complaint will be most compelling to the media if it has some general effects that the audience can see as relevant to themselves. Therefore, your documentation should refer to consequences that touch the general public. A complaint based on threats to public health, economic stability, or political conniving, for instance, is likely to be more newsworthy than one relating to a single person's experience.
• Confirmation. Most reputable news organizations won't publish anything - especially anything accusatory, controversial, or potentially libelous - without having the facts of the story confirmed by at least one source other than the original. Important stories, or stories that are particularly controversial, usually require corroboration by several sources. You should be prepared to refer reporters to others who can independently confirm the facts that you've given them.

There are three other important points to consider when working with the media. The first is that you should never embroider, exaggerate, or lie for effect to a reporter or columnist. If she can't trust you completely, she won't deal with you, or - worse - will expose you as a liar, and discredit your complaint.

The second is that, while a reporter can be of help to you, there's no guarantee that she will be. Her job is to get the whole story, and she may be convinced by your opponents' arguments. Whenever you work with the media, that's a chance you have to take. That's all the more reason to make sure that your documentation is complete, correct, and convincing.

Finally, find out the appropriate person to bring your story to. In the words of a New York Times reporter, "I would recommend that people read/watch local newspapers and news shows carefully enough to know WHO would be most interested in their stories. Selling an educational outrage story to the reporter who covers retail marketing is a waste of time for all concerned. (I get a lot of this - when flacks call now, I ask, before they can start their pitch, if they know what I cover. If they don't know, and they then ask 'Well, who does cover widgets?' I know that they are mindlessly cold-calling reporters from some list they have been given.)"

Making your complaint public on your own

If you're using a public meeting, a demonstration, a speech, or other public forum, or a self-published flier, article, or website to air your complaint, the documentation you present (not necessarily the same as all the documentation you have) needs to be substantial enough for you to be taken seriously. It also needs to contain enough proof to protect you from slander or libel charges. (As mentioned above, the truth is absolute proof against slander or libel.)

Collect the actual documentation

Try to anticipate the need for documentation

As we discussed earlier, any time you're involved in an advocacy situation that may develop into a complaint, you should be collecting documentation from the very beginning. It's not always possible to anticipate, but if you have any inkling that a complaint is possible, act on it.

The same is true if you think a complaint may be lodged against you. If your advocacy activities involve confrontation or investigation, your opponents may see a complaint as a way to neutralize your message. Even if they're not successful, they could put you and your cause in a bad light. If they are successful, they might be able to silence you completely. If you can document that what you're doing is legal (assuming it is), and that what you're saying is true, they don't have a case.

Do the research to get the background information you need

Know any relevant laws or regulations inside out. Learn as much as you can about the science, sociology, psychology, economics, or politics involved, as well as the history of the issue. If you're accusing an entity of actually or potentially causing harm, you're much more likely to be listened to if you can back up your complaint with research. If you're challenged, you should be able to discuss the issue with confidence, answer questions, and show why you're registering the complaint. The more informed you are, the greater the chances that your complaint will see action.

Get the basic facts

After background, you'll need specifics. These are the nitty-gritty facts of the situation that may, in fact, be extremely important in getting your complaint resolved.

They include:

• Time and date
• Place
• The individual(s) or group(s) involved

This category comprises not only those who are responsible for actions, policies, etc., but those who give you information, those with whom you negotiate, and those with whom you discuss the complaint, among others. There is a reason that the folks who staff the IRS information line, for instance, always identify themselves by name and ID number. Other possible members of this category include owners or operators of businesses or vehicles or equipment involved in the complaint, potential witnesses, and others who may be needed to supply testimony or information.

• Relevant addresses, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, websites, etc.

It's important to be as accurate as possible with all this information, not only for the purposes of documentation, but also to establish your credibility. If you weren't careful enough to spell people's names correctly or get their addresses right, that could imply that the rest of your facts aren't right, either.

• The number of incidents, and/or the duration of the problem, if it's ongoing.

Describe, as clearly as possible, exactly what the complaint is about

If the complaint concerns the violation of a law or regulation, for instance, be sure to explain which law or regulation is at issue, and exactly what elements of it were violated. (And be sure you know and understand the details of the law or regulation.) If there's no specific violation, then define and explain your complaint as fully as possible. Your complaint should state both what is occurring that you think is unacceptable, and what you think would be acceptable.

Document exactly what happened

Be specific, including as much detail as possible, and for as many incidents as possible. The step-by-step sequence of events for each incident (as well as the sequence of incidents) may be important.

Document conversations with the target of the complaint, regulators, etc.

It's important to document exchanges with everyone involved - this includes not only the target of the complaint, but also regulators and officials, those affected by the actions or policies you're complaining about, and anyone else related to the issue. If you can, get conversations, or at least the important parts of them, word-for-word. That may mean using an audio recorder (you'll generally need permission to do that), or simply taking good notes. Be careful to get the name of anyone you're talking to, especially if that person is acting in any official capacity - as a technical assistance person for a government agency, for instance - and to record the time and length of the conversation, so it can be confirmed by phone or appointment records.

Document the effects of each incident, or of the overall pattern of events

There are several types of consequences you might be concerned with, and consequences might come from a single policy or action, from repeated actions over time, or from an unrelated series of careless or intentionally harmful policies or actions by the same entity over time.

Some of the types of consequences you might record:

• Human/psychological consequences. These may result from a policy - anxiety and ultimately hunger and homelessness resulting from a cut in welfare benefits, or from changing eligibility requirements for support programs, for instance. They may also result from careless or incompetent care - physical or mental health problems - or from poor treatment in a program or agency - dropping out, emotional upset to the point of tears, loss of sleep, withdrawal, or acting out.
• Public health consequences. These may include the outbreak of a specific disease or condition as the result of a single incident or an ongoing problem or series of incidents; a health threat from a single incident or an ongoing series; or long-term consequences of a single incident or an ongoing series.

Some examples of these threats to public health include a massive outbreak of an intestinal disorder caused by the contamination of the Milwaukee water supply by flooding (single incident); sheep kills (and some later human illness) caused by nerve gas escapes from a US government testing facility in Utah in the 1950's and '60's (multiple incidents); and the birth defects and strange diseases caused years later from the dumping of toxic substances in what became the Love Canal neighborhood of Niagara Falls, NY (long-term consequences from an ongoing series of incidents).

• Economic consequences. In addition to economic losses caused directly by other consequences (the Love Canal neighborhood was eventually evacuated, and, although residents were compensated, both they and the city lost large amounts of money), a complaint may refer specifically to economic issues. You may be able to document a waste of taxpayers' money (money going to ineffective programs run by politicians' cronies, or to shore up failing businesses owned by the politically well-connected); community economic consequences (loss of employers because of poor schools, pollution, or another target of your complaint); the cheating of shareholders and the government by corporations' and accounting firms' shady practices; or a pure swindle, such as a scheme to defraud elderly citizens of their savings by phone solicitation.
• Environmental consequences. We've already referred to Love Canal under public health, but it, of course, has environmental consequences as well, as does any dumping of hazardous waste where it will have an impact on soil, air, or water. In addition to its links to health, damage to the environment can have effects on wildlife (think of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound in Alaska in 1989), on landscape (clear-cutting, strip mining), on economics (possible products lost by the clearing of the Amazon rainforest, fisheries depleted by overfishing or pollution), and on the destruction of irreplaceable natural resources (the cutting of old-growth redwoods, the emptying of major aquifers).
• Political consequences. Mistaken or corrupt decisions on the part of politicians or agencies can lead to any of the consequences listed above, and can also bring about the election, defeat, or downfall of an elected official, the firing of a government employee, or changes for better or worse in government and social policy. They can lead to dishonesty and corruption among officials, the undermining of the democratic process, and citizens' loss of faith in their government. In addition, they can be part of a cycle of bad decisions, made for officials' or their friends' advantage, rather than for the public good. Empires have fallen when such political consequences were allowed to continue unchecked.

Provide or obtain as much actual proof of the substance and details of your complaint as possible

This may take some investigative research.

You may need:

• Photographs
• Testimony of whistleblowers or other eyewitnesses
• Testimony of people affected by the subject of the complaint
• Legally obtained memos, letters, e-mails, or other documents confirming the substance and details of complaint
• Logs, or audio- or video records of conversations
• Public documents, newspaper articles, or other published material confirming the substance or details of the complaint. A newspaper article, for instance, will include the date and location of an incident, the people involved, and at least a summary of what happened.
• Published scientific, sociological, psychological, or other studies confirming the consequences of the incidents or policies you've documented
• The testimony of experts - psychologists, environmental scientists, economists, public officials, etc.
• You may need some evidence of intention among all this. It could make a big difference if an incident or policy was an accident or a mistake, rather than intentionally harmful, or instituted with full knowledge that it could or would cause harm. If a government regulator fails to prosecute a violation because he simply hasn't been able to detect it - whether because of his own incompetence or because of a good cover-up by the violator - he may be fired, but he hasn't broken any laws. If he ignores the violation because the violator has paid him to do so, he's guilty of a criminal act, and can go to jail.

Be prepared to present your documentation, formally or informally

Once you've assembled the documentation you need, you may have to present it to whomever you must convince in order to see your complaint acted upon. Some of the situations you might find yourself in:

• Informing supervisors, directors, or other officials of the offending entity
• Formally or informally presenting evidence before an individual regulator or a regulatory body
• Presenting documentation at a public meeting or demonstration, or in a media interview or program
• Testifying at a state or federal legislative hearing looking into the activities of a particular entity or of a regulatory agency
• Giving a pre-trial deposition in a lawsuit
• Testifying at a court hearing or actual trial

In any of these situations, or others where you're asked to back up your complaint, it's important that your documentation be accurate and well-organized. In a legislative hearing or court-related situation, you may be grilled by lawyers who'll try to rattle you and shake your story or catch you in a contradiction. You can be unshakable if you have your facts straight beforehand.

Some pointers:

• Memorize the important points, so you don't have to refer to notes or sheaves of documents to answer questions. You should have everything you'll need on the tip of your tongue.
• Practice telling a coherent story in clear, unpretentious language, just as when dealing with the media
• When being questioned by lawyers, the most important rule is to stay calm. They may seem angry, but they're not actually angry at you personally; they're just trying to make you anxious enough so you'll make a mistake or come across as a liar or a fool, whether you are or not.
• When being questioned by lawyers remember that, although you do have to tell the truth, you don't have to - and never should - volunteer any information they don't ask for.

This rule goes for friendly lawyers as well. The lawyer on your side has thought carefully about what he wants you to say in court or at a hearing, and will only ask you for the answers he thinks will be most helpful. If you start answering questions he's not asking, you may provide the other side with information it can use against you.

Another important point to remember is to protect your documentation. Make backups of all computer files and disks, CD's or DVD's. Make copies of all photographs and documents. Store your backups and copies away from your computer and your originals. The danger here is not that they'll be stolen or altered - although, depending upon the nature and the target of your complaint, that may be possible - but rather that they'll be lost or accidentally destroyed.

Unless it's absolutely necessary, don't give out your originals, and provide copies where you have to. Never give an original document, photograph, or other documentation to anyone other than an official of a legislative committee, regulatory body, law enforcement agency, or court. And don't give them originals, either, if they'll take a copy.

Now that you have assembled the documentation for your complaint, you're ready to present it - to the offender, to a regulatory agency, to the courts, to the media, or to the public. You can be confident that you've done all you can to assure that your complaint is attended to and resolved.

In Summary

Filing a complaint will not necessarily bring action unless you can back it up with facts. That means you may have to document not only the facts of the complaint, but the consequences of the action or policy you're complaining about, who's responsible, whether or not the consequence was intentional, and your own standing to complain.

In addition to providing the proof you need to get your complaint resolved, properly documenting a complaint increases your own credibility as well. It can increase the ability of a regulator or court to act, establish intention, protect you from charges of libel or slander, and give you a moral advantage.

Although anyone can - and should - document a complaint, documentation from experts in the field, people affected by the consequences of the action or policy in question, people on the inside of the entity at fault, or respected community figures may be especially powerful. And although complaints should always be documented, it's particularly important to document them when you're preparing for a regulatory or court hearing; when you're advocating for or against a particular piece of legislation or policy; when you're trying to gain organizational change; when you're accusing an entity of wrongdoing; when you suspect consumer (or other) fraud; or when you're in danger of a libel or slander suit.

Your documentation needs to be appropriate to the entity you're complaining to. Regulatory bodies, entities who are targets of the complaint, the press, and the public at large may each respond to different kinds and levels of documentation. You have to know what's necessary and be prepared to provide it.

Actually amassing documentation for a complaint includes a number of elements:

• Anticipate the need for documentation
• Do the background research, so that you know your subject well
• Get the basic facts
• Describe clearly what the complaint is about
• Detail exactly what happened in as many instances as possible
• Document conversations
• Document the effects of each incident, and/or of the long-term pattern of events
• Provide actual proof of what you claim - photos, documents, first-hand testimony, etc.
• Be prepared to present your documentation convincingly

If you can do all this, you have a very good chance of seeing your complaint acted on and resolved.

To document a complaint:

___Determine whom you're filing the complaint with, and document accordingly

___Develop a plan for documentation

___Research all necessary background information

___Obtain the basic facts

___Describe in writing exactly what the complaint is about

___Describe in writing, as clearly as possible, exactly what happened for as many incidents as possible

___Record conversations, in exact words where possible

___Document the consequences of each incident or policy and/or of the overall series of incidents or policies you're complaining about

___Provide as much actual proof of the substance and details of your complaint as possible

___Present your complaint, with its documentation

Other considerations:

___Your documentation establishes you as a credible witness

___You established your concern by paying attention to and recording the details of the situation

___You have determined whether or not your complaint is taken seriously

___You have used the proper documentation so that it might make a difference as to whether or not the complaint can be acted on by a regulator or court

___You know how you want the complaint acted on and have the proper documentation to support that action

___Your documentation will protect you against libel or slander charges if you make public accusations

___You established the moral advantage through the use of your proof

___You encouraged anyone who has a complaint to document it, and did so yourself

___You asked experts in the field to document the situation

___You asked people directly affected by the actions or policies at which the complaint is directed o document the situation

___You asked people on the inside of the entity at which the complaint is directed to document the situation

___You asked community leaders or other respected individuals to document the situation

 

• What is a watchdog?

• Why act as a watchdog?

• Who can act as a watchdog?

• When should you act as a watchdog?

• How do you act as a watchdog?

If your dog functions as a watchdog, it’s often because you want some level of protection from intruders, fire, or other forces that might do you harm. A watchdog organization can provide that same kind of protection to a community and its members. By gathering and publicizing information and – sometimes – taking direct action, it can expose and address issues related to health, economic security, the environment, community quality of life, and the public interest. This section will discuss what it means to function as a watchdog, and provide some guidance for both choosing what kind of watchdog to be and how to function in your chosen role.

What is a watchdog?

In the context of this section, a watchdog is an individual or group (generally non-profit) that keeps an eye on a particular entity or a particular element of community concern, and warns members of the community when potential or actual problems arise. Watchdogs may be concerned with anything from the actions of a single individual to the policies of several national governments. They may monitor one issue or many; their concerns may be local or global...or both.

Just like actual watchdogs, watchdog individuals and organizations vary in what they do. For some, just sounding the alarm is the goal. Others might try to use their information actively to stave off problems. A few will actually tackle problems head-on, entering into lawsuits or other pitched battles with individuals or institutions that they see as threatening to the public interest or the well-being of the community.

While some watchdog organizations concentrate solely on that function, many have other purposes as well, and include the watchdog role as only one of the things they do. The watchdog role overlaps with that of the advocate, but the thrust of most advocacy is the advancement of a cause or the improvement of conditions for a particular population or geographic area. The express purpose of watchdogs – the reason they’re called watchdogs – is protection.

Watchdog organizations and individuals are like sentries. They keep an eye on powerful forces – governments and particular government bodies and agencies, corporations, organizations, institutions – to make sure that their operations and actions don’t cause harm or conflict with the public interest.  When they find that conflict, they may act as whistle-blowers, exposing illegal or other negative actions or practices to public view, and expecting that that exposure will bring about the appropriate measures as a result of a public outcry. Alternatively, some watchdogs may lobby, engage in direct action of some sort, or go to court to stop actions or reverse conditions that endanger or otherwise harm the community or its members.

Examples of watchdogs can range from the small-town resident who attends and takes careful notes at every selectboard and town board meeting to the big-city school reform organization that has a presence at all school committee and subcommittee meetings. Some individuals or organizations might monitor a single corporation to ensure that it doesn’t illegally spew pollutants into the environment or discriminate in hiring. Others might keep a close watch on a state government agency or the state legislature to guard against any decisions or practices that are inconsistent with the good of the public.

On a larger scale, organizations like Common Cause, Amnesty International, the Committee to Protect Journalists,Greenpeace, and Corporate Watch keep tabs on the ethics and practices of the U.S. and other federal governments, on global corporations, or on environmental issues worldwide. There are watchdogs that address consumer issues, health, the qualifications of members of various professions, fairness in the media, discrimination in such areas as housing, and numerous other topics. In short, you might be a watchdog on the local, state, federal, or international levels; you might monitor almost any issue; and you might direct your attention to almost any individual, group, organization, sector (business, government, education, etc.), or institution that has some effect on the physical, social, economic, or political well-being of the community, the state, the nation, or the world.

Given all that, what kind of watchdog should you be?  That depends on several factors.

• What resources do you have?  Remember, resources include not only money, but also people and their skills and talents, time, space, etc. Acting as a watchdog takes lots of time, the ability to gain accurate information quickly, communication and interpersonal skills, and, if you’re planning to go to court, or to stay in the watchdog business for the long term, the right people and a fair amount of money.

Resources here include not only the people with the skills to do the job, but with the energy, enthusiasm, and will to keep at it, often in the face of massive frustration, over a long period of time.  Amnesty International, for instance, which documents human rights abuses around the globe, has been at it for nearly 50 years.  While its reports have called attention to and sometimes stopped abuses, new atrocities arise nearly every day.  As torture ceases in one place, it begins in another.  Acting as a watchdog is not a job for people who expect fast and easy results, or who have difficulty continuing to move forward in the face of setbacks.

• What is your philosophy of activism?  If you have a specific political or social agenda, you may choose to act differently than if you are simply trying to get at the facts of a situation. Some very effective watchdogs bend over backwards to be neutral. Others make no apologies for the fact that they are advocates for a cause or a political position. There are arguments to be made for either stance, but the one you decide to take will help you determine how to approach your watchdog activities.
• What or whom are you watching?  If your concern is the performance of the local school committee, you may not need more than a small number of volunteers with notepads and pencils to monitor it effectively. If your concern is human rights worldwide, you’ll need enormous resources just to keep track of information. You may be able to be much more active in having an effect on the school committee. Human rights activism may have to depend on other organizations around the world that use your findings to bring about change.
• Do you have opponents, and who are they?  The larger and more powerful your opponents, the harder it will be to monitor the activities or policies they support. They may try to stop your activities through the courts, or shut off your access to information. You may have to spend lots of time and money just getting access to information, and you may find roadblocks at every new corner.
• What are your goals?  Is this a short-term project, or something that will need to go on for many years?  Are you aiming for a specific, concrete result – a change in the way a certain factory disposes of its industrial waste, for instance – or something larger and less well-defined – an improvement in economic and social conditions for the disadvantaged?  Your goal and its feasibility can help you decide what kind of watchdog to be.
• Are you the best individual or organization to take action?  As a watchdog, your first function is to monitor and call attention to actions and policies that harm members of the community or are contrary to the public interest. There may be other groups whose function is specifically to challenge entities or governmental bodies that carry out such actions and policies. Those groups may have the experience, the backing, and the personnel to take action much more effectively than you can, if they’re armed with the information you can provide.

By the same token, there may be other watchdog organizations that are already doing a good job of gathering the information you’re gathering.  If that’s the case, becoming a watchdog may not be a good idea for you, and might be better left to those who are already engaged in it.

Common sectors/entities that watchdogs monitor

Government

There are watchdog organizations monitoring government at all levels, from that local school board mentioned above, right up to national governments and the United Nations.  In the US, for instance, the Congressional Accountability Project keeps an eye on the activities of members of the US Congress and the Congress as a whole. The Government Accountability Project looks at the US government as a whole.

At the local level, government monitoring might be simpler.  We’ve already mentioned the possibility of keeping watch on the local school committee. Other local watchdogs might be concerned with the zoning and/or planning boards, the board of health, the sewer commission or water resources board, the capital planning committee – any local government entity, in fact, since all of their decisions are funded by taxpayers’ money and affect the whole community in some way.

Corporations and business

Watchdogs may observe the whole business arena, pay special attention to specific areas within it (technology firms, for instance), or focus on the activities of particular corporations.  Corporate Watch and the Corporate Accountability Project publicize the doings of multinational corporations.

Media

In the US, there are media watchdogs – many of them – at both ends of the political spectrum. FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), tries to keep the media honest from the liberal side. The Media Research Center is its conservative counterpart.

There is another type of media watchdog whose concern is freedom of the press. The Committee to Protect Journalists, a US-based organization that highlights threats and violence against journalists and a free press around the globe, is one example. Its function is to publicize the plight of journalists who have been arrested, threatened, brutalized, or killed in the course of trying to report the truth, and to promote freedom of the press around the world.

The environment

Environmental watchdogs abound around the world, from global organizations like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth International to local groups like the Millers River Watershed Council in central Massachusetts and the larger, Toronto-based Lake Ontario Keeper.

Many of these groups, like Greenpeace, engage in direct action (to the point where, several years ago, the French government, in a fury over Greenpeace’s attempted disruption of its atomic bomb tests in the Pacific, sank the Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior.)  Others, like the Sierra Club, use advocacy and  legal action to protect the environment and to further environmental aims. Some are focused on a single issue – clean air, endangered species, or recycling – while others, like the Sierra Club, address the range of environmental issues.

Human rights

With the United Nations’ publication of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, and its establishment of the U.N. High Commission on Human Rights, which became the U.N. Human Rights Council in 2006, and then with the founding of Amnesty International in the early 1960’s, the modern human rights movement came into being.  There are currently many organizations acting as human rights watchdogs around the world. The determinedly non-political Amnesty International continues its work on behalf of prisoners of conscience. Human Rights Watch, which grew out of the Helsinki Accords on human rights in the 1970’s, calls attention to human rights violations worldwide. Physicians for Human Rights USA and its international counterpart use the access and knowledge of physicians to call attention particularly to human rights violations involving physical abuse and torture.

While some watchdog organizations have a clear political agenda, Amnesty International is a prime example of a watchdog that plays no political favorites.  In a short span in 1977, the organization was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, accused by the then-right-wing Argentine government of being a front for the Soviet KGB, and accused by the Soviets of being founded and financed by the American CIA.

Hate groups

In the U.S., the Southern Poverty Law Center publishes a regular intelligence report on the activities of groups that target others for violence specifically because of their beliefs, their ethnic or racial backgrounds, or other characteristics for which they aren’t responsible. Among the more than 600 organizations SPLC monitors are the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nation, and various Black separatist groups and white-supremacist militias.

American freedoms and civil rights

Both progressive organizations, such as People for the American Way, and conservative ones like American Values and the Christian Coalition act as watchdogs to protect what they see as the core American values. The debate over what constitutes those values is still so volatile, more than two centuries after the drafting of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, that groups from all corners of the political universe – from anarchists, progressives, and liberals on the left to centrists to conservatives, libertarians, and authoritarians on the right – feel that they are threatened enough to merit a watchdog stance.

Public safety

The National Safety Council does research and issues reports and information to the public on such areas relating to public safety as health and medicine, fire prevention and preparedness, accidents, emergencies and disasters, and driving.

Consumer affairs

Consumer watchdog groups like the Better Business Bureau and Better Business Bureau For Charities and Donors, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission, a U.S. government agency, try to make sure that consumers have access to products and services that are safe, reliable, useful, and reasonably priced.  They issue warnings, for instance, about toys that are dangerous to young children, and their early protests are responsible for the now-common labeling practice that explains why a particular toy might be dangerous to a child below a certain age. Consumer groups in the US have also alerted buyers to genetically engineered and irradiated food, telephone sales swindles, and unsafe appliances.

The general public good

Common Cause and the Ralph Nader-founded Public Citizen cover the gamut of public issues. They monitor government, business, the environment, and any other areas where the public interest is threatened.

Most of these examples are of watchdog organizations that function on the national or international level, but, as we have discussed, watchdogs can be local as well.

Some examples:

• In one community, white supremacist literature attacking minority groups was dropped anonymously on the front lawns of many community homes. After the second such incident, the local Human Rights Commission, charged with responding to such events, reacted by collecting small contributions from community members in order to publish a full-page advertisement in the local newspaper. The printed notice, condemning such activity, appeared with the names of several hundred of the town’s leaders.
• A historical commission in a town serves in part to protect historic buildings against demolition, even if they stand in the way of new development. If demolition of a historic building is threatened, the commission will generally get involved, informing the public about the impending destruction of a historic site; it can at the minimum delay such proceedings until a full review is completed.
• Local news media can serve as watchdogs as well. (Some would say that that’s the primary job of the news media.)  For example, Voice of San Diego has exposed municipal corruption in that city; similar online news organizations operate in Seattle, Minneapolis – St. Paul, Chicago, St. Louis, and New Haven, Connecticut. (See “Web Sites That Dig for News Rise as Community Watchdogs,”  in the New York Times, November 16, 2008, p. 10.)

Why act as a watchdog?

There are obviously a number of reasons why you or your organization might want to act as a watchdog.  Most of them have to do with doing the right thing and serving society, but the first one we list here is probably the most powerful, and the one behind most watchdog activity.

• Self-interest. Often, a group begins acting as a watchdog because something it considers important is being threatened, or something that it wants to see done isn’t happening. Members of environmental watchdog organizations are likely to enjoy the outdoors, for instance; members of organizations that see themselves as protecting the rights of taxpayers are usually concerned about the size of their own tax bills. Furthermore, there’s nothing wrong with that. Self-interest can act to make people passionate about things that are important for others as well, and, ultimately, they may find themselves caring as much about others’ interests as they do their own.
• To defend those with little political or economic power, and help them learn how to gain and use that power. Too often, politicians, corporations, and others with clout choose to use it at the expense of those with very little. Funding for health and human service programs that benefit low-income families is cut at the first sign of economic difficulty.  Power plants that belch smoke, highways, airports, and sewage treatment plants are often located in low-income or minority neighborhoods. A watchdog group can speak on behalf of those who haven’t yet gained the skills to know when and how to speak for themselves, can model those skills, and can recruit budding leaders from among that population, so they can act as their own watchdogs.
• To keep citizens aware of what is happening in their community and their world. Perhaps the primary function of watchdogs is to gather and provide information that isn’t available elsewhere.  Much of what they report is learned only from determined digging, or from whistleblowers who won’t talk to the press or to official investigators. As a result, they are often able to inform the public about things that government, business, or others would rather they not know. In a democracy, it is crucial that citizens understand what their leaders and other powerful people are doing, and what the social realities are. A watchdog may reveal hidden government or corporate wrongdoing or incompetence, point out an important, but ignored, community issue that cries for resolution, or highlight the unfair or unjust treatment of particular groups or individuals. It thus gives the public the information it needs to understand and begin to correct the situation.
• To maintain power in the hands of the community, rather than of those who have money or power or connections. In a democratic society, political power, by definition, rests with citizens.  In too many cases, however, that power is assumed, without most people realizing it, by a small group of influential people who often use it for their own ends. A watchdog, by making such a situation apparent, can make it possible for a community, or a nation, to maintain or reclaim that power, and to assure that everyone is playing by the same rules.
• To prevent bad consequences that could cost the community economically or socially. By pointing out circumstances that need to be corrected, a watchdog can help a community avoid the possibility of a lawsuit, an environmental cleanup, racial conflict, or other results that could be costly, or even disastrous.
• To promote social justice and social change. Watchdog activity can help to assure that everyone is treated fairly, that all members of a community get what they need, and that people understand and support the need for change to make the community a better place to live.
• To maintain democratic ideals. Thomas Jefferson may or may not have written “An informed citizenry is the bulwark of a democracy.” (No one has ever found the exact source of that quote.)  He did, however, write, in 1820, near the end of a long, eventful, and thoughtful life: “I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of a society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion.”

In other words, the preservation of democracy depends upon its powers being exercised by all citizens. If they don’t seem to have the knowledge and information to exercise those powers, then the solution is to make sure they get that knowledge and information. A good part of a watchdog’s duties is to perform that function.

• Simple justice. Sometimes, the doings of a particular entity – a government body, a corporation, an institution, a social group – are just plain wrong. It may be overtly harming others, dishonestly inciting others to do so, enriching itself at others’ expense, or willfully refusing to correct conditions that harm individuals, groups, or the community as a whole.  Watchdogs can expose its activity or inaction, hold it up to the light of public scrutiny, and see that it answers for the harm it’s caused.

Who should act as a watchdog?

There are watchdog organizations – Amnesty International is a good example – that were founded specifically for that purpose. There are others – the Sierra Club, for instance – that were founded for, and still fulfill, other purposes, but serve a watchdog function. In fact, any organization that has an agenda should include being a watchdog as one of its roles.

Some organizations and individuals for whom acting as a watchdog at least some of the time might be appropriate include:

• Agencies or organizations concerned with a particular issue. It would make sense for an environmental organization to keep an eye on the neighborhood polluter, or for an elder advocacy group to monitor the price of medications.
• People affected by an issue or condition, or organizations that represent them. People who are speakers of languages other than English, or an English as a Second or Other Language (ESOL) program might be vigilant for discrimination in hiring in situations where language really isn’t a factor in whether the applicant can do a job.
• Professional organizations. State bar associations may act as watchdogs by scrutinizing the ethics of lawyers; the Better Business Bureau, a business organization, alerts the community to unethical or incompetent businesses.
• Organizations that represent the general public interest. We referred above to such groups as Common Cause and Public Citizen, which operate nationwide . State Public Interest Research Groups keep watch over the public good at a state level. While relatively few organizations start out as multi-issue watchdogs at the local level, some evolve into that role over time.
• Agencies, organizations, and individuals concerned with the economic consequences of policies, practices, and actions. Taxpayers’ organizations – both those that campaign for fewer taxes, and those that campaign for fairer or more taxes – generally keep their eyes open for government waste and violations of what they consider economic rights. Unions try to safeguard the economic security and rights of their members, and pay careful attention to the economic consequences of employers’ decisions.
• Those who are members of minority groups or represent minority interests, and want to make sure they aren’t discriminated against, and that their concerns aren’t ignored or forgotten. Civil rights organizations, the Anti-Defamation League, neighborhood ethnic organizations, and lesbian/gay support organizations are all examples here.
• Those concerned with the maintenance of democratic ideals. People for the American Way, the [British] Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group, San Francisco-based Global Exchange, and New York-based Freedom House are all watchdog organizations concerned with the state of democracy.  Smaller organizations that operate to gain publicly-funded elections, or simply to assure honest and competent government, may fill the same niche locally.

While the examples above are mostly of organizations, note that it is also possible for an individual to act as a watchdog. That person is often self-appointed, and is motivated by passion, and sometimes expert knowledge, about a particular issue. On a local level, that issue might be park maintenance, or sex education, or town finances, or pothole repair – you can be a watchdog on any local issue.

Individual watchdogs can be extremely effective, because of their passion and knowledge, together with the time they devote to their cause.  They can also be seen as – and can sometimes be – misinformed or obstructive, community cranks who are a pain in everyone’s neck.  If you take on an individual watchdog role, be sure you have your facts straight, and that what you’re monitoring is actually important to the public or the universal interest.  (Keeping an endangered insect or fish species alive may not be popular or seen to be in the public interest, but there’s a legitimate and important argument to be made in its favor.  It’s harder to make the same case for monitoring the color of the bricks used in the new pedestrian mall.)

When should you act as a watchdog?

As with most policy-related activities, functioning as a watchdog is something that should be done constantly by nearly everyone. But just as there are people and groups who might be more effective as watchdogs than others, there are times when watchdog activity is particularly appropriate and useful.

• When you’re seeking to institute or change laws or regulations. Watchdog activity is useful here in order to bolster arguments for the change you’re advocating. If you can show that a corporation is cheating or defrauding its shareholders, for instance, you may be able to convince legislators or officials to enact stricter laws to keep that from happening.

 The U.S. Congress, in the wake of the shady deals and accounting scandals accompanying the failures of Enron, Worldcom, and other corporations, enacted new laws to regulate the accounting industry and hold CEO’s and corporate boards more accountable for the dealings of their corporations. Much of the information that led to this legislation was uncovered by public and private watchdog organizations .

• When a new project or venture is starting or about to start, and you have doubts about its impact. You may be concerned that a proposed hospital merger will result in reduced care for the uninsured, or that a new business will have an environmental impact far beyond what’s projected. If your watchdogging shows you’re right, you may be able to stave off or change the project to avoid the negative consequences.
• When you believe the public interest is threatened. When laws or regulations act to benefit an individual or small group at the expense of the rest of the community; when an entity is engaging in practices that threaten the health, safety, economic well-being, or social stability of the community; when policies endanger the rights or interests of a particular group, especially a disenfranchised one – any of these is a good time to assume the mantle of watchdog, to protect the best interests of the community.
• When an entity or individual – government or a government official, a corporation or industry, a police department, a human service program, etc. – has proven untrustworthy in the past. Civilian review boards – watchdogs by definition – are often set up to monitor police departments that have been shown to be prone to brutality, racism, or other abuses of power.
• When you receive information about actual, planned, or likely harmful or questionable actions or practices. In such cases, you learn – from a whistle-blower, a trusted source, or your own investigations – that ethical or legal misconduct has taken place, that established procedures are not being followed, or that some form of injustice has occurred or is likely to occur. This a classic situation where a watchdog can cast a light on dark practices and prevent abuse of the public.
• When democracy is actually or potentially under attack. When a political machine threatens to gain control of the political process, when a group of people is being denied their constitutional rights, or when a lobbyist or a small group or individual with deep pockets and connections seems to be calling the shots, watchdogs are desperately needed.
• When simple justice demands it. Sometimes, it’s just necessary that there be someone who’ll call a spade a spade. When wrongdoing or blatant unfairness is going unchallenged, a watchdog might be the best defense against injustice.

How do you act as a watchdog?

Now that you’ve decided you want to be a watchdog, and determined what kind of watchdog you want to be, what’s next?  Quite a bit, as it happens.  Being a human watchdog isn’t as easy as being a canine one. There’s very little sleeping in the sun or barking at the garbage man. You have to know a great deal about the issue and the entities you’re concerned with, be constantly vigilant for information, and then do something effective with that information once you have it.

Do your research

This isn’t a single step, but an ongoing watchdog function. Watchdogs are researching constantly.  It’s the one part of the function that never has a clear end.

Learn everything you need to know to be able to explain and discuss the background and history of the issue(s), situation(s), and entities that you’re concerned with

If you’re going to be an effective watchdog, you have to know when a piece of information is important, and what it means. That means being totally familiar with:

• The laws and regulations that cover the areas and entities you’re interested in. These might include environmental laws, rules for corporate reporting, the bylaws of the town school committee, or whatever other laws and regulations are relevant.
• Background information. This includes the economics, history (both general and local), politics, and psychological or social issues that relate to your topic, as well as any specialized knowledge – science, for instance – you need to fully understand it. It also includes the results of studies and other research pertaining to it.
• Opponents’ identities, their arguments or justifications, and the counterarguments to them.

Be sure that your counterarguments are clear, coherent, and actually show you’re right.  If you have to search for effective counterarguments, or resort to “I just know we’re right and they’re wrong,” maybe you’re not right.  Try to be objective – your emotions don’t always tell you the truth.

• The possible consequences of various actions or policies. These include actions or policies you might initiate, or actions or policies your opponents or others might adopt. You might want testimony or advice from experts on this point.
• Who might be harmed, and who might benefit, from proposed actions or policies. First-hand stories from people who might be harmed can be an effective part of a watchdog report here. You should consider both effects on individuals and those on the community as a whole or on the public interest.
• The history and record of the entity or entities you’re monitoring. You will find much of your information in publicly-available documents: corporate or other filings; tax records; court documents; regulatory or legislative proceedings; and the minutes of open meetings. In addition, you might check media archives and the Internet for relevant stories or articles. You also may be able to search out individuals who’ve had direct experience with the entity(ies) in question, or to gain impressions from the “word on the street,” the general perception people have of it.
• Individuals who’ve had an influence, or who might have important information. Remember how Watergate was unraveled with help from “Deep Throat,” an unrevealed source within the Nixon administration, later identified as an official at the FBI .
• Other groups who are currently, or were in the past, engaged in watchdog or similar activities relating to the same issues, actions, policies, or entities as you. They’re likely to have important information and contacts that could save you a lot of time and effort. In addition, you might be able to accomplish more working together than any of you could working separately.

Gather the facts about the current state of the issue, and/or about the current policies and practices of the entities you’re concerned with

This step may call for  several different types of data-gathering:

• Searching available information. In addition to what’s obtainable in libraries, you might find important material in public records and documents, media files, and on the Internet.  In the last case, most major watchdog organizations maintain up-to-date web sites with enormous amounts of current information, and you might also find some of what you’re looking for on general information sites, message boards, and chat groups.
• Conferring with experts. Researchers, academics, or government officials may have the latest statistics or the results of a recent study, and may also be able to provide a perspective on the issue as a whole.
• Observation. This may range from checking the color and smell of what’s coming out of that outflow pipe into the river to attending public meetings.
• Monitoring behavior. How does that corporation treat its workers?  Do the police make many more random stops of minorities than of white citizens? How does that politician actually vote? How many times in the last year did that regulatory agency follow up on alerts that something needed to be looked into? Monitoring the behavior of the entities you’re concerned with can tell you a great deal.
• Direct investigation. Sometimes, you have to engage in detective work to find out what you need to know. That may mean finding and interviewing whistleblowers or other insiders, testing water or soil or a product, obtaining and sifting through an enormous number of records or documents, or using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

I. F. Stone, the late writer, editor, and publisher of I. F. Stone’s Weekly, is a hero to many investigative journalists.  Because he was legally blind, he didn’t feel capable of conducting personal, on-site investigations and interviews.  As a result, he sifted instead through thousands of pages of journals, newspapers, the Congressional Record, and other public documents, noticing inconsistencies, contradictions, and obvious lies, and applying standards of logic and journalism.  He was extraordinarily persistent, reading every word of numerous publications and documents to make sure he knew exactly what was going on.  This method enabled him to become one of the most reputable critics of the Vietnam War, and to expose, among other stories, the truth of the My Lai massacre.

The lesson here is that you don’t have to be a TV-style private eye in order to do a competent investigation.  You do have to have time and patience, persistence, and objectivity.

Build a network and cultivate sources

As is often emphasized in this chapter, direct contact with other people often leads to the best information.  It’s obviously important to get to know whistleblowers within government, business, or organizations who can give you the inside story, but there are others who may be equally good sources.  Legislative aides, people who simply work in a particular corporation or facility, people who are affected by the issue at hand or by the actions of the entity under scrutiny, and experts in the field may all have important knowledge to share with you.

You may not know or have access to any of these sources directly, and that’s where networking comes in.  Friends or colleagues may have direct or indirect connections to those you want to contact. Someone you interview may be willing to vouch for you and introduce you to someone else important to your investigation.  Build your network as wide as possible – you never know who might prove important.

It’s absolutely crucial to respect your sources and their limitations. They, not you, may be risking something – their jobs, their professional reputations, their political careers – by talking to you. Don’t overuse them, and don’t ask them to jeopardize or compromise themselves unless it’s clear they’re willing to.  Above all, don’t do anything yourself to jeopardize or compromise them without their permission.  Not only do you risk losing them as sources, but you violate their trust, and you have no ethical right to do that unless it would avert something much more important – deaths or serious injuries, a public health disaster, unnecessary war, a totalitarian takeover. Even in such situations, you should tell your sources what you’re going to do, so they can protect themselves to the extent possible, if necessary.

Decide what you’re going to do with the information you have

Information is useless unless you do something with it. Depending on what kind of watchdog you are, you have several choices:

You might still be asking yourself what kind of watchdog you should be. How do you make that decision? There are a number of criteria, many of them discussed earlier in the section.

In brief, you might consider the following:

• What does your issue lend itself to? If you’re specifically concerned with exposing wrongdoing – letting the public and/or law enforcement or regulatory agencies know what’s going on – then gathering and getting out information may be all you want or have to do. Especially if the activity you’re addressing can’t bear the light of day – illegal activity by a politician, for example, or gross discrimination in a situation where it’s against the law – all you have to do is expose it and public opinion and the law will do the rest. If the issue is one where the law or government is unwilling or unable to take action, then you may need to be more activist, rallying public protest or bringing lawsuits.
• What are other organizations doing? If there are already enough others organized to take action in this area, that may be best left to them.  Your job is to get them the information they can use to make their action effective.
• What are you good at?  What are the strengths of your organization? If research is your strong suit, then that is what you probably ought to be doing.  If, on the other hand, you have great connections and political skills, then lobbying for change might be more appropriate. Don’t try to force people or organizations into molds that don’t fit – use your strengths and you’ll be most effective.
• What resources can you draw on?  National campaigns or major activism take people, time, and money. If you don’t have access to what you need to carry these out, you should instead use your efforts where and how they can be most effective.
• Where can you have the greatest impact?  It makes more sense to take on a smaller task that you can succeed at than to try to do something that needs to be done but is beyond your capacity. You might want to end domestic violence in the state, but if you don’t have statewide contacts and the ability to create a large organization that can function in many communities, you’ll do better to concentrate on your own community. If you’re successful there, you may be able to establish the credibility that will allow you to build a statewide organization.

Nothing

If you’re a watchdog, this may not seem like an option: gathering and spreading information is your function, after all. There are times, however, when sitting on the information, at least temporarily, is the best course of action.

• If you and/or someone else is engaged in negotiations with an entity you’re monitoring, you may want to hold on to the information, and only use it if it’s needed.
• If you already have a satisfactory agreement or change, and the information you have is from a previous period, you might choose not to release or use it unless there’s a problem with the entity holding to the agreement. People and institutions can change, and they should be given the opportunity.
• If the information will identify or otherwise compromise a source or other innocent people who will be hurt by the situation (unless, as explained above, the issue is so important that it dwarfs the problems of individuals).

Go public

Through the media, share your information with the public. You may hope for specific consequences from this, but you may not have the resources or the organizational mandate to allow you to do more. If you do have the capacity for more, other possibilities for going public are issuing reports (which, if you’re well-respected, will probably receive media coverage as well); holding public hearings or meetings; and staging public demonstrations.

You may try to stir up protest or action, or influence public opinion with these tactics, but you still might not have the resources to do anything more substantive than gather and publicize information. I. F. Stone certainly wanted to see action as a result of his stories; however, he didn’t see his role as leading that action, but only as supplying the information that would foster it.

Use it as leverage

There are many ways in which information can be used to obtain a desirable result:

• Use the threat of exposure or a report to the authorities to force an agreement or concessions from a government, corporate, or organizational wrongdoer. This is probably the tactic that the term “watchdog” most often calls up.
• Use the information to demonstrate that the entity has a problem, and to change its behavior. While the information you have might be damaging, it might also simply be information. If, for instance, you’re concerned with a company’s environmental practices, and you’ve gathered evidence that the employment of more environmentally friendly practices would also benefit the company’s finances, you may be able to persuade it to adopt such practices. It might be all the more willing because the action would make it look like a good corporate citizen.
• Use the information to push a regulator to take action. Making information public might convince it to pay attention to standards or laws it’s been reluctant to enforce, for political or other reasons. These reasons might be innocent – lack of resources, for instance – but the regulator is still obligated to do its job.
• Use the information to give a regulator the evidence it needs to act against an entity.
• Use the information to spur action by government, another entity, or the public on an urgent issue. If you have indisputable evidence that addressing the issue is a public necessity, it may be enough to make something happen.

Take official action

That action may be to file a complaint – with government or industry regulators, with the Better Business Bureau or the Chamber of Commerce, with a professional organization – in order to bring official sanctions to bear. The official action may be within your own organization or group – picketing, a demand for negotiations, a boycott, etc. Or the official action may be within the court system, and involve initiating a lawsuit.

Another option here is using the electoral system. You might back, or even run, a candidate for office against one who has acted against the public interest, or you might try to elect someone who has promised to make specific kinds of changes in policy.

The four possibilities for using the information you have could be likened to how an actual watchdog operates. In the first case – sitting on the information, at least temporarily – you, as a watchdog, know someone’s approaching, but you’re still lying on the rug and not telling anyone else what you know.  In the second case – going public – you’re barking to warn others, but not taking any action.  In the third instance – using your information as a lever – you’re standing up and growling to let the intruder know that he’s in some peril if he doesn’t watch his step. And in the final case – taking official action – your teeth are in his leg.

Be aware that the more active your watchdog stance, the more likely you are to have opposition, and to experience some negative as well as positive response.  Those in power, particularly those whom you’re targeting, are not likely to be your friends, and may try to discredit you or destroy your reputation and your organization.  Some in the community may not approve of what you’re doing.  If you’re an individual whistleblower – someone inside a corporation, agency, or institution who reports unethical or illegal activity – you might find yourself fired and blacklisted, so that it’s difficult to find another job in your field.  (That kind of revenge is illegal, but it happens all the time.)  None of that should necessarily stop you, but it’s important to realize what you’re getting into.

Keep up your watchdog stance for the long term

No matter what kind of watchdog you’re able or choose to be, one thing is certain: you have to continue the practice. Things may run relatively smoothly as long as people know you’re watching. If you stop, it’s likely that the situation will soon return to the way it was before.

The whole point of acting as a watchdog is that you’re always there and always vigilant. You never know where the next threat may come from, or what form it may take.  It’s your job to anticipate it and let people know...indefinitely.

In Summary

There are all kinds of watchdogs: those that do nothing, those that simply warn, those that protect, and those that attack. What kind of watchdog you or your organization

should be depends on your resources, your philosophy, the nature of your cause and the entities you’re monitoring, your opponents, your goals, and whether you’re most likely to be effective if you take action.

Those same factors will, in large part, determine why you act as a watchdog:

• Self-interest
• To defend and empower those with little political or economic clout
• To keep citizens aware of issues, actions, and policies that affect their lives
• To maintain power in the hands of the community, rather than the few
• To prevent negative economic or social consequences
• To promote social justice or social change
• To maintain democratic ideals
• To achieve simple justice

While anyone may act as a watchdog at any time it seems necessary, there are people and organizations that are particularly suited for the job, and occasions when it’s particularly appropriate. Good candidates for watchdog status include organizations concerned with the issues or entities in question; people affected, or organizations that represent them; relevant professional organizations; organizations that represent the public interest; organizations and individuals concerned with the economic consequences of policies, practices, and actions; protectors of minority interests; and those concerned with maintaining democracy.

Good times to fulfill the watchdog function come often:

• When you’re seeking to institute or change laws or regulations
• When something new is starting, and you have doubts about its impact
• When you believe the public interest is threatened
• When an individual or organization has proven untrustworthy in the past
• When democracy is threatened
• When simple justice demands it

In order to be an effective watchdog, you have to conduct research constantly. That research should include learning absolutely everything you can about the issues and  entities you’re concerned with; gathering information about the current state of affairs, and the current policies and practices of entities; and building networks and cultivating sources of information.

Once you have useful information, you have to decide what to do with it.  You really have four options, corresponding to the four kinds of watchdogs described at the beginning of this section: you can do nothing; you can go public, through the media and/or public meetings and other methods; you can use the information as a lever to pry favorable concessions or actions out of an entity, or to encourage action on an issue; or you can institute official action – a complaint, a strike or boycott, a lawsuit.  Deciding which course to take – either in general or in a given situation – depends on what the issue lends itself to, what others are doing, where your real strengths are, your resources, and how you can have the greatest impact.

Finally, to be truly effective, you have to keep at it forever.

If you can accomplish all this, you should be able to help protect your community (or the larger society, depending on your scope) from unscrupulous or incompetent government officials and agencies, corporations, organizations, institutions, or interest groups, as well as encouraging the resolution of problems and issues.

What is a watchdog?

___A watchdog is an individual or group (generally non-profit) that keeps an eye on a particular entity or a particular element of community concern, and warns members of the community when potential or actual problems arise

___A watchdog may operate on the local, state, federal, or global level, and may deal with any issue or range of issues

___You can decide what kind of watchdog to be by considering:

• Your resources

• Your philosophy of activism

• What or whom you’re watching

• Whether you have opponents and who they are

• Your goals

• Whether you’re the best individual or organization to take action

What are the areas you might choose to monitor?

___Government

___Corporations and business

___Media

___The environment

___Human rights

___Hate groups

___American freedoms and civil rights

___Public safety

___Consumer affairs

___The general public good

Why act as a watchdog?

___Self-interest

___To defend those with little political or economic power, and help them learn how to gain and use that power

___To keep citizens aware of what is happening in their community and their world

___To maintain power in the hands of the community, rather than of those who have money or power or connections

___To prevent bad consequences that could cost the community economically or socially

___To promote social justice and social change

___To maintain democratic ideals

___Simple justice

Who can act as a watchdog?

___Agencies or organizations concerned with a particular issue

___People affected by an issue or condition, or organizations that represent them

___Professional organizations

___Organizations that represent the general public interest

___Agencies, organizations, and individuals concerned with the economic consequences of policies, practices, and actions

___Those who are members of minority groups or represent minority interests, and want to make sure they aren’t discriminated against, and that their concerns aren’t ignored or forgotten

___Those concerned with the maintenance of democratic ideals

When should you act as a watchdog?

___When you’re seeking to institute or change laws or regulations

___When a new project or venture is starting or about to start, and you have doubts about its impact

___When you believe the public interest is threatened

___When an entity or individual – government or a government official, a corporation or industry, a police department, a human service program, etc. – has proven untrustworthy in the past

___When you receive information about actual, planned, or likely harmful or questionable actions or practices

___When democracy is actually or potentially under attack

___When simple justice demands it

How do you act as a watchdog?

___Do your research:

• Learn everything you need to know to be able to explain and discuss the background and history of the issue(s), situation(s), and entities that you’re concerned with

• Gather the facts about the current state of the issue, and/or about the current policies and practices of the entities you’re concerned with

• Build a network and cultivate sources

___Decide what you’re going to do with the information you have:

• Nothing

• Go public

• Use it as leverage

• Take official action

___Keep up your watchdog stance for the long term

Example #1: Ohio Refuses to Be Intimidated by Hate

Letters from the Ohio Secretary of State and other officials falsely warned these voters that participating in elections could result in felony charges—a clear attempt to intimidate and suppress their right to vote. These actions erode trust in elections, deter civic participation, and disproportionately impact communities of color already facing heightened xenophobia and discrimination. 

Community Response and Advocacy

In response to these fearmongering tactics, organizations like OPAWL (Ohio Progressive Asian Women’s Leadership) and the Asian Law Caucus exemplified the role of advocacy groups as effective watchdogs. They released a bold, race-conscious statement affirming the importance of protecting voting rights for all Ohioans, regardless of race, ethnicity, or citizenship pathway. Their efforts as a watchdog demonstrating how advocacy organizations can monitor, expose, and counteract abuses of power.

OPAWL’s statement reinforced the belief that everyone deserves the freedom to shape the decisions that affect their lives. By holding public officials accountable, these organizations emphasized the critical role of civic engagement in safeguarding—not undermining—democratic rights. Their swift action exposed voter intimidation tactics as blatant attempts to divide and disenfranchise marginalized communities.

Empowering Public Messaging

To counteract these oppressive strategies, OPAWL launched a video campaign titled OH No You Don’t. This campaign serves as a powerful example of how public messaging can mobilize collective resistance against voter intimidation. The video sends a strong message to corrupt politicians exploiting hate to restrict fundamental freedoms while pitting communities against each other. Available on Instagram and Facebook, the campaign acts as a rallying cry for unity, empowerment, and active resistance.

Broader Implications

This event underscores the importance of vigilance in protecting voting rights, particularly for marginalized groups targeted by discriminatory practices. It demonstrates the resilience and solidarity of AANHPI communities and the critical role of grassroots organizations in advocating for equality and mobilizing action.

By responding decisively, OPAWL and its partners model how watchdog organizations can not only expose harmful practices but also galvanize communities to push back against systemic injustices. Their work aligns with the Community Tool Box framework by:

• Monitoring public officials and systems for abuses of power.
• Exposing discriminatory practices that undermine democracy.
• Educating and mobilizing communities to take collective action.

A Commitment to Democracy

By uniting against these attacks, Ohioans send a clear message: efforts to intimidate, divide, and undermine democracy will not succeed. Instead, communities reaffirm their commitment to inclusivity, justice, and the protection of voting freedoms for all.

For more information, visit OPAWL's statement or watch the OH No You Don’t campaign video on Instagram and Facebook.

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Example #2: Lawyers for Good Government (L4GG): Legal Advocacy for Community Power

Overview

Lawyers for Good Government demonstrates how organized legal professionals can serve as effective community watchdogs while advancing systemic change. Their network of volunteer attorneys partners with local organizations to protect civil rights and environmental justice through strategic advocacy.

Strategic Approach & Impact

Environmental Justice Victory

When a marginalized community faced environmental threats from unexamined industrial development, L4GG showcased effective watchdog advocacy by:

• Partnering with local environmental justice organizations
• Documenting regulatory violations systematically
• Providing legal training to community members
• Securing comprehensive environmental review requirements
• Establishing ongoing community oversight mechanisms

Keys to Success

1. Systematic Documentation
   
   • Tracking civil rights violations
   • Creating accessible legal resources
   • Developing replicable advocacy models
2. Community Partnership
   
   • Building local leadership capacity
   • Providing technical assistance
   • Creating rapid response networks

Lessons for Advocacy

• Professional networks amplify community power when properly organized
• Systematic documentation drives reform
• Investment in community relationships ensures lasting impact
• Knowledge sharing across jurisdictions accelerates change

L4GG exemplifies how organized legal advocacy can transform systemic challenges into opportunities for community empowerment and lasting social change.

• What are audits of consumer services?

• Why conduct audits of consumer services?

• Who should conduct audits of consumer services?

• When should you conduct audits of consumer services?

• How do you conduct audits of consumer services?

Julio Robles had been working in restaurant kitchens in his southwestern US city since he had been in elementary school. He had graduated to better and better restaurants, and had gone from busboy to dishwasher to prep cook to assistant chef to chef. Although he was still in his twenties, he had learned the business from the bottom up, and was ready to start his own place. He had the space all picked out, and had convinced his brother, also a veteran of many restaurants, to be his partner. All he needed was the capital to get the business off the ground.

Julio went to the bank to negotiate a loan. He had the experience to make the business a success, he had been making a good salary and saving much of it, his brother was contributing several thousand dollars, and his wife's parents were willing to offer their house as collateral. But the bank turned him down, offering the excuse that there were already too many restaurants in town.

Although Julio knew that wasn't the case, he set out to find another way to raise the funds he needed. Then he learned that another chef he knew - one with less experience, and less of his own capital - had just been granted a loan to open a restaurant...by the same bank. Julio started to suspect that perhaps the bank's refusal wasn't wholly a business decision. He contacted a lawyer, who asked the state Banking Commission to audit the bank's loan services.

When the audit found a pattern of loan refusals to Hispanics and other minorities, not only did Julio get his loan, but the bank was fined and put on notice that its loan practices would be audited regularly. It had to develop a scheme to assure that Hispanics and other minority citizens were treated fairly.

Sometimes consumers of services are cheated, discriminated against, or otherwise treated unfairly. Sometimes a service provider neglects a necessary element, or diverts funding meant for a particular service to another purpose. Sometimes the services, whether well-meaning or not, simply aren't what they're meant to be. When those services are, or should be, publicly funded or regulated, an audit by the funder, a community group, a watchdog organization, or a government agency can bring the problem to light, suggest guidelines or regulations to correct it, and create an audit schedule that will keep it from being a problem in the future. This section will examine what an audit of consumer services is and what it can do, why, when, and by whom it might be conducted, and how you can go about organizing (or conducting) one if it's necessary.

What is an audit of consumer services?

There are two elements to understand here: audits and consumer services. An audit is a formal inspection, conducted by someone from outside the entity being audited, of practices, procedures, policies, and/or programs to determine whether they are what they're expected to be, and whether they're conducted according to legal, ethical, and professional standards. An audit does not concern itself with results: it's not meant to tell you whether a service is effective or successful. That's beyond its scope, and is a matter for an evaluation.

While it is sometimes possible for an organization to conduct an internal audit, examining its own workings in order to make sure that it's operating properly and effectively, the audits discussed in this section are conducted by objective observers from outside the organization, in order to assure that all problems are identified and addressed.

The word "audit" often refers to an examination of the financial practices and records - the books - of an organization, agency, or business, but, as in this case, it can also include actions and policies that affect consumers. Financial audits may, however, be an important part of an audit of consumer services.

Types of consumer services

For the purposes of this section, consumer services fall into two categories.

Publicly-funded services offered to members of a particular target population

These services are usually intended to help eligible consumers - who may be economically, politically, or otherwise disadvantaged - to gain and maintain economic, physical, psychological, or social health. Some examples:

• Child health and nutrition services (WIC, for instance)
• Adult literacy
• Employment training programs
• Parenting classes
• Services for homeless families
• Pre- and post-release services for prisoners

Services that may or may not be publicly funded, but that are controlled by laws and government regulations, and are offered to the general public

Among these are:

• Transportation, including everything from cabs and city buses to airlines
• Banking, as in the example of Julio Robles's loan
• Real estate and housing
• Stock and bond transactions
• Medical services
• Utilities - electricity, gas, phone
• Municipal services - road repair, police, etc.
• Education

A financial audit looks at both the procedures that an organization uses in keeping its financial records, and at the actual figures it enters into its books. First of all, the audit determines whether the organization has a coherent set of books. It establishes whether the organization's bookkeeping procedures conform to standard accounting practice in some way, and show, at a minimum, where income came from, where expenses went, what the organization owes and is owed, and its overall financial status. The audit also confirms that the figures balance, and reflect reality. It does not, however, concern itself with the financial results of the organization, i.e. whether it gained or lost money over the course of the year.

If there's a problem with the existence, the procedures, or the accuracy of an organization's financial reporting, the auditor has a responsibility both to report it (usually to the organization's Board of Directors, and sometimes to funders, or even to regulatory agencies, as well), and to give the organization a plan for correcting it.

For example, the reason that Enron and several other companies were prosecuted when they went bankrupt was not that the businesses failed, but that they used their books to lie about the fact that they were failing. They fooled their shareholders and stock buyers in general into thinking the businesses were doing well, when in fact they were losing enormous amounts of money. A financial audit should have found and reported this illegal behavior immediately, but, at least in the case of Enron, the auditors intentionally overlooked it, and took part in the deception.

An audit of consumer services has purposes similar to those of a financial audit. It determines what services are offered, and whether necessary services are unavailable. It shows whether available services comply with laws, regulations, and professional standards, and whether they use methods and procedures that have an appropriate rationale behind them. And finally, it demonstrates whether services are, in fact, what they pretend to be.

Why conduct audits of consumer services?

Auditing consumer services, as we shall see, can be difficult and time-consuming. Why bother to do it? There are, depending on your purposes, several answers to this question.

• To determine whether needed services are actually being provided. If there's a question about whether a service provider is actually offering the services, or all aspects of the services, that are necessary, an audit can answer that question.
• To use as ammunition for an advocacy campaign to acquire needed services. If an audit determines that needed services are not available because of inadequate resources, that provides an argument for funding and instituting those services.
• To determine whether services that are being funded are actually being provided as they were intended to be. Occasionally, an organization may contract with a public or private funder to provide specific services, and then either divert the funding elsewhere or skimp on the services provided. If it's good at covering its tracks, it may take an audit to uncover the deception. If the offender is a public agency, an audit may be virtually the only way to identify the problem.
• To protect the interests of those for whom the services are intended. Especially in the case of publicly-funded services, which are most often aimed at the economically or otherwise disadvantaged, recipients may not have learned the skills, have the legal and political knowledge, or possess the self-confidence necessary to advocate for themselves. They may not know that the services offered to them are inadequate or inappropriate to the issue. An audit can be a means of obtaining them the services intended for them.
• To protect the economic and social interests of the public, who are paying for the services or their regulation. If publicly-funded services aren't being delivered properly, both the public and service recipients are being shortchanged. If publicly-regulated services are not being monitored, or if they use discriminatory or otherwise illegal or unethical practices, the public is being cheated both in its payment for monitoring, and in its lack of access to proper services.
• To improve the chances of the successful resolution of community issues. If an audit helps to institute needed services, to correct abuses, or to steer existing services to greater effectiveness and more appropriate operation, the issues at which those services are aimed are more likely to be adequately addressed.
• To foster social change. The existence of necessary services that operate fairly, legally, ethically, and effectively - all of which audits may address - is a huge factor in whether or not a community can reach its strategic goals and change as it wants to.

Who should organize (or conduct) audits of consumer services?

If you're interested in seeing consumer services audited, you have to think about who should do what. Will you conduct the audit yourself? Will you try to see that it's done by someone else, and if so, who?

In order to answer those questions, you might consider some others:

• Do you have the knowledge, experience, etc. to conduct the audit yourself? In order to conduct an audit, you have to know what to look for, and how to recognize things that aren't quite right. The reason that official financial audits have to be conducted by Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) is that they have the knowledge and training to recognize when books look suspicious, or when someone has made unintentional, hard-to-find errors. They know what proper accounting should look like, and can help those who are not doing it well to improve their procedures and their financial accountability.

The same is true for an audit of services. The auditor has to understand what services should look like to begin with (or what kind of services are necessary in a particular situation), what's legal, what's fair, what funders require, etc. in order to conduct a proper audit. If you or others in your organization don't have that kind of background, you're not the best auditors.

• Even if you have the expertise, do you have the resources to conduct an audit? At the very least, you'll need a lot of someone's time to gather information, observe, look through documents, and otherwise find out what you need to know in order to make a judgment. It may cost a fair amount of money as well, in salaries, printing, or other expenses.
• Even if you have the expertise and the resources, are you or your organization the appropriate party to conduct an audit? First of all, a body - a regulatory agency, a legislative committee, a funding organization - may already exist, part of whose job is conducting audits of the services you want audited. It makes far more sense to leave the audit to professionals - assuming you have no reason to believe they won't do a good job - than to struggle with it yourself.

Another issue here is that of objectivity. In some circumstances, the fact that you may be an advocate for a particular position or group may not make a difference. If services are not available to address an important issue, for instance, the fact that you're in favor of those services probably won't affect people's opinions about your finding that they don't exist, or about the need for them. If your organization is seen as a rival to one you're auditing, however, or the issue is a political one, that may be an entirely different story. The public may well see your audit as self-serving, and doubt or ignore your conclusions. In those circumstances, an independent audit is crucial, and you're not the one to do it.

• Can you gain enough cooperation from the entity or entities to be audited to be able to do a good job? If another party can easily gain that cooperation, that party may be a better choice to conduct the audit.
• Are you a better choice to conduct the audit than a party with public recognition, public esteem, authority, or impressive academic or political credentials? Sometimes, an audit can have the greatest impact if the name attached to it is that of someone known to the public, that of a current or former government official or commission, or that of an acknowledged expert in the field.

If your answers to all, or at least most, of these questions are positive, you may be the best auditor for the job. If most of your answers are negative, it might make more sense for you to organize the audit. That means defining the area(s) to be audited, finding an auditor, and making sure the results are publicized or distributed to those who need them.

If you don't conduct the audit, some choices for auditors include:

• Government agencies. In some cases, the services to be audited fall under the gaze of government regulatory or funding agencies (this last is true for virtually all publicly funded services). You might request an audit because you believe there is some irregularity in the way the services are delivered - as in the case of Julio Robles and his loan - or because the services don't seem to be reaching the people for whom they're intended. You might suspect (or know) that funding for the services is being misused, intentionally or unintentionally. Or you might simply want to make sure that services are being delivered appropriately and well, and at a level that is addressing the issue they're aimed at. In any of these cases, approaching a government agency is one way of organizing an audit.

Some state agencies that might be approached in this way are the Secretary of State's office (they deal with voting and election issues, among others); the Attorney General's office (their mandate varies from state to state, but can include oversight of public charities, business practices, and consumer services of various kinds); the Banking Commission (bank rates, loans and mortgages, lending practices, etc.); and the Commission Against Discrimination or its equivalent (hiring practices, real estate and housing discrimination, non-discriminatory delivery of any services). Most funding agencies conduct actual audits of services only when they suspect a problem, or at long intervals, just to make sure that grantees and contractors are doing their jobs. Your request, however, if you have a good rationale for it, might spur an audit by a funding agency.

• Professional associations. Such organizations as the American Medical Association and the American Bar Association oversee the ethics and practices of their members and others in the profession. They have both the expertise and the structure to conduct formal audits of services.
• Watchdog organizations. Both public and private watchdog organizations may be equipped and ready to conduct audits of services if there's reason to believe it's necessary.
• Academics and other researchers and experts in the field. An audit of services by someone recognized as knowledgeable may be both more convincing and more helpful than one by a concerned organization.
• Eminent individuals or commissions that include them. Just as former President Jimmy Carter monitors elections, other well-known and respected individuals may serve as auditors of services or as members of commissions or other groups that engage in auditing of services. Their presence lends credibility to the results of the audit, and can serve as an advocacy tool.
• Audit teams from one or more peer organizations. Depending upon the circumstances, an organization may be more willing to cooperate with an audit conducted by peers, because they will be assumed to understand the difficulties of delivering the services in question. (Some organizations may react in the opposite way, and not want peers to know anything about how they operate.)
• Funders, both public and private. Funders often have the strongest interest in assuring that the services they're paying for are being delivered adequately, and may also have developed an audit process that can be applied in the case in question.

Those who might organize or request an audit could include anyone, from an advocacy group to a peer organization to consumers themselves. Many service providers are required to have, or simply have instituted, grievance procedures and other mechanisms to allow consumers of services to address issues that may set an audit in motion. The Board of Directors of an organization may see the need for an audit, either as the result of consumer or other complaints, or from their own observation. A municipal government may institute an audit of services available as an aid to its planning process. A funder may - as a regular part of its oversight or as the result of questions about an organization's effectiveness or capacity - request an audit of services. In the case of banks, realtors, or other publicly-regulated and -offered services, a consumer or consumer advocate may organize an audit based on apparent discrimination or other unfair practices.

When should you organize or conduct audits of consumer services?

• When you're advocating for the need for a particular service. When there's a need, an audit of the services delivered by existing programs can demonstrate that the need isn't being met, and make advocacy easier.

As is so often the case, the ideal time to organize an audit for this purpose may be just before, or in the midst of, a political campaign. Policy makers are often far more willing to address community issues when an election is at stake.

• When there's a question about the availability of services. Are current services addressing a particular issue, and if they are, are they adequate to the task? These are questions that an audit can answer.
• When there's a question about equity in the delivery of services. If, as in Julio Robles's case, a consumer is discriminated against by those providing publicly-available banking, housing, or educational services, or if a provider chooses to serve only a particular group of those eligible for a publicly-funded service, it's a good time for advocates to request or conduct an audit to identify and correct the problem.

Services aimed at improving economic prospects sometimes discriminate in favor of those more likely to quickly complete an adult education or job training program, i.e. those at higher levels and with more skills to begin with. This type of discrimination leaves out those at the lowest levels who, in fact, need the service most. An audit may not only be able to turn up this sort of discrimination, but also to help correct the funding policies - paying an organization only for those participants who complete a program or obtain employment, for instance - that foster it.

• When funding is at stake. An audit may help either to justify continued or increased funding, or to redirect funding for greater effectiveness.
• When there's a broad-ranging community development or other, similar effort. Audits of consumer services can be an important part of a community development plan, identifying areas of need and suggesting strategies for addressing those areas.

How do you organize or conduct audits of consumer services?

Organizing an audit

If you've asked yourself the questions listed in "who should conduct audits of consumer services?" and decided that you're not the appropriate person or group to conduct an audit, you may still be the appropriate party to organize one. That means convincing a public agency, a funder, a watchdog organization, or some other entity to embark on an audit process. Since audits are time-consuming, painstaking, and may lead to bad feelings, that convincing could be difficult. It's important to take the right steps beforehand to persuade a potential auditor of the necessity of the task, and of its responsibility in the situation.

Gather evidence of the need for an audit

Depending on the circumstances and the reasons for the audit, you might show consumer dissatisfaction with an existing service, or demonstrate preliminary evidence of inappropriate or illegal or unethical practices.

• Consumer dissatisfaction with an existing service. If you're concerned about this issue, you've probably gathered a lot of evidence already. Consumers may be willing to be quoted without being identified, and may steer you to others with similar criticisms. Some may be dissatisfied enough that they'll lend their names to their complaints. Grievances and other formal complaints - at least some of which may be a matter of public record - can also add to this store of information.
• Evidence of inappropriate services. This may come from consumer complaints, or may manifest itself by the fact that the problem the service is meant to address doesn't seem to be affected. The real question to be answered here is whether the services being provided actually address the issue they were meant to.
• Evidence of illegal or unethical practices. As in the example at the beginning of this section, a consumer may suspect that she's being treated unfairly or illegally. An advocate may see a pattern after talking to a number of people, or word on the street may identify a particular consumer service as suspect. It usually doesn't take a great deal of data to move a monitoring agency to action when the issue is one of discrimination or another illegal practice.

Identify the appropriate auditor

Identifying an auditor may be a matter of determining what agency or individual is responsible for the service in question, or may have more to do with who might be most effective as an auditor and reporter of audit results. In the first case, a government regulatory or oversight body responsible for the particular service would be the primary choice. In a situation where no specific body has oversight, a better choice might be a watchdog organization or an expert in the field. In either circumstance, the auditor should be a body or individual whose findings will be taken seriously.

Much might depend as well upon who's willing to take on the task. Sometimes, problems arise specifically because an oversight body is reluctant to act. If that's the issue, it may be the oversight body itself that needs auditing, or it may mean that appealing to that body won't yield any results. The appropriate auditor in that case may well be a watchdog or grass roots organization.

The most appropriate auditor may be the party that can most easily gain the cooperation of the audited organization. A state agency or funder may have the easiest time here, while an auditor that's seen as hostile may not be able to gain access to internal records, documents, and lists of participants. Such an auditor may have to rely on public documents and whatever interviews and observations are possible.

Find support for the audit

The more support there is for an audit, the more likely it is to happen. Important groups and individuals to solicit for support include public officials, consumers themselves, funders and government agencies, and the community at large.

Just how much publicity you want in this situation depends upon what might be most effective. The purpose of an audit, after all, is to improve the situation. If that can best be done by seeing the audit conducted without publicity, then that is the best course of action. If, on the other hand, public pressure seems to be the most effective vehicle for change, then public pressure should be brought to bear.

Advocates sometimes let their desire for justice overcome their desire to improve the situation. When an organization has been behaving unethically or illegally, and knowingly harming people in the process - as in the case of the bank refusing loans to Hispanics - the advocate's first impulse is often to try to punish it. There are certainly occasions when this is appropriate, but sometimes the situation can be more successfully resolved if the organization's behavior isn't made public.

This may not seem fair - indeed, it may not be fair - but it may be the best way to gain the desired result. If that's the case, it's usually what should happen, regardless of the advocate's feeling of being wronged. It solves the problem, and it may also leave the door open for cooperation with the offending organization in the future, where public embarrassment and accusation would not.

Conducting an audit of services

If you're conducting the audit, you have a big job ahead of you. Financial audits typically take several days, and they deal only with the financial status of the organization. You have a broader area to cover. Your work may not include a financial audit (although it could), but if you're going to do a proper audit of services, you have to be just as careful as a financial auditor. You'll make the audit much easier by thinking the process through and doing as much negotiating as you can before you begin.

Muster the resources that you need

Make sure you've budgeted enough time for the audit. There will be unexpected delays. Some information will be missing even if the audited organization is cooperating totally. If it's not cooperating, everything will take at least three times as long as you think it will. This audit will cost money, at the very least in salaries, and will take a large amount of time. Be sure you're willing to spend what's necessary before you start.

Negotiate with the organization you're going to audit

Whether the organization is cooperating or not, if you can start the process on a relatively friendly basis, things will go more smoothly. Questions like "How can we make this as easy as possible for you?" can work to ease your access to information, and to make your relationship with the audited organization civil, if not friendly.

Make concessions where you can, as long as they don't compromise the purpose of the audit. The more you can show that you're not hostile or biased, the better reaction - and the more cooperation - you'll probably get from the audited organization. Work with it to schedule the process beforehand, so that both of you have a good idea of what's likely to happen and when. This may also ease your burden of time, because it will give a cooperating organization a chance to gather material and have it ready for you.

As the paragraph above implies, this part of the section assumes at least a minimal amount of cooperation on the part of the audited organization. It may be forced to cooperate, because you are, or have been designated to conduct the audit by, a funder or regulator; or it may be as concerned as you are to see services delivered properly.

If you're a watchdog organization, or a community group concerned about an organization that doesn't seem to be doing its job, the situation may be very different. You may be conducting an audit without telling the audited organization, or relying solely on sources outside the organization for information. An audit without any cooperation can be frustrating, more time-consuming than one where there's some agreement, and may give you results that aren't entirely provable or reliable. In a sense, it's not an audit at all, but an investigation, which is, by its very nature, an adversarial process.

It's greatly to your advantage, and to the advantage of your purpose, to avoid an uncooperative audit if you can. If you can establish some kind of relationship with the audited organization, you're much more likely to find out what you want to know and be able to correct what you want to correct. It may not be easy to make a connection, but it's well worth the effort.

Determine what information you need

What's the purpose of your audit, and what do you have to know to fulfill it? Some typical things you might look for:

• Financial information (possibly a full financial audit)
• Number of people served
• Demographics of those served. This might be particularly important if discrimination is in question.
• The amount of time each consumer spends receiving service.
• Methods and procedures for delivering service. This might include an examination of how consumers are treated, and whether services are delivered in a way that the public and people in the field would find acceptable
• The services actually being offered. The routes covered by public transportation, for instance, or the actual number of hours of job training a week offered by an employment program.

Gather information

How you go about this, and what you'll actually have access to, will depend on how much cooperation you have from the audited organization. Possible sources of information include:

• Internal documents. Service records and documentation, contracts, grant awards, grant and contract proposals, statements of assurances to funders, Board of Directors meeting minutes, intake records, organizational handbooks, bylaws, policies, financial records.
• Public documents. Tax records, annual reports, reports to funders (these may or may not be public, depending upon the nature of the information and the laws of the particular state), advertising/publicity, media reports, census data, etc.
• Interviews. You might talk to current and former consumers of the service, their families, administrators and line staff members of the organization, Board members, funders, officials responsible for the oversight of the organization, people in peer and collaborating organizations, community activists and advocates, and members of the community at large.
• Observation. Areas you might observe include the actual delivery of services (an adult basic education class; a loan interview; a vaccination clinic), reception and intake, interactions among staff and participants, meetings, and follow-up.

Analyze the data

Analyzing data for a service audit may mean more than simply looking at it to see what you have. First, it means comparing what the service actually does and is to what it's supposed to do and be. Then, it means looking carefully at the information you have to see what it tells you about the unspoken standards and policies under which the service operates.

Some of the kinds of issues that a service audit might examine:

• Many federally- or state-funded services are required to institute certain procedures - a grievance procedure, for instance - for participants, and to inform participants about them at the outset. They must have documentation of both the procedure and of the briefing of participants. A service audit may check on these procedures and their documentation, or on other mandated paperwork.
• An audit may also check to see that the services being delivered are actually those aimed at the issue in question. Sometimes, an organization may be funded to provide a particular service, and may use the money for another purpose instead. Some charities may devote only a small amount of the money they collect to the purpose for which it's solicited, while the rest goes to high administrative salaries and other perks.
• Occasionally, an organization may be an outright scam: it may receive a grant or contributions to provide a service, and simply not do it at all. It will file reports with false information, and count on the fact that the funder or oversight organization doesn't have the resources to check up on it. Such organizations should be easily caught...but may not be without an audit or other monitoring. Indeed, some have gone years without being detected.
• An organization or service may be doing what it's meant to, but still be discriminating or otherwise treating consumers unfairly. Public transportation routes may schedule few stops in minority areas, for instance, or may skirt low-income neighborhoods where public transportation needs are great. A provider serving large numbers of Hispanics may have no Spanish speakers on its staff. Realtors may try to steer minority buyers toward or away from certain neighborhoods, even though they don't actually refuse to sell them any given property. These patterns may not be apparent until someone looks at them carefully.

Prepare an audit report

Once you've analyzed the data, you have to let the organization and others know what you've come up with. The standard way to do this is to prepare an audit report, explaining how the audit was conducted, what it examined, and what the results of that examination were. The report serves several purposes:

• It creates a record of the audit, and a picture of at least one aspect of the functioning of the organization at a particular point in time. If the report is carefully detailed, it is difficult for the organization - or anyone else - to deny its findings.
• It acknowledges what the organization is doing right and well. Part of the purpose of an audit is to show what an organization is doing right, regardless of what it may be doing wrong or badly.
• It points out functional, legal, or ethical problems and inconsistencies in procedures, practices, policies, and programs. This is the part of the report that details whatever negative conclusions you've reached.
• It suggests remedies for whatever needs to be corrected. Either working with the service provider (the ideal) or on your own, you should propose solutions for the problems you've found. If they're glaring and serious - if the provider is, in fact, providing no services, or if there's outright illegal activity - the remedy might be to prosecute the provider and find another who'll do the job. If the problems are correctable and the provider is willing to correct them, however, that should be your focus.

Work with the organization to create a plan to put remedies into practice

Suggesting remedies is useless unless it leads to action. You, as auditor, should help the provider to prepare an action plan that will address and eliminate the problems found in the audit.

Decide what you're going to do with your findings

Once you've analyzed the data, you have to do something with what you've learned. If the organization is, in fact, doing its job in an acceptable way, then your only obligation might be to point out possible improvements, or to help it get difficulties under control. If, however, you've found that the service is not what it pretends to be, or that it doesn't adhere to acceptable legal, ethical, or professional standards, you'll need to act. Depending upon your position - whether your audit has been official or unofficial, for example - you should have several options, which you can exercise singly or in some combination.

• Report problems to the organization's board. This may be enough to provoke corrective action in some organizations. Boards can usually fire directors, change policy, and otherwise steer organizations away from unacceptable operation. You have to know, however, that the board is both willing and able to make changes if this is the only action you take.
• Work with the organization to change what's wrong. If problems with the service stem from poor management, ignorance, or other unintentional and correctable instances of incompetence or error, your help may be welcomed. When problems are intentional and systemic, your assistance may be neither accepted nor useful.
• Report the organization to the appropriate oversight body. File a formal complaint with a regulatory agency, present your evidence to an oversight committee, alert public officials or funders, or otherwise make sure that whoever's officially responsible for monitoring the service knows what you've found.
• File a lawsuit. If what the organization is doing is simply beyond the pale - blatant discrimination, using charitable contributions to pad salaries and buy expensive homes for administrators, operating a fake service - going to court might be the best remedy for consumers and the public.
• Go public. Hold a press conference, release your audit report to the media, stage a public meeting at which you announce your findings, organize a public demonstration to protest the operations of the service, buy media advertising - do whatever is necessary to expose the service for what it is. Sometimes the mere threat of going public is enough to gain the results you want.

Which of these or other options you choose will depend on what your goal is. If it's to expose illegal or unethical practices, you'll probably be best served by one or more of the last three. If it's simply to see that services are provided properly and fairly, you might not need to take such drastic measures. Keep your goal in mind. Policy can be changed in any number of ways: try to take the road that's most likely to lead to the outcome you'd most like to reach.

Create a plan for maintaining the audit process over time

Most organizations undergo financial audits every year. Regular service audits, at least for the organization you're concerned with, may be just as necessary. If the organization is working to correct its problems, someone needs to check and make sure they're on the right track. If another provider has been substituted, it's important to confirm that it's not falling into the same pattern as the previous one, and that acceptable services are now available. In either case, ongoing audits should be a part of the overall plan.

An audit of consumer services is one tool in the advocate's research kit. It may not have to be used very often, and it's often hard to work with, but you'll be glad you have it when you need it.

In Summary

Consumer services encompass both publicly-funded services provided to specific populations and services regulated by law that are provided for the general public. An audit of consumer services is a formal inspection of procedures, practices, policies, and/or programs by an objective party to determine whether those services are what they are meant to be, and whether they are conducted according to accepted legal, ethical, and professional standards.

Consumer service audits can help to identify gaps in necessary services (and serve as an advocacy tool to institute those services), confirm that services are what they're meant to be, protect the interests of service recipients and the public, to improve the chances that community issues will be resolved, and to foster social change.

To determine whether you should conduct an audit yourself, or should instead act as organizer (determining what and who should be audited, finding an appropriate organization or individual to conduct the audit, and convincing them to undertake it), you should ask yourself these questions:

• Do you have the expertise to conduct the audit in question?
• Do you have the resources to conduct an audit?
• Are you the appropriate party to conduct the audit?
• Can you gain the cooperation of the organization to be audited?
• Are you a better choice to conduct the audit than a better-known or more universally-respected possibility?

Anyone concerned might organize an audit. The best choices to conduct an audit are usually government or professional oversight agencies, watchdog organizations, academic researchers or other eminent and credible individuals who are recognized experts in the field, teams from peer organizations, and funders

The best times to conduct an audit may be when you're advocating for the need for a particular service; when there's a question of the availability of a service; when there's a question of equity in the delivery of a service; when funding is at stake; and when there's a broad-ranging community development or similar effort under way.

Organizing a service audit involves both identifying the problem and convincing a potential auditor to take on the job. To accomplish these tasks, you'll need to gather evidence that the audit is necessary, identify (and persuade) an appropriate auditor, and gather support for the audit.

To actually conduct an audit, you'll need to:

• Budget the resources for the task
• Negotiate beforehand with the organization to be audited
• Determine the information you'll need
• Gather the data
• Analyze the data
• Prepare an audit report
• Work with the provider to develop a plan to correct the problems you've found
• Decide what you're going to do with the results of the audit
• Create a plan for maintaining the audit process

What are audits of consumer services?

___An audit is an independent, formal inspection of the procedures, practices, policies, and/or programs of a service, in order to show that that the service is what it is meant to be, and that it adheres to accepted legal, ethical, and professional standards.

___You acknowledge two types of consumer services:

• Publicly-funded services offered to a target population - often disadvantaged - to improve its physical, economic, psychological, or social well-being.
• Publicly-regulated services offered to the general public.

Why conduct audits of consumer services?

___To determine whether needed services are actually being provided

___To use as ammunition for an advocacy campaign to acquire needed services

___To determine whether services that are being funded are actually being provided as they were intended to be

___To protect the interests of those for whom the services are intended

___To protect the economic and social interests of the public, who are paying for the services or their regulation

___To improve the chances of the successful resolution of community issues

___To foster social change

Who should conduct audits of consumer services?

___Do you have the expertise to conduct the audit?

___Do you have the resources to conduct the audit?

___Are you the most appropriate party to conduct the audit? (Is it someone else's job?)

___Can you gain the cooperation of the organization to be audited?

___Would an audit by you be as credible as one conducted by someone better known?

If you don't conduct the audit, you might choose:

___A government oversight agency or regulator

___A professional oversight body

___A watchdog organization

___Academics and other researchers and experts in the field

___Eminent individuals or commissions they serve on

___An audit team from one or more peer organizations

___Funders

When should you conduct audits of consumer services?

___When you're advocating for the need for a particular service

___When there's a question about the availability of services

___When there's a question about equity in the delivery of services

___When funding is at stake

___When there's a broad-ranging community development or other, similar effort

How do you organize and conduct audits of consumer services?

___You gather evidence of the need for the audit

___You identify an appropriate auditor

___You gather support for the audit

To conduct an audit of consumer services:

___You budget adequate resources for the audit

___You negotiate beforehand with the organization to be audited

___You decide what information you need

___You gather data

___You analyze the data

___You prepare an audit report, including a plan for correcting whatever problems you found

___You work with the audited organization to put remedies into practice

___You decide what to do with the audit results

___You create a plan for maintaining the audit process

Tool: Rubric for consumer audit

This tool will allow you to judge the quality of an audit process (from Iowa State University's Marketing Class) 

Rubric for Consumer Audit

Criteria	Excellent (3 pts)	Satisfactory (2 pts)	Unsatisfactory (1 pt)
Data Collection
Observations	Observations of both customers and employees are thoroughly and clearly reported. There is no to almost no missing information that could be collected via observation.	Observations of both customers and employees are reported, but the thoroughness and / or clarity of the information is problematic. There is clearly other informationt that should have been collected via observation.	Either the observations for customers or employees are missing, or the information that is reported is so scant as to be useless.
Surveys / Interviews	Information collected via survey/interviews of both customers and employees is thoroughly and clearly reported. There is no to almost no missing information that could be collected via surveys / interviews. The correspondence between this information and the observation data is clearly and thoroughly detailed.	Information collected via surveys / interviews of both customers and employees is reported, but the thoroughness and / or clarity of the information is problematic. There is clearly other information that should have been collected via surveys / interviews. The relationship of this information to the observational data is discussed, but not in enough detail.	Either the information collected via surveys / interviews for customers or employees is missing, or the information that is reported is so scant as to be useless. The relationship between this data and the observational data is not provided.
Data Analysis	Analysis of data is detailed. Any necessary assumptions are stated and justified. The analysis appropriately incorporates consumer behavior theories and concepts.	Some analysis is included, but it is not very detailed. Some statements are not supported by analysis. Linkage to consumer behavior concepts is incomplete and / or sometimes incorrect.	Analysis is missing or trivial, lacking any depth. Necessary assumptions are not stated. Linkage to consumer behavior concepts is missing.
Data Inferences
Market Segmentation	Careful identification of all possible market segments is provided and is based solely on the consumer data. Each identified segment is clearly and thoroughly described; it is clear how multiple segments differ from one another. Reasoning for segment)s is provided and logical.	Some, but not all possible market segments are identified and thoroughly described, given the consumer data. How multiple segments differ from one another and / or the reasoning for each segment is weakly argued.	Market segmentation is provided, but it is only the most basic of segmentation, suggesting that little critical thought was given to this issue. Reasoning for segmentation is missing or faulty. Arguments for multiple segments (if applicable) is missing.
Marketing Recommendations	Reasonable marketing recommendations are thoroughly described and reasoned and are clearly linked to market segmentation.	Marketing recommendations are made, but not as thoroughly as possible. Some of the recommendations may lack reasonability. Some of the recommendations may be only obscurely linked to market segmentation.	Marketing recommendations are missing, or the recommendations that are identified are clearly not linked to market segmentation, or the recommendations that are identified are not at all reasonable.
Written Communications
Organization	Written work is well organized and easy to understand. Sections of paper are marked with appropriate headings. Tables and charts are appropriately used and easy to understand, and contribute to the ease of reading the paper.	The organization is generally good, but some sections seems out of place. Some headings may be missing. Tables and charts are included, but are difficult to understand (e.g., poorly labeled).	The paper is disorganized to the extent that it prevents understanding the content. There are no headings, inappropriate use of charts or tables, or, use of tables and charts is indicated, but not included.
Integration of Writing Styles	The team developed a writing style that is uniform throughout the paper. There is no indication that the paper involved multiple authors.	There is some indication of multiple authors (.e.g., different fonts, different paper, etc.)	Paper is clearly the work of multiple authors with different writing styles, margins, printer fonts, paper types, etc.
Grammar, Spelling, and Formatting	The paper has been thoroughly spell-checked and proofread. There are none to almost no grammatical or spelling errors. There are no formatting errors.	There are a few spelling and / or grammatical errors. There are one to three formatting errors.	There are frequent instances of misspelled words, serious grammatical errors, and formatting errors, indicating that time was not taken to spell-check and proofread.
Use of Appendices	Information is appropriately placed in either the main text or an appendix. Appendices are documented and referenced in the text.	Information is sometimes misplaced. Documenting and referencing in text are somewhat incomplete. Appendices are poorly documented and referenced in text.	Considerable amount of material is misplaced. Appendices are not documented or referenced in the text.

 

 

Imagine this scene: The county Finance Committee, made up of the financial officers of several towns in a rural county, is meeting at the courthouse in the county seat on a Monday evening. The county human service administrator has asked the directors of several human service agencies to present their cases for county funding to the board. With only five minutes apiece to speak, each of them knows that what she says could mean several thousand dollars to her organization.

As each director takes her turn, it seems that the most compelling information for members of the Committee is the number of people in the county, and in each of their towns, affected by the issue the agency addresses. The director of the teen parenting program begins her presentation, but is quickly interrupted by the chair of the Finance Committee. "I'm sure you do a great job," he says, "but we don't have a serious problem with teen pregnancy in this county."

The program director smiles, and responds, "As a matter of fact, over 25% of births in this county are to mothers under 20, and 78% of those mothers are unmarried. Over 50% of them are under 17. The majority of those are potential or actual high school dropouts, and the fathers are generally not in the picture. We're currently serving more than 50 teen parents in our residential program, counseling another 120 pregnant and at-risk teens, and we have a waiting list that's even longer."

As jaws on the Finance Committee drop, the director continues, "Mr. Chairman, in your town, with fewer than 5,000 people, nearly 40% of births are to teen parents. That translates to 30 to 40 a year, many of whom are enrolled in our program. Several gave me permission to tell you privately who they are, if you're interested."

The teen pregnancy program director had done her research: not only did she know the numbers of county residents affected by the issue, and have town figures on the tip of her tongue, but she had tracked down program participants who had some geographical or personal connection to local officials, including, as it happened, the chair of the Finance Committee himself. The program received a generous grant from the county, and, more important, the Finance Committee endorsed support services for teen parents and teen pregnancy prevention efforts in the county as a matter of policy. Would your organization have done as well?

This chapter of the Tool Box has focused on research, and its importance as a tool for your organization or initiative to accomplish its advocacy goals. Sometimes, that research has to be very specific in order to create or change policy. In this case, the program director anticipated the Committee's questions, and made sure he had done the research to address them. But she also went a step further, and connected the concerns of those his program served with committee members and other officials, making the issue a personal one for several of them. In this section, we'll examine how you can use research to bring about specific policies or policy changes.

What do we mean by conducting research to influence policy?

As we discussed in the opening section of this chapter, How to Conduct Research: An Overview, there are many different kinds of research. Each requires a different kind of research process, and each yields a different kind of information. Each is appropriate in a variety of situations, but it's important to match your research to your purposes.

Advocacy research has a specific purpose: to influence the formal and informal policies established by policymakers and others in power. Thus, it is important to collect good information and present it in a compelling manner.

The ideal is that your research will clearly show that the needs or problems you want to address are real and serious, and that the methods you recommend for addressing them have, in fact, been proven successful. When this ideal isn't quite realized, however, you may find that you have to adjust your approach to be persuasive - you may reframe the issue, for instance, or personalize it by collecting the testimony or stories of individuals affected. Whatever your approach, your goal is to make your research as compelling as possible, whether you're trying to increase funding for a local program, or to change the way the world deals with the gap between rich and poor countries.

Why conduct research to influence policy?

You might conduct research to influence policy for a variety of reasons, and some of them may be surprising.

To show that there's a need for funding or intervention (or both) on a particular issue

There are really two ways you might approach this goal.

• Your research might have a specific intent: you're already convinced the need is there, and you simply have to gather the information to prove it to others.

There is always the danger here that your research will not support what you expect it to, or even that it will show the opposite. If that's the case, your choices are to ignore the research and forge ahead anyway, or to use the research to determine what the target population or the community actually needs. As we state so often in the Community Tool Box, it's important to face reality in a situation like this.

If you're certain that the need you anticipated is there, you may have to rethink the research you're doing to understand how it missed the obvious. If it's clear that the research was sound, then you may have to change your perception of the need, and show your commitment to the community by advocating for what will be of most benefit to it. Otherwise, you risk your credibility and your integrity.

• Your research is meant to find out exactly what the need is, so that you can advocate for something truly helpful. In this case, your primary concern is usually not a specific issue, but improving the quality of life for a target population or for the community in general.

To show that a need or issue exists and to assure it is actually addressed

The research you do can often be used to gain the backing of the public and/or policy makers for dealing with a particular issue. They may be surprised to learn how many people it affects, or how common it is in their communities (as in the example at the beginning of this section). In many cases, policymakers can use your research to champion something they already favor, but have no support for.

In a different vein, you might be able to use your research to pressure policy makers to address an issue they'd prefer to ignore, for political or other reasons. Many politicians, for instance, managed to turn their backs on racism in the United States until the research of civil rights supporters showed that African-Americans were being systematically denied their constitutional rights in large parts of the country.

To assure that what's addressed is, in fact, what needs to be addressed

There are at least two kinds of circumstances where this is a concern:

• When the best way to resolve an issue isn't obvious. Often, research can clarify what the real cause of a problem is, or how to address an issue to bring about the desired changes. Interviews with sexually active teens, for example may show that they're more likely to accept information from peers than from adult authority figures. A safe-sex campaign can then draw on that research to create a successful intervention.
• When the issue that really needs to be dealt with is a difficult one, either because of politics or because it will take a great deal of effort and/or expense to resolve. If research can demonstrate that the hard way is the right way, it can sway public opinion. When the public understands, for instance, that gun violence among youth won't be curbed without both getting handguns off the street (which necessitates politicians standing up to the gun lobby) and addressing the emotional needs of gang members (which implies a long-term commitment to funding and conducting hard-core street work, much of it trial-and-error and potentially dangerous), it is more likely to push policy makers to adopt measures to accomplish those tasks, regardless of the difficulties involved.

To support or discredit a specific method or practice

You may be trying to create or change policy on anything from the use of a particular teaching method in an individual school, to an emphasis on treatment to address drug problems in a community, to the employment of the death penalty in a country.

For example, in Illinois, research showed that a large number of prisoners on death row had been mistakenly convicted, exonerated by careful detective work or by previously-unavailable DNA testing. As a result, largely because of the public's apparently justified fear of mistakenly executing the innocent, capital punishment in that state was suspended.

To identify and advocate for appropriate policy in a given situation

Research can and should demonstrate what has been successful elsewhere, and what might, therefore, be a good course of action in your situation. What has worked in similar communities to reduce teen pregnancy? How did the neighboring town get drug dealers off the street? Have other rural counties found effective ways to screen for and treat adult diabetes? The answer to questions like these will help you decide how to advocate for policy that leads to a solution to a community problem.

To point out incompetence or corruption in government, business, or elsewhere that affects the public interest

If you suspect - or know - that the public is being harmed economically or politically by incompetence, dishonesty, or corruption, investigative research may give you the facts you need to anger the public and policy makers enough not only to correct the situation, but to establish policies to keep it from recurring.

In the wake of the collapse of the giant energy corporation Enron in 2002, research conducted by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission showed that Enron's accountant, Arthur Andersen, helped the company misrepresent its financial situation. As a result, a law was passed further regulating the activities of accountants, and new policy is still being made.

To protect the public health and safety

The necessary research here may range from an investigation of environmental or workplace safety standards, to lab research that shows a hitherto unsuspected benefit or harm from eating certain foods, to the influence of adequate street lights on reducing violent crime. Such research can support policies that set standards well in the safety zone and regulate dangerous substances or practices.

To give yourself a solid base for advocacy

Having solid research behind your advocacy both establishes your credibility and gives you substantive reasons for sponsoring what you're sponsoring. It helps to counter opposition arguments, and to address concerns and emotion-driven objections. Furthermore, it assures that you know what you're talking about, and aren't left mumbling when an opponent or a member of the public asks you to explain your argument.

To maintain your integrity, and make sure that you're doing the right thing

Your research should not only influence policy makers - it should influence you, too. Sometimes what you think you know isn't reality. If you really care about social change - change that addresses the real issues and actually improves life for a target group or a community or the world - you have to deal with what is, not with what you want to believe.

Sometimes, facing reality can be as difficult for advocates as for policy makers or members of the public who know that the death penalty reduces the murder rate, or that sex education in schools encourages teens to be sexually active, even though the research points in the opposite direction. To be true to your ideals, to maintain your integrity, you must be willing to accept what your research tells you, and act accordingly.

Who should conduct research to influence policy?

Virtually anyone can do at least some form of advocacy research, but not everyone has the training to set up studies or comparisons that hold up statistically, or the credentials to be taken seriously by policy makers and the public. Grassroots groups, for instance, which often include members of the group most affected by the issue being researched, are certainly more than capable of collecting information and doing investigative work. They may, in fact, be more effective than other researchers at gathering information from the target population. But, they may need to enlist partners with research expertise to make sure that their methods are appropriate, and that their findings are accepted.

Among those who might conduct research to influence policy:

• Academics. Academic researchers - both professors and graduate students - may already be doing the research you need, or may be able to get grants to do it. In some cases, they may be willing to donate time and expertise because they agree with you that policy needs to be developed or changed. Many universities also support research facilities aimed at specific issues, and staffed by professors and professional researchers. If their interests match yours, you may find them willing collaborators.
• Think tanks and other research organizations. These are groups of independent scholars and thinkers who research and write about various topics, usually with the goal of influencing public policy. Think tanks sometimes operate as independent non-profits, sometimes as parts of other organizations and institutions.

If you're using think tank research, be sure you know the reputation of the group. Many think tanks have a political bias, and a few are not above ignoring evidence that disproves their contentions, or even skewing their research to make it conform to their ideology. While most are totally honest, it's important to understand the reliability of your sources.

• Government agencies. Many government agencies conduct research as a matter of course. Regulatory agencies, particularly, or those that act as major funders, such as state and federal Departments of Education, often conduct research into their areas of concern, or into the workings of organizations they regulate or fund.
• Professional associations. Professional associations (e.g., the American Medical Association) often sponsor or conduct research in their fields, as well as looking into the conduct and practices of individuals and organizations that are suspected of violating professional standards.
• Appointed commissions. Presidents, governors, mayors, Congress, and other officials or official bodies often appoint commissions to study a particular problem or area.

All too often, the appointing official or body knows what he or it wants the commission's conclusion to be. Although these commissions are regularly packed with respected and well-known people - who may or may not be competent researchers themselves - and given research staffs and adequate budgets, their results are often ignored. If they confirm what was expected, the appointer merely says "I told you so," and continues to pay little attention to the issue. If, however, the commission's findings are contrary to expectations, they are often swept under the rug...and the appointer continues to pay little attention to the issue. Only if the media manages to point out the commission's research results and capture the public's interest, do such findings become a matter of real discussion and possible policy change.

• Organizations that work directly with an issue. Health and human service organizations, in particular, often use their own statistics and documentation as research to determine what works, where greatest needs are, etc..
• Watchdog organizations. These organizations engage in constant research on the topics and organizations of their concern.

Watchdogs always have an issue at hand, so the question of bias arises here. Bias, in this case, is often unconscious, and has to do with point of view. Media watchdogs on the left, for example, find the media biased toward the conservative end of the spectrum, while those on the right rail endlessly about the "liberal media." It is certainly possible for the media to be less than objective sometimes, and for a particular media outlet or media report to be biased in one direction or the other. It is even possible for the media to be liberal on one issue and conservative on another, but it is not possible for all the media to be both too liberal and too conservative at the same time. Some watchdogs tend to see conspiracy in every action that disagrees with their ideology. For an example of how watchdogs with different viewpoints can interpret evidence differently, see the web sites of FAIR, Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting, a liberal media watchdog, and the Media Research Center, its conservative counterpart.

• The police, the Justice Department (FBI), or other official law enforcement agency. If there's a question of legality or potential or actual harm to citizens, then research or an investigation may be carried out by law enforcement officials.

When should you conduct research to influence policy?

The short answer here is whenever you want to have an effect on policy-making. There are some specific times, however, when research can be particularly useful.

• When there is no policy, and there's a need for one. You may already be working with policy makers to develop a policy, and need research results to provide the push that will bring action in the right direction. In the early days of the AIDS outbreak, for example, activists and physicians conducted mountains of research to bring about public awareness and to stimulate policy making on research on and treatment of AIDS, both in government and in the medical community.
• When there's a critical situation, but no one seems - or wants - to notice. Michael Harrington's 1962 book The Other America, a study of poverty in the United States, drew attention to a profound problem at a time when few knew - or admitted - that it existed.
• When current policy (or funding on the issue) is up for review by legislators or other policy makers. Appropriate research can swing policy makers' opinion in your direction.

In Massachusetts, literacy providers were able to secure not only a large increase in funding, but a complete reexamination of the funding process for adult education, by gathering the names of 13,000 people on waiting lists for adult literacy programs in all parts of the state.

• When policy is under discussion, and you want to make sure that important issues don't get lost or shoved under the table. All too often, the best policy in a particular situation involves doing something difficult, or admitting facts that policy makers or the public would rather not face. If the issue at hand is to be resolved, the difficulty or admissions have to be acknowledged and addressed. Appropriate research can help to demonstrate the need for doing the right thing, even if it's unpleasant.
• When policy has been established, but its effects are still unclear. Advocates in this situation might do evaluative research to determine whether the current policy is appropriate or not.
• When you feel current policy is headed in the wrong direction. If policy makers seem as thought they are about to make a serious mistake, your research may serve to correct the error before it causes harm. Research consistently shows, for instance, that children who attend Head Start continue to do better in school - and need fewer services over time - than those children from similar circumstances who aren't exposed to Head Start. Thus, when, in the Reagan administration, some policy makers recommended discontinuing Head Start to save money, advocates were able to demonstrate that the program actually saves money over the long term, in addition to improving the prospects for those it serves.
• When you're consulted as an expert, or otherwise have a clear opportunity to influence the formulation of policy. Lawmakers considering new legislation, study commissions, and town and county boards - these and other policy makers often hold hearings and/or call in experts in a field before formulating policy relating to that field. In addition, they may ask for public comment on a bill or potential policy while they're considering it. If you have the chance to testify in one of these situations, research is crucial. Telling the policy makers what you think is important, but telling them what you know from your research is far more convincing.

How do you approach conducting research to influence policy?

The important question here is not how to do research - that's dealt with in the first seven sections of this chapter - but, rather, how to approach your research when you have a specific policy goal in mind. That means defining your policy goals clearly, taking your audience into account, and then researching and releasing your results with those considerations in mind.

Decide how you want to influence policy

There are a number of ways you may try to influence policy:

• Find out what policy should be. The research involved in this case might be a needs assessment to determine the issues that must be addressed, or an analysis to understand how to address a particular issue or find out exactly what's causing a problem. You might use this approach if you know there are problems in the community, but can't define them; are clear on what the problem is, but don't know how to deal with it; are concerned about a particular population; are concerned about community health and safety; or are trying to improve the quality of life for the community in general.
• Find out if current policy is working. If it's not clear whether current policy is effective or not, an evaluation can answer that question, as well as suggest appropriate changes.
• Push policy in a specific direction. You might want to support efforts on a particular issue, or sponsor policy that mandates action in particular situations.
• Advocate for the institution of, or an increase in, funding for an issue or a community project.
• Support or oppose a current theory or practice. You may want to make sure that drug policy includes treatment, rather than just punishment. Or you may want stricter policy on the required safety levels of some chemicals in drinking water.

Consider whom you need to influence, and what they'll be swayed by

Understanding your audience and what they will respond to should constitute part of your research, make clear the kind of research that's therefore appropriate, and show you how best to present the conclusions of that research. Being able to speak forcefully and convincingly to exactly the policy makers and others you want to influence is a key to good advocacy research.

• Legislators and other elected officials. By and large, elected officials respond to four things: economic arguments; anything that has an impact on their next election; anything that affects large numbers of their constituents (since that's likely to have an impact on their next election); and issues with which they have a direct connection. They usually like quantitative evidence - i.e., numbers - and/or actual, provable real-world results. They can also be swayed by powerful first-person testimony from someone affected by an issue, especially if that person is one of their constituents.

Most officials will respond to anything they have a personal connection with. If Uncle Joe is on welfare, or a friend's daughter has waged a long battle with schizophrenia, then they are apt to be interested in and sympathetic to the needs of low-income citizens or those with mental health problems. You can often gain the ear of an official through the intercession of a family member, friend, or neighbor who is affected by the policy area you're addressing. For that reason, it's useful to include looking for those kinds of connections in your research.

• Corporations and businesses. For most corporations and other businesses (with community-oriented small businesses being a notable exception), one concern dwarfs all others: the bottom line. Corporations and other businesses exist, after all, specifically to make money, and therefore that's their primary concern. Other motivating factors, depending upon the situation and the nature of the business you're dealing with, may be the opportunity to look like - or be - a good corporate citizen, and fear of prosecution. The most compelling research results for these entities are cost-benefit analyses showing them that the policy you're backing will increase profits or cut losses, or, in cases where it's an issue, investigative reports proving questionable or illegal behavior on their part.
• Funders. Private and public funders of interventions are usually most interested in cost-effectiveness and results. They fund organizations in order to achieve desirable outcomes at the lowest possible cost. If you can show them that their money is well-spent - or not - they'll usually adjust their policies accordingly. They're often interested in qualitative evidence (i.e., evidence based on observation, anecdotes, participant reports, theory, etc.) as well as quantitative. They'll listen to logical or theory-based arguments unless they have a political agenda based on partisan policies, ideological purity, or a prior commitment to a particular way of approaching issues.
• Public opinion. While the public might occasionally create or change policy through a referendum process, it is more likely to pressure policy makers to do so. If public opinion is strong enough, it will direct policy decisions. Public opinion is generally influenced by what it sees as "common sense" - which may neither be common nor make sense. This translates to questions of how a policy will affect them, fairness, apparent effectiveness, and community values. Quantitative evidence works better here if it's simple and clear. ("In the six months before we started midnight basketball, there were 321 arrests of juveniles. In the six months since the program began, there have been 17 arrests of juveniles.") Many people prefer personal testimony, anecdotes, and other qualitative data.

Use the evidence you already have

Do you need further research? If you already have enough appropriate information to back up your advocacy, you may not.

On the other hand, do you know enough to know the direction your research needs to take? If, for example, you've identified a problem, but don't know its cause, do you know how to find it, so you can advocate for addressing it? Or is finding the cause the direction your advocacy should take? (That's what much early AIDS advocacy was about - funding for medical research to find the cause of the disease.)

Use what you already know - about the direction you're moving in, about your target audience, and about the issue itself - to determine what else you should do.

Conduct the research itself

Consider both what you're trying to demonstrate and the background and assumptions of your target audience. These two considerations are equally important. You may have overwhelming evidence to support your conclusions, but if it isn't evidence your target audience will accept, it will do you little good.

Some ways to do your best to assure that your evidence is accepted:

• Try to gather many different kinds of evidence
• Find and use evidence that's simply indisputable. (In the Massachusetts example cited above, the state adult literacy organization compiled a list of 13,000 names of real people waiting for service. A legislator could have called any of the people on that list, and would have talked to someone who had applied for adult literacy services and was put on a waiting list because there were insufficient funds to serve more learners.)
• Know exactly what you need to convince your target audience, and go looking for it
• If you can, emphasize the credibility of your researchers (e.g., well-known experts)
• Point it out if many different studies have come up with the same conclusions

Analyze your data

Depending on the type of research you've done, you may need to perform a statistical analysis, simply record and tabulate the numbers you've found, try to look behind numbers or other information to understand the context of the situation, use the "but why" or other techniques to find a root cause, etc.

Respect your results. Don't exaggerate or lie about them - not only is it unethical, but your opponents will make you pay eventually if you do. If they don't show what you expected, you have to figure out why. Did you look at the wrong factors? Did you collect the data badly? Did you collect the information that would actually tell you what you wanted to know? Is it possible that previous research doesn't apply to this situation? Or were you just dead wrong to begin with?

As discussed above, if you were wrong, your integrity demands that you accept that, and advocate for whatever will actually solve the problem or serve the best interests of the target population or the community.

Present your data in a way that will both reach and influence your target audience

First, some general guidelines for presenting information:

• Communication has to be accessible. Choose a channel through which your target audience is most likely to receive your message. If you're trying to reach suburban legislators, an interview on an urban hip-hop radio station isn't likely to do the trick.
• Communication has to be noticeable. Even after the message is placed in the right channels, it has to have some characteristics that will help it to break through the barrage of messages that bombards everyone every day. People not only have to be exposed to the message, but they have to pay attention to it for it to have any effect. If you want to catch the attention of policy makers themselves, personal contact is probably the best idea. If you're trying to catch the attention of a target population or the general public, using bright colors, familiar music and/or images, unusual visual or audio effects, or statements by familiar community figures or celebrity spokespersons might be successful. (Using a celebrity spokesperson to report your results is effective only if your target audience idolizes or identifies with that spokesperson. You might not ask Tiger Woods to tout your results to Hispanic women, for instance, but he'd probably be a very successful spokesman if golfers were your intended audience.)
• Communication is a two-way street. You have to be sure that what your audience understands is the message that you meant to send. There are several issues that can create difficulties here.
  • Language. Is the message in a language that people can understand? Effective communication may require putting your message in a language other than English if that's the primary language of the target audience, or it may mean making sure that your message is in clear, simple English.
  • Non-verbal communication. Body language, tone and pitch of voice, and clothing all send powerful messages of their own about whom you intend to reach. If you're using images - in photographs, music, video, or film - will your audience immediately recognize and identify with them? The choice of spokespersons also sends a psychological message to an audience.
  • Culture. Different cultures - whether represented by race, ethnicity, social class, or some other factor - may communicate in different ways, so you have to understand the culture of your target audience to communicate effectively. Looking toward and away from people have different meanings in different cultures, for instance. It's important to be culturally sensitive in order both to be understood and not to offend.

Keeping these communication guidelines in mind, you can choose from among a number of different forms of presentation that will get your report to the attention of your target audience. You can use them singly or in some combination, to attract the notice of the largest possible number of people, as well as to attract media attention, so that the message gets out to the general public, even if that's not your main aim.

• Personal contact. If you have already established relationships with them, you may be able to go directly to policy makers, or reach them through aides or committee staffs. You may also be able to reach corporate CEOs, directors of organizations, community leaders, or other influential people directly through your or your allies' personal contact with them. Funding agencies and government or other regulatory bodies are also places where personal contacts can make your task easier, especially if you're hoping your research will spur some quick action.
• Official channels. This means putting your results into the bureaucratic pipeline -giving them to the public contact (most likely a receptionist) in the appropriate office - in the hopes that they will get to a policy maker at the other end. Going through official channels can take time, and may result in the policy maker herself never actually laying eyes on your information. It's probably the least efficient way of reaching anyone with real power to help you, but in some cases, it may be the only choice you have.
• Legislative briefings and other similar official presentations. These events, aimed specifically at policy makers or other influential people, give you the opportunity to meet with a number of them or their aides at once, and to gauge your support. They're also excellent forums for using personal testimony, and for distributing and commenting on simple but effective fact sheets reflecting the results of your research.
• Letters or e-mails directly to appropriate people. See the example at the end of this section for a demonstration of how well this can work.
• Public presentations and forums. These differ from the events above in that they're aimed at a more general audience, and meant to generate some media coverage. A public presentation of research results can range from a press conference, to a presentation at a professional conference or other public forum, to a rally or public demonstration. You have the chance to speak directly to people, using appropriate verbal and non-verbal language and cultural sensitivity. In addition, a public forum lets you answer questions, expand on anything people don't understand, and generate energy for working on policy change. The trick here - and it's not always easy - is to make sure that not just the event, but the substance of the research is covered in any media reports. One way to accomplish this is by giving the media a handout detailing the research results.
  • A trade book or an article in a large-circulation publication aimed at a general audience. Especially in the case of national issues, this type of presentation can spark a debate that leads to profound change. AIDS first came to national attention as a result of an article in the New York Times Magazine, for instance.
  • A media campaign. When your target audience is the general public, and your aim is to influence public opinion quickly and profoundly, using the media is almost always the best method available. If you've done your advocacy homework, you have made connections with the media that you can use to get your information and your message out to the community or the world. A media campaign might encompass press releases and press conferences, newspaper articles, interviews on radio or TV stations in different languages, a story on the evening news, etc.
  • A multi-media presentation. The United Way of America annually prepares videos and brochures on a particular issue, meant to be combined with a speaker with first-hand experience of the issue, for presentation to groups of potential donors. These presentations are often very powerful, and convey the message of need in a way designed to appeal both to donors' intellects and emotions, as well as giving them something (the brochures) to take away to remind them of the presentation.
  • A formal report. This may take the form of a scientific paper, a white paper, a journal article, or something similar. It is usually aimed primarily at policy makers, at people with an academic interest or background, or at a highly educated audience.
  • Flyers or posters in strategic places. Putting your results in places where people are likely to be thinking about your issue - facts about child nutrition at a WIC site or pediatric clinic, for instance - is a way to attract attention. The flyer could include information about policy change, and about what its readers can do to make it happen.

Continue your research to monitor changes in the situation, and in policy or potential policy

If you are able to gain policy changes, continued research will allow you to show policy makers they made the right decision, and to head off efforts to reinstate ineffective or ill-advised policy. Research will also help you continue your advocacy as conditions or the needs of the community change.

In Summary

Advocacy research differs from scientific and other academic research, in that it seeks to influence the making of policy. Research can be a powerful tool for helping you to influence the formation and modification of policy on your issue. If you understand how to use it, it can lead to better services and real social change. Whether the point of your research is to determine what appropriate policy should be, to call attention to an issue or need, to urge the adoption or abandonment of a specific practice or approach, to expose corruption or wrongdoing in government or business, or to protect the public, it can have a profound effect on the life of your community.

Research can help to assure that an issue is accurately identified, and then addressed effectively. It can help you, as an advocate, to establish a solid base for advocacy, and to keep you honest, by making sure you don't fall into the trap of advocating on the basis of ideology, rather than responding to the real needs of the situation and the community.

While research can, and should, be carried out by grassroots community groups of activists or those affected by an issue, it's often more likely to be heeded if it's the product of an individual or group with some research credibility. Among those whom you might ask to conduct or collaborate on research on your issue are academics in the field, think tanks, government agencies, professional associations, government-appointed commissions, organizations that work closely with the issue, watchdog organizations, and law enforcement.

Particularly good times to conduct or present the results of research are those when policy is at a crossroads, and your research can help to push it in the right direction. These include when there's a policy vacuum in a particular area; when policy on your issue is under legislative review; when there's a critical situation and no one seems to be reacting to it; when policy change or formation is under discussion, and it's important that difficult, but crucial, issues aren't ignored; when current policy needs to be evaluated; when policy seems headed in exactly the wrong direction; or when you're consulted as an expert on the issue.

There are a number of steps to take to use research to influence policy:

• Define how you're trying to influence policy. You could be trying to find out what policy should be; pushing policy in a given direction; advocating for funding and other support for addressing an issue; or advocating for or against certain practices or approaches.
• Identify your audience - legislators, the general public, etc. - and what kind of evidence they'll respond to.
• Use existing evidence to help you get started, and to make your work easier.
• Do the actual research, attending to what your audience will accept and understand.
• Analyze your results, and abide by them, even if they're not what you expected.
• Present your results, using basic principles of communication to reach your target audience.
• Continue research, even if you've been successful in changing policy, so that you can both show the success of that change, and be aware of the need for more as the needs of the community change.

Why should you conduct research?

___You or your group has agreed that you want to influence policies related to issues of concern to you and your constituents

You have determined to conduct policy research to (choose one or more of the following):

___Assure that an issue is actually addressed

___Assure that the issue addressed is the one that needs to be addressed

___Show a need for funding or intervention for an issue

___Support or discredit the use of a particular practice or approach

___Identify and advocate for appropriate policy on an issue

___Point out incompetence or corruption that harms the public interest

___Protect public health and safety

___Build a solid base for your advocacy

___Maintain your own integrity

For maximum credibility, you have collaborated with or received help from (indicate which groups have helped):

___Think tanks

___Government agencies

___Professional associations

___Official commissions

___Organizations that work with the issue

___Watchdog organizations

___Law enforcement agencies

You conducted policy research because:

___There was a need for policy, and none has been established

___There was a critical situation that was not recognized or acknowledged

___Our issue was under legislative review

___The policy was under discussion, and we wante to make sure that important points weren't ignored

___The results of current policy were unknown or unclear

___Policy was headed in the wrong direction

___We were consulted as an expert

Example #1: Illinois Child Passenger Protection Act

This example is from Murray Levine and David Perkins' book, Principles of Community Psychology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.

In the early 1980's, Leonard Jason and Tom Rose, two researchers at DePaul University in Illinois were concerned about getting a law passed that would require child safety seats for young children in the state. They did some background research, and then sent a summary of the research to the members of the Illinois State Senate. Actually, they sent the summary to only half the legislators, chosen randomly as part of an experiment. As it turned out, those receiving the research summary were significantly more likely (79% to 53%) to vote for the bill than those who didn't, and the legislation passed. While the margin of victory might have been greater if the letter had gone to all senators, Jason and Rose's research clearly had an impact on the outcome of the vote.

The following is the text of the letter. Note the use of multiple research methods as well as the concise manner of communication.

"As you know, the Child Passenger Protection Act (House Bill 608) is due to be brought before the Illinois State Senate within the next month. We would like to provide you pertinent data that we hope will be useful to you as you consider this piece of legislation. Tom Rose and I, two investigators at DePaul University, have been collecting data over the past eight months and have found that 93% of children 4 years and less are not placed in appropriate restraints when riding in automobiles. These data were collected in the Chicago metropolitan area and are based on looking at whether children in 1450 cars were in appropriate restraints. To obtain information about citizen attitudes concerning the issue of child restraints in automobiles, in March of 1982 Mr. Rose and I interviewed a sample of Illinois citizens and found that 78% of adults in the Chicago metropolitan area would support the passage of the Child Passenger Protection Act. Illinois traffic statistics indicate that 140 children were killed and 25,828 children injured in automobile accidents during the period from 1975-1981. Not only do these statistics represent a tragic loss of human life and potential, they also represent a tremendous cost in rehabilitative care. For example, a 3-year-old who sustains a spinal injury in an automobile accident -- not an infrequent injury-- and is rendered a paraplegic will require $724,140 dollars in rehabilitative care over his or her life. If this child were rendered a quadriplegic, costs would exceed $3,317,929, for rehabilitative care over his/her lifetime.

Finally, states that have adopted child restraint legislation have experienced significant increases in the use of restraint devices. In Tennessee, for example, twice as many children were placed in appropriate restraints after the Tennessee Child Passenger Protection Act became law on January 1, 1978.

We hope this information is useful. Please feel free to contact me if you have any further questions. I can be reached at 312-321-7884."

 

Example #2: Santa Monica’s Use of Data to Lift All Boats: A Deeper Look

Four years ago, Santa Monica took a data-driven approach to become a true City of Wellbeing where everyone thrives. The city used a Wellbeing Index to produce a data-based guide for steering policy. The city used existing information from city departments and fresh input from surveys. The Wellbeing index sets a framework for priorities and promotes initiatives on health and wellness.

Contributed by Lia Thompson, University of Kansas, Community Tool Box Intern.

 

 

This section is adapted from Leighninger, Flavin-McDonald, and Ghandour's Building strong neighborhoods: A study circle guide for public dialgoue and community problem-solving.

Today, we are facing some difficult challenges. Neighborhoods are dealing with crime, economic problems, tensions between different groups of people, drug and alcohol abuse, and other things. To make matters worse, many of us barely know our neighbors.

The good news is that the people in our neighborhood communities are full of energy, talent, and creativity -- attributes that can be channeled into improving everyone's quality of life. But all too often, neighborhoods aren't able to take full advantage of their residents' energy and commitment. Most of the people who live and work in our neighborhoods are not at the table when problems are being discussed and decisions are being made. It is often the same leaders who try to represent all of the people in the neighborhood, and sometimes those leaders "burn out."

So how can you tap into the talent and creativity where you live for the benefit of the neighborhood as a whole? A growing number of community organizers, hoping to bring neighborhoods together, have successfully used study circles.

What are study circles?

A study circle is a group of 8 to 12 people who meet regularly over a period of weeks or months to address a critical public issue in a democratic, collaborative way. Participants examine the issue from many points of view and identify areas of common ground. They emerge with recommendations for action that will benefit the community. Some examples from study circles conducted around the country include youth mentoring programs; new hiring policies; citywide diversity celebrations; a multiracial "unity choir;" and a new state law reforming the corrections system in Oklahoma.

A study circle is typically led by an impartial facilitator whose job it is to keep discussions focused, help the group consider a variety of views, and ask difficult questions.

In general, a study circle will progress from a session on personal experience ("How does the issue affect me?") to sessions providing a broader perspective ("What are others saying about this issue?") to a session on action ("What can we do about this issue right now?"). Study circles produce good ideas and plans for action which can draw the neighborhood community together and improve everyone's quality of life.

Individual study circles can take place within communities or within organizations such as schools, unions, or government agencies. However, study circles have the greatest reach and impact when organizations across a community work together to hold multiple study circles as part of a large-scale program. These community-wide programs engage large numbers of citizens -- in some cases thousands -- in study circles on a public issue such as race relations, crime and violence, or education. Broad sponsoring coalitions create strong, diverse community participation.

This section of the Tool Box will take you step by step through the process of planning and conducting an initial study circle through expanding your program and coordinating a community-wide effort. You can have a pre-planned topic, such as public safety or neighborhood beautification, or you can hold a general circle and let the participants choose which issue they wish to address.

Why should you organize study circles?

Organizing a study circle -- or a community-wide program of study circles -- is a lot of work, but it's worth it for a number of reasons.

People find study circles valuable because:

• The discussions begin with people talking about their own experiences. Study circles don't deal with problems in the abstract - they deal with real problems that real people experience every day.
• The small groups help people of different backgrounds talk about difficult issues in a safe, respectful way. Large groups can be intimidating; but many people who are uncomfortable in a large group will open up more easily to a smaller one.
• People know that they are part of a larger effort, and they feel good about that.
• The study circle program as a whole empowers community residents. It helps people solve problems and take action in their own neighborhoods and communities.

Once study circle programs get started, they usually grow larger and stronger -- people come to enjoy working together on a common goal. Study circle participants often talk about how quickly the time passed, since the discussion was focused, honest, and productive. They also talk about how much fun they had getting to know one another.

So as you can see, there are plenty of good reasons to organize a study circle in your neighborhood. Are you ready to try? Let's go!

How do you organize a community-wide study circles program?

Example: Crime Wave in Milltown

Milltown, a historic neighborhood in a large Midwestern city, has always been a nice place to live, with a good mix of old and young, students and professionals, and single people and established families. In recent years, Milltown has also been home to an increasingly large Hispanic population. The various groups, while aware of one another, don't interact much, and lately there has been some tension between the Hispanic newcomers and longtime "Milltowners."

As if that weren't problem enough, Milltown has, in recent months, experienced a crime wave. For the most part, the crimes have been relatively minor -- a little graffiti here, a window broken there, someone's mailbox knocked over somewhere else. But things seem to be escalating; several car break-ins have been reported, and one man's townhouse was burglarized.

The residents of Milltown are understandably concerned about the problems facing their community. How can they bring the community together to stop the crime and make all the residents feel safe?

Before you get started, there are several things you'll want to consider.

• First, share the burden: solicit volunteers in the neighborhood that will help you organize the program. This will not only help you, but it will also give the participants a greater feeling of "ownership" over the process.
• Second, make it clear that all different backgrounds will be respected in the study circles. Otherwise, you'll foster the perception that only certain people's opinions or experiences matter -- definitely not the message you want to be sending!
• Third, make sure that people understand that this project will help people solve problems in the neighborhood, not just talk about them!

With these things in mind, you're ready to get started!

Put together a core team of stalwart assistants.Talk to a few people you know well and have worked with before, and who would be excited about this project.

• Hold a pilot study circle. With your core team's help, think of ten or twelve people who might be interested in being pioneers! Give them a personal invitation to the pilot study circle and try out one or two sessions. At the end, ask them what they think of the process and how you can make it work in your neighborhood.
  • The pilot study circle can be held anywhere - a church basement, an empty classroom in the neighborhood school, the activity room in an apartment building, or even someone's home. Wherever you hold it, make sure it's accessible, easy to find, and comfortable. You may wish to provide refreshments to the participants, or see whether the participants would like to take turns bringing food and drink.

Make a list of groups and organizations in your neighborhood. To involve a large number of people, you need to tap into as many groups and organizations as you can. Make a list of all the schools, congregations, businesses, clubs, nonprofits, libraries, tenants' associations, scout troops, and other groups in the neighborhood. Also list key outsiders who work closely with the neighborhood, including police officers, public officials, and other government employees. Can you think of others?

Hold another pilot study circle with representatives from different organizations. Invite people from some of these organizations to another pilot circle. If you have more than twelve people, hold more than one circle. Try for a good mix of people in each.

Example: A Study Circle Is Born

Milltown, a historic neighborhood in a large Midwestern city, has always been a nice place to live, with a good mix of old and young, students and professionals, and single people and established families. In recent years, Milltown has also been home to an increasingly large Hispanic population. The various groups, while aware of one another, don't interact much, and lately there has been some tension between the Hispanic newcomers and longtime "Milltowners." As if that weren't problem enough, Milltown has, in recent months, experienced a crime wave.

Alma Huerta, a Milltown resident, decides to organize a community-wide study circle program in response to the stresses on her neighborhood. She asks her friend in the townhouse next door, Allison Browne, for help, and Allison is enthusiastic about the project. Together they recruit other participants for a pilot study circle: the minister at Allison's church, the real estate agent who sold Alma her townhouse, and the custodian at Alma's office building are all members. They meet in the Milltown Baptist Church's meeting room because the church is an easily-located landmark in Milltown, and also because Allison uses a wheelchair and the church is easily accessible to people with disabilities.

Alma begins the study circle by introducing herself and having all the participants introduce themselves. She says to the group, "We're all here tonight because we 're concerned about crime in Milltown. Tonight, we're going to talk about safety. Safety is a big concern, because when you don't feel safe, it's hard to work on any other priorities. So the goal of tonight's session is to help you talk about how to make our neighborhood a safer place to live and work."

During the first session, the group, co-led by Alma and Allison, discusses a number of questions, including:

• Do you feel safe in the neighborhood? Why or why not?
• What kinds of safety precautions do you usually take?
• What roles do the police play in making the neighborhood safer?
• What roles can you play in making the neighborhood safer?

The group has a lively discussion about safety in Milltown. At the end, the participants agree that study circles are a great idea, and they begin to plan for the future!

Form a study circle working group. Ask all the people who've been involved so far to join a working group that will spearhead the initiative from this point forward. Make sure this group represents the different kinds of people who live in the neighborhood. Split the working group into groups of two and three to start the following tasks:

• Plan the kickoff. This is a large meeting that takes place just before the study circles begin to announce the project to the whole neighborhood. Invite one or two speakers who can describe the study circles and inspire people to take part. Provide refreshments, and leave some time for people to socialize and sign up.
• Recruit and train facilitators. If you can, find some people who are skilled at facilitating groups. Also, invite people who have the personality to be good facilitators--good listeners often make good facilitators. Give them information about study circle facilitation, and bring them together for a training. Make sure people understand the main rule: Facilitators are neutral, and must keep their opinions to themselves.
• Find sites and handle other details. Arrange for study circles to meet in schools, libraries, police substations, churches, firehouses, and businesses; in a pinch, use people's homes. If you can, provide child care, transportation, or other services that will help people take part. If possible, find volunteers to serve as recorders for the groups.
• Recruit people to join the study circles. Again, personal invitations work best. Get everyone on the working group to recruit people from their organization or circle of friends. Go door to door. Create flyers and signup sheets to pass out in the neighborhood. Get your information into local newsletters, church bulletins, and newspapers, and think of other ways to get the word out.
• Plan the action forum. This large meeting takes place at the end of a round of study circles. Beforehand, use the records from each group to identify the main areas of concern. At the forum, allow enough time for someone from each study circle to give a quick summary of its ideas (no more than five minutes each). Encourage people to sign up for action groups on the main areas of concern. Give the action groups some time to get acquainted and begin planning. Close the meeting with a speaker who will congratulate everyone on their efforts. Make sure there is food and time for socializing.

Hold the kickoff meeting. Try to get the local news media to cover the kickoff.

Example: A Successful Kickoff

Alma and Allison have held a second successful study circle, this one with different participants, and they have been delighted with the participants' enthusiasm. Everyone who has taken part feels that expanding the program would be good for Milltown, and a number of people pitch in to plan a kickoff meeting.

The Milltown Community Center donates the space for the meeting, and local restaurants and caterers, some of whose businesses have been affected by the recent crime wave, donate food. An electronics shop in the neighborhood even donates a 26-inch color television to be raffled off during the event.

The women then get the word out. They create colorful flyers (making prominent mention of that TV!), which they make available at grocery stores, in the library, on church bulletin boards, in schools, and in clinics. They make sure the information is clearly printed in both English and Spanish. They write a press release for the local newspaper, place a public service announcement on the local cable-access television station, and get blurbs about the kickoff placed in school and church newsletters.

While all this media work is important, most study circle participants are recruited through personal contact. Knowing this, Alma and Allison tell everyone they can about the group, and they ask those people to tell others. They talk to local clergy, police officers, agency directors, social workers, media personnel, school personnel, and anyone else they can think of.

When the big day arrives, some 750 Milltowners converge upon the Community Center, and enough residents sign up to make 10 good-sized study circles.

• Now you're ready for the study circles to begin; keep in mind that as they go on, you'll need to support the study circles. How? Bring the facilitators together for a meeting so they can compare notes on how their groups are going. Start new study circles for people who are joining late. Collect the records from each circle to give you a sense of the discussions and to help you document the process.
• When the study circles end - usually after several months - it's time to hold the action forum. This is a chance to celebrate what your neighborhood has done, and to move from talk to action.

Keep the momentum going. Talk to the action groups to see how they're doing. Try to get the local media to cover the action effort. Work with people who want to get a new round of study circles going.

Example: Managing the Program

Throughout the process, Alma and Allison continue to coordinate the overall study circle effort. In addition to each facilitating a study circle of her own, they meet regularly with the other facilitators to review records, keep track of common themes, and generally see how things are going.

The other facilitators report that things are going well with their groups. The discussions, while passionate and sometimes heated, have led to new ideas, new understanding, and new hope. New connections are being forged, and new friendships are being made. Best of all, the participants feel empowered; they feel that they really are doing something to reduce crime in Milltown.

Pause and reflect on what you've learned, and start planning the next round. Get the working group together and talk about how things went. Record (and celebrate!) Your achievements, and look for ways to make the program stronger. Give feedback and encouragement to volunteers. Use what you learned to plan for the future. Try to expand your working group. In this way, you can sustain and deepen your study circle program and continue to build a stronger neighborhood!

Example: A Fitting Conclusion

When the study circles end, it's time for another gathering at the community center -- this time an Action Forum in which the study circles' proposals for action can be discussed. The groups have come up with some good ideas to reduce crime in Milltown. In the course of the discussions, it emerged that a lot of the increase in crime could be attributed to several youth street gangs springing up in Milltown. So a lot of the ideas had to do with youth. For example:

• Working with the local police substation to set up an after-school youth basketball league for the teens of Milltown.
• Working with the Community Center to expand its menu of after-school activities for teens.
• Setting up a mentorship program with Milltown High School for at-risk youth.
• Holding an annual community-wide Cinco de Mayo block party to celebrate community diversity and draw the neighborhood closer together.
• Talking with gang members themselves to find out why they have gotten involved with gangs, what keeps them involved, what can be done to make them feel like more of a part of the community, and what can be done to discourage them from taking part in criminal activities.

Implementing these suggestions takes a lot of time and involvement on behalf of the Milltown residents, but their efforts pay off: A year after the study circles project began, crime in Milltown is down over 60 percent.

And Alma and Allison? They're considering ways to beautify Milltown -- with a new round of study circles!

Tips on recording and facilitating a study circle

The recorder and the facilitator are very important to each individual study circle. The facilitator keeps things moving and on track, and the recorder makes sure everyone's thoughts are written down. If you've taken on one of these key roles, here's a fuller description of what you'll need to do.

The recorder's role

Each study circle needs a volunteer recorder to jot down some of the key ideas that come up. The recorder should not be the facilitator--both jobs are too important for anyone to have to pull double duty! The recorder's main job is to listen carefully and document what the group members talk about. Some people feel they can take good notes and still participate in the discussion. Others prefer to concentrate on listening. The facilitator's role

The facilitator has a key role in the study circle process. Here are some tips that will help you facilitate meetings effectively:

• Stay neutral. Use the power you have with the group wisely. Your role should never be to promote a particular point of view, but rather to further the discussion. By the end of the discussion, group members should not know your views on the issues being discussed.
• Be prepared. Think ahead of time how the discussion might go. This will allow you to give your full attention to the group.
• Let participants respond to one another. Encourage interaction among the group. If questions or comments are directed at you, try to deflect them to someone else. You should speak less than any person in the group.
• Don't let any one person dominate the discussion. If you allow people to interrupt or let one or two talkers take over, the more polite people will get angry and frustrated. At the first sign of trouble, refer to the ground rules the group has set.
• Draw out quiet participants. Don't put anyone on the spot, but watch for opportunities to bring quiet people into the discussion. Learn participants' names and use them.
• Keep the discussions on track. Since important issues are usually related to each other, it is easy for groups to move into other areas. Participants need the freedom to explore connections and ideas, but try to keep the discussion related to the session's topic.
• Allow for pauses and silences. People need time to think and reflect. Sometimes silence will help people build up the courage to make a valuable point. You may find it helpful to silently count to ten after asking a question.
• Don't worry about achieving consensus. Not everyone is going to agree on everything. There is no need for consensus--just try to help the group find some areas of agreement.
• When in doubt, ask the group. If you're having trouble enforcing the ground rules, or deciding which topic to spend time on, ask the group what they would like to do.

In Summary

If your neighborhood community seems endangered by forces within or without, if neighbors don't know each other and members of the community live in virtual isolation from one another, and if you would like to make a difference in your community, consider organizing a study circle. By giving voice to the people most affected by neighborhood problems, study circles strengthen ties between neighbors and, more importantly, empower members of the community to make real and lasting changes.

___You know what makes up a study circle, and the purpose of a study circle

___You know that study circles can have the biggest impact when they are held as part of a large-scale program

___You know why people find study circles valuable:

• Talk about their own experiences
• Talk about difficult issues in a controlled, respectful environment
• The chance to be part of a larger effort
• Empowers community residents

___You have solicited volunteers to help you with your efforts

___You have clarified that all backgrounds will be respected in your study circle

___You have put together your "core team"

___You have held a pilot study circle

___You have made a list of groups/organizations in your area and attempted to involve them

___A second pilot study circle has been held, including members from different organizations

___A study circle working group has been formed and you have:

• Planned the kickoff
• Recruited and trained facilitators
• Arranged for places to meet, and taken care of other details
• Recruited people to joint the study circles
• Planned the action forum

___The kickoff meeting has been held

___You have supported the study circles through encouraging facilitator collaboration, and collecting records

___You have held the action forum to celebrate what you have accomplished and decide what you want to accomplish

___You have kept the momentum going

___You have paused to reflect, and started planning for your next round

___You know the recorder's role in a study group

___You know the facilitator's role in a study group

Example 1: START - Study, Think, Act, Respond Together

START is a free-of-charge 24-session course designed to foster study circles among groups of people interested in community health and development issues. Participants study and discuss environmental, domestic, and world issues using the online readings, read and think about the world they want and how to get there, and then act. START is self-paced and flexible for a variety of groups.

Example 2: In Decatur and Beyond, It All Starts with a Conversation

“Addressing diversity issues in your community can be difficult and complex.  Many look to Decatur, Georgia as an example of inclusion, diversity & citizen engagement.  The city routinely  engages many different sectors of the community in addressing challenges, ranging from affordable housing to race equity issues to community police relations – going beyond the traditional public comment or public hearing to true and ongoing dialogue with many different sectors of the community.  It all started with a conversation – a conversation that has economic, racial, age, gender and religiously diverse representation, and that is reflective of the composition of the community itself.”

Jon Abercrombie, Senior Associate for Everyday Democracy, says, “we all recognize the need to keep dialogues active, inclusive, racially and economically diverse, and driven toward action and progressive change.”

Everyday Democracy is a local group that provides opportunities to unite people together to talk about current issues using what they call a “study circle.” These conversations have been able to “address a serious funding and sustainability issue” in the public schools. Additionally, they have created more conversations on topics like “improving affordable housing, building trusting relationships while addressing racial equity with police…and working on a plan to remove a confederate memorial on the public square.”

Decatur has seen tremendous success in asking the local community members to aid in finding solutions to their local problems. They have seen over 1,000 residents come together in various forms to present their ideas and solutions in how to make their community better.