Chapter 25. Changing Policies | Community Tool Box

• What do we mean by policies?

• Why try to change policies?

• Who should try to change policies?

• When should you try to change policies?

• How do you go about changing policies?

The Penbrooke County Jail staff had looked at the statistics, and found that a majority of inmates finished their sentences, went back into the community, and all too soon found their way back to jail again. All the research pointed to community support as a crucial factor in keeping former inmates out of jail, but there was no way to assure that support.

Working with the community human services coalition, the jail staff developed a transition program for inmates that included education, career counseling, and connections with community support organizations and individual mentors that started six months before release. Similar programs had worked well in other places, and the jail staff and their partners were enthusiastic. The only problem now was funding.

The human services coalition was agreed that the funding would have to come from the Department of Corrections. The human service budget was already stretched to the limit, and state and local funding was being cut, rather than increased. But Department of Corrections policy stated that its responsibility ended at the moment of release. It became clear that, if the program was ever to become a reality, that policy had to be changed.

Changing policies can be a crucial strategy in implementing community interventions. All too often, legislators and policy makers, local officials, corporations, or, as in the Penbrooke situation, state agencies don't know about or entirely understand an issue, or have other reasons - inertia and self-interest among them - for making or maintaining policy that is outdated, ill-conceived, unfair, or just plain wrong. Changing such policy is one strategy for either implementing interventions or getting them funded.

A strategy is an overall plan for achieving objectives that will help you fulfill your vision and mission. Tactics are the methods you use in an action plan to carry out your strategy. Chapter 25 is about a number of tactics that can be used - separately or in combination - to carry out a strategy of changing the policies about your issue. Policy change can be a strategy in itself, or one element of a broader strategic plan.

In this first section, we'll look at policy change in general - what it consists of, why it's important, when and by whom it should be attempted, and some general guidelines for getting it done. In the following sections of this chapter, we'll examine particular tactics for effecting policy change.

What do we mean by policies?

Policies are the written or unwritten guidelines that governments, organizations and institutions, communities, or individuals use when responding to issues and situations. They are generally shaped both by logic (e.g., get a medical history before you prescribe medication) and by people's assumptions about reality, including:

• Assumptions about the way things should be. These are formed by a combination of the values people learn as children, conventional wisdom (what "everyone knows"), local custom and community norms, cultural factors, religion, and "common sense" (which may be neither common nor sense). People's conceptions of gender roles, relationships among groups, appropriate behavior, etc., are usually subject to this set of assumptions.
• Assumptions about what works. These assumptions guide ideas about how to address a particular issue. They can determine, for instance, whether a community drug problem is approached with stricter enforcement and harsher punishment, or with an increase in funding for treatment and follow-up programs.
• Assumptions about people. What people think they know about other people in general or about members of other ethnic, racial, or social groups. Sensitivity to other cultures - or its absence - has a lot to do with these assumptions, as do empathy and exposure to a variety of cultures and situations.
• Assumptions about what's good for the community. These assumptions may not reflect reality, or the needs and wishes of everyone in the community. Until the 1960's, for example, the majority of the white population in many American communities - and not only in the South - honestly felt that separation of the races was best for everyone, and that African Americans were perfectly happy with their position in society. It is probably fair to say that most Black people's assumptions in this matter were quite different

Policies can take different forms, depending upon whose policies they are, and what they refer to. They may be public or private, official or unofficial, expressed or unexpressed. Some common types of policies:

Official government policies.

These are usually discussed publicly and written down, either as or within laws and official regulations (such as those of a government agency, e.g. the Department of Education), or as statements of policy in government documents. It is, for instance, currently the US government's policy to reduce the welfare rolls as much as possible, and to give welfare recipients only two years of eligibility. Official policy, in and of itself, can take many forms:

• Simple recognition of the seriousness of an issue.
• Support for addressing an issue, or for a specific position on that issue. A policy of support may mean that officials consider that issue when discussing others related to it, that it gets funding priority, etc.
• The amount of funding available for a specific issue reflects government policy on the importance of that issue.
• Funding and eligibility standards for publicly funded programs. Eligibility in this case might include the types of programs the government is willing to fund, which reflects its policy (and assumptions) on what will actually work to resolve the issue. It might also include who is eligible for services, which reflects official policy on where and what the need is.
• Enforcement - or lack of enforcement - of existing laws and regulations. Whether laws and regulations are enforced strictly, leniently, or at all is an indication of policy toward the issues they cover and/or the entities regulated by them. The policy of many states is to consider marijuana possession a misdemeanor, for instance, because it is so widespread.
• Actual laws or regulations are an expression of official policy, often brought about by pressure from citizens. Changes in official policy, leading to changes in laws and regulations, are also often motivated by public pressure.

Unofficial government policy.

Unofficial policies are shaped by the unspoken attitudes and assumptions held by policy makers. They aren't generally written down anywhere, and may not even be stated to anyone, but they are powerful and long-lasting. They can become part of the culture of a governing body or agency, and, at least in part because they are unwritten, they are often incredibly difficult to change.

No one may admit that unwritten policies exist, or they may be so deeply ingrained that they're viewed not as policies, but as facts. Assumptions about such issues as gender roles, race relations, or the relative status of particular groups may play a huge, but unacknowledged, role in public or corporate policy. Unofficial policies may have to be exposed and changed before any official policy change is possible.

Policies made by government bureaucracies, and by public services such as police and fire departments.

These policies may cover such areas as:

• How citizens are treated by agencies and departments, including disparities in the ways members of different racial and ethnic groups are treated.
• How bureaucrats choose to interpret and enforce laws and regulations.
• Whose emergency calls get answered, and how quickly.
• The character and quality of schools and services in different neighborhoods.
• The siting of environmentally questionable industries or facilities.

The policies of foundations and other private funders.

Foundations and other private funders make policies about what and whom they'll fund, and can have a large influence on what kinds of issues are addressed as a result. In addition to choosing the issues or areas they'll put money toward, these funders' policies may specify:

• The geographic areas they'll fund.
• The target populations they're interested in.
• The kinds of program activities that are acceptable (most foundations, for instance, prefer to fund specific services or programming, rather than organizational operating costs).
• The types of organizations that are eligible for funding (non-profits, for example, or community-based organizations, as opposed to statewide ones).
• The methods or program structures they encourage.

Policies of businesses.

All businesses, from the smallest mom-and-pop corner store to the largest multinational corporation, have official and unofficial policies about the ways they do business. Among most businesses' policies are:

• Hiring policies. Some businesses may favor minority applicants, for instance, while others may pay no attention to racial or ethnic background, or actively avoid hiring minority applicants. Some may try to hire workers from the local community, while others may simply look for anyone with the appropriate skills.
• Compensation. Starting salary, regular raises, stock options, and fringe benefits all fall into this category. Compensation policy - including the difference between the pay of those at the bottom and those at the top of the company - reflects the business's view of employees' importance.

• Employer-employee relations. Company policy about how workers are treated may have a major influence not only on the company itself, but on the community in which it's located. Generous benefits, workplace education, promotion from within, and the encouragement and rewarding of workers' initiative are all evidence of respect and concern for the workforce, and - in the case of a town's major employer - can create a community climate of harmony and shared purpose.
• Employer-community relations. Again, especially in the case of a major employer, a business's relationship with the community can have a profound effect on both. Some businesses try to be good citizens, supporting community services, offering employees paid release time to work on community projects, and responding to community concerns about such issues as pollution. Others ignore the needs and wishes of the community entirely, often poisoning the atmosphere - literally and figuratively - both within the business and outside it.
• Business practices and ethics. Illegal and unethical practices are the result of policies, just as community-friendly stances are. We are currently all too aware of corporate executives whose concern for their own finances leads them to "creative" bookkeeping and illegal dealings. Businesses, in the name of profits, can act legally but unethically - failing to deliver on promises made to a community, for instance, pressuring suppliers for discounts or services, or, as John D. Rockefeller did, forcing local competitors out of business.

Policies of human service, health, and other non-profit organizations.

Like businesses, non-profit organizations have both official and unofficial policies which govern and affect all aspects of their operations. These policies usually have a great deal to do with the organizations' effectiveness, and with the way they are viewed by participants and the community. In addition to many of the same policies that businesses might institute - hiring, employee-staff relations, relations with the community - non-profits also usually have policy that governs other important areas:

• The organization's view of participants. Does it see participants - patients at a clinic, job trainees, at-risk youth, etc. - as "clients" that the organization is doing something to or for, or as partners in a change effort? Are staff members expected to treat participants respectfully, as equals, or to condescend or be authoritative?
• Specific practices, methods, or programs. Many human service, health, and educational organizations are governed by policies that suggest or mandate certain ways of carrying out their work, or particular methods for particular circumstances.
• Collaboration. Some non-profits make it a point to collaborate as much as possible, from joining coalitions to engaging in joint projects with other organizations. Others rarely, if ever, work with other organizations.
• Professional ethics. Many non-profits expect staff members to adhere to a particular code of professional ethics - either an internal one, or one set out by a professional association - that governs such areas as confidentiality, inappropriate relationships, abuse of position, reporting (or non-reporting) of specific kinds of illegal behavior, etc. They may also have formal or informal ethical standards for their relationships with other organizations and with the community.

Policies of the media.

While some media outlets follow policies that reflect particular political agendas, almost all media, no matter how objective they try to be, make and demonstrate policies by what stories they choose to cover, what features of those stories they choose to emphasize, where they maintain regular bureaus or reporters, and the words and pictures they use to describe what they report.

Policies adopted by the community as a whole.

While there may be no discussion or complete consensus about what community policy actually is, communities do have policies on issues and other matters. During the darkest days of the Civil Rights Movement, for example, it was community policy in most communities in the South to maintain segregation, often by any means necessary. In many affluent communities, it is clearly a community policy that education is important, and worth spending money on.

Community policy is made by a combination of factors, but two are by far the most important. One is the opinions of community leaders - not necessarily those elected, but those whose opinions are listened to, because of their economic or political clout, or simply because of the respect they've earned. These may include influential business people, clergy, educators, or directors of organizations, among others.

The second factor is public opinion. Public opinion may be formed partially by the opinions of community leaders, but is also a product of people's own experiences, the media, and the long-time standards and practices of the community. Segregation was unquestioningly accepted because it had been in force for a hundred years. Affluent communities are willing to spend money on schools largely because many of the parents in those communities themselves gained affluence through education.

Why try to change policies?

As we've discussed, policies usually grow out of people's basic assumptions about the world. As a result, they're often difficult to change, and efforts to do so require patience, sensitivity, and hard work if they're to be successful. Why go to all that trouble? Why not just try to get around or ignore policy in the particular instance you're concerned with, and leave it at that?

There are a number of excellent reasons why changing policies is worth the trouble. In general, it's the difference between sweeping problems under the rug, and actually cleaning them up so they don't appear again.

• Policies are the basis for community decisions. If you can change the policy, you may be able to affect - for the better, we assume - community decisions about an issue well into the future.
• Attempting to change policies can start a community conversation about the issues in question. Attempts at policy change make clear that current policies are inadequate to deal with the issues, and start people thinking about why. The resulting discussions can change people's thinking about other issues as well, and about the direction of the community as a whole.
• Changing policy is easier in the long run than fighting the same battles over and over again. Even if you're successful in gaining concessions on a particular issue, if you haven't changed the policy toward that issue, you may have to work to gain those concessions again each time the issue arises. Addressing policy versus addressing the issue in a vacuum can be compared to addressing the root causes of a disease versus treating its symptoms. If you eliminate the causes, the patient can be cured; if you only treat the symptoms, he'll feel better for a while, but the disease will flare up again.
• Changed policies can change people's minds and attitudes. One theory of child-rearing that seems to work reasonably well in practice is that if the child behaves in an acceptable way for long enough, that behavior becomes internalized as part of the child's self-image. It is, in other words, no longer merely behavior, but part of what the child conceives as herself and the way she is. The same can be true of a community: once an issue is addressed in particular ways, the new policies themselves become part of the community's self-image, and lead to long-term change.
• Changed policies have effects on the next generation. As proponents of civil rights hoped, and racists feared, integration had its greatest effects on schoolchildren. A whole generation grew up feeling that having friends of different races was normal. It would be foolish to pretend that racial prejudice no longer exists in the US. It's still a serious problem, but nowhere near the problem it was for the first hundred years after the Civil War, largely because of the generational effects of the enforcement of anti-segregation laws.
• Policy change is one path to permanent social change. For all of the reasons above, changing policies is really a way to change society. The policies in question may come from above, in the form of official government policies translated into laws or regulations. Or they may come from the grass roots, from unions and workplaces and social groups. Regardless of where they originate, changes in policy that speak to the real causes of social issues and to the real needs of the people involved lead to real and permanent social change.

Who should try to change policies?

Anyone who's concerned can and should be involved in trying to change policies, but some groups or individuals are more likely than others to be successful.

Coalitions.

In many ways a coalition is the ideal group to address policy change. Coalitions have a number of built-in advantages:

• Coalitions can - and should - represent a broad cross-section of the community, including all those affected by the issues and policies in question.
• The broad representation leads to a variety of perspectives, which can generate more and better ideas about how to proceed.
• Broad representation also means that the community's history with the issue, personal conflicts that might affect its resolution, and other such details will come out and be dealt with as part of a plan for policy change.
• Coalitions have credibility, because they represent all points of view, and include leaders and spokespersons of all segments of the community.
• Coalitions, because they involve all segments of the community, generate plans that everyone can buy into and feel ownership of.

Organizations that work with the issue.

Administrators and line staff of community-based and other health and human service organizations often have both technical knowledge of the issue - statistics, study results, understanding of root causes - and the personal understanding of its human consequences that comes from working with those affected. These organizations, as a result, have high credibility, and are appropriate leaders in a campaign for changes in policy.

Citizen-led community groups.

A well-organized community-based initiative, especially one that includes people affected by the issue, is another group with some credibility, and one that has information and knowledge helpful in discussing policy. Its capacity for advocacy may be another helpful factor here.

Professional groups with an interest in the issue.

In some circumstances, a bar association or medical association, for instance, might take the lead in trying to change policies.

Concerned individuals.

Sometimes, it takes a highly motivated individual to get a policy change campaign off the ground. It makes sense, however, to put together a group to take over the campaign as soon as possible. Credibility, as mentioned several times here, is greater if there's broader representation, and a group will produce more information and ideas than one person alone. There will be more people to divide up the considerable amount of work to be done. In addition, if the campaign is to garner support, it can't look too much like a one-person show, but has to reflect instead the real needs of the larger community.

The listing above may seem to include everyone in the community, and, in a sense, that would be appropriate. In the ideal healthy community, all groups and individuals should feel that they have both the right and the capacity to try to change policy. In order to be successful, however, any policy change advocate has to be well organized and well informed, and has to be advocating for a policy that both appears to serve the public interest and commands public support. Anyone can try to change policies...but some are likely to be more successful than others.

When should you try to change policies?

There are particular times when the political or psychological climate is right for changing policies. That doesn't mean that you can't work on policy change at any other time, but simply that it's smart to strike while the iron is hot. If it's a good time for change, you're that much more likely to be successful.

• Election years. Politicians are often more receptive to suggestions from constituents when an election - especially a close election - is on the line. If you're seeking a change in official government policy, close to an election may be the best time.
• When the issue first arises. Even though policies about the issue may already exist, it's sometimes easiest to change misguided ideas before there's been an investment of time and money in trying them out. If you can convince policy makers or the public that there's a better way, they have less to lose by listening than they will after they've put their resources and reputations on the line backing something different.
• When there's a deadline for adding input to or making a policy decision. In 1995, for instance, when the federal Adult Education Act (which provided over $300 million for adult literacy) was up for renewal or discontinuation, adult educators and learners in many states mobilized to testify at public hearings, write to members of Congress, and otherwise try to influence the final decision.
• When a crisis is reached, and it's clear the current policy isn't working. If the community, for instance, has been responding to a drug problem with increased enforcement and punishment, and it's continuing to get worse, people may be willing to try alternatives. By the same token, a government agency or foundation may be willing to try a new program or approach when it has become clear that what they've been funding hasn't been particularly effective.
• When a particular event or circumstance puts your target population at risk. A state fiscal crisis can often result in the threat - or reality - of a reduction in services, for example. You may have to address policy to stave off the threat.
• When public opinion has reached critical mass. Policy makers often - very often, in fact - lag behind the public in their judgment of what people actually think and want. The public may be more progressive, and be behind the change you're aiming for. If that's the case, then it's a perfect time for a policy-change campaign.

Another circumstance when public opinion can be your guide is when the public has become fed up with the policies of a particular business or institution. That entity might then be convinced to change its policies out of self-interest.

• When there's a specific debate about the issue. When policies are already under discussion, it's a good time to advocate for change. It may also be a necessary time to advocate for change, to prevent a disastrous or badly flawed policy from being enacted. If a new law or regulation is being proposed - especially if it's ill-advised - if funding is about to be cut, or if a course of action on a specific issue is about to be chosen, it's time for action.
• When new information changes perceptions about the issue. A study showing that particular methods do or don't work, a white paper contradicting current policies, evidence that an entity involved in an issue has been lying or behaving illegally or unethically - all these might serve to make it a good time to push policy change.

• When a publication or other source brings an issue to the public attention. Michael Harrington's The Other America shone a light on poverty in America in the 1960's, and was at least partially responsible for the "War on Poverty" waged by President Lyndon Johnson's administration. Jonathan Kozol's book, Illiterate America, when it was published in 1984, caused the public to focus on the problem of adult illiteracy. Books like these, or articles like the one in the New York Times Magazine in 1981 that first brought AIDS to public notice, can help to galvanize public opinion and change attitudes. If such a publication creates an opportunity, seize it.

How do you change policies?

Since this section is an overview, we won't try to discuss specific tactics here - you'll find them in the rest of the sections in this chapter. Instead, we'll present some general guidelines for changing policies and choosing tactics. In broad terms, those guidelines take you through eight areas. To make them easier to remember, we've called them the Eight P's: Planning, Preparation, Personal contact, Pulse of the community, Positivism, Participation, Publicity, and Persistence.

Preparation: Prepare well for changing policies. You'll need a firm foundation for the work you're about to do. Changing policy is one of the most difficult - and one of the most effective - means of changing the community or the society for the better. To do it well, you'll have to prepare. Conduct the necessary research to get to know as much as possible about the issue. Make yourself or your group the acknowledged expert, the one individuals, groups, and the media contact when they want information on your issue.

• Know, or get to know, the current policy intimately. That includes knowing the current policies, laws, and regulations inside out, and knowing who actually makes and influences policy, who supports current policy, etc.
• Know who your allies and opponents are, who's open to argument or to public pressure, and who's ideologically flexible or inflexible. Be particularly aware of who your most difficult opponents are, and of their arguments. They may be people who have all the facts and their interpretation of them at their fingertips, can quote statistics, and can speak or write convincingly about their point of view. They may, conversely, be people who are willing to lie, make up statistics, and misrepresent your point of view. In either case, you'll need to be ready to counter their arguments and attacks.

Planning: Plan carefully for changing policies. In order to ensure that your overall strategy makes sense, and that changing policies is a necessary and appropriate part of it, strategic planning is essential. If you haven't yet engaged in a participatory strategic planning process that involves representation from all groups affected by or concerned with the issue, stop, back up, and do so now. It will take time and effort, and may result in your changing some of your ideas, but it will pay huge dividends in the long run.

Personal contact: Establish and maintain personal contact with those who influence or make policy. All politics is not only local, as former House Speaker Tip O'Neill said, but all politics, at bottom, is personal. Personal relationships are the key to successful advocacy of all kinds, and changing policy is no exception. If you can make a personal connection, not only with policy makers, but with opinion leaders, and even opponents, you can get your phone calls returned, make your voice heard, keep argument civil, and maintain a level of credibility far greater than you could if you were only a name or a face.

Some of those with whom you might want to establish personal contact:

• Legislators and their aides.
• Local elected and appointed officials. Especially in small communities, this is easy to do - in general, these people are your neighbors. Even in large communities, officials are usually interested in what citizens, especially those who represent sizeable constituencies, have to say, and are willing to meet with you.
• Individuals at regulatory and funding agencies. Very few of the folks who work at these agencies are the faceless bureaucrats everyone fears. They can in fact be extremely helpful, whether the policies you're concerned with are statewide, or have to do with funding or local enforcement of regulations. They can provide information, speed up applications or complaints, and generally make your life easier.

• Key individuals, and contacts at groups and institutions in the community. Opinion leaders, clergy, business leaders, members of target populations, members of service clubs (Rotary, Kiwanis, etc.) and other community institutions - the more people you know, the more community support you'll be able to mobilize when you need it.
• Directors or others at other community-based organizations, initiatives, and coalitions. It's particularly important to maintain personal contact with organizations with which you already have a common purpose. It's much easier for all of you to call on one another if there are personal ties, and being able to present a united front is powerful.
• The media.

Positivism. Where you can, choose tactics that emphasize the positive. The old adage, "You can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar," applies to policy change as well. Suggesting incentives (tax breaks, for instance) for doing the right thing, rather than punishment (special taxes) for doing the wrong thing, is one way to accentuate the positive elements of a proposed policy change.

There are many ways to emphasize the benefits of policy change.

• Economic. Recycling saves tax money and brings in income for the community. A healthy environment reduces medical costs. Attention to worker safety reduces time lost from accidents and injury, and saves money in the long run.

• Social. Less violence and fewer drugs on the street leads to a more vibrant and satisfying community life, more opportunities for recreation, and better opportunities for youth.
• Psychological. A safe working environment means less stress and greater feelings of security for workers, leading to greater productivity at work, and better family lives.
• Aesthetic. A cleaner environment, preservation of open space, and public art all bring people beauty in their daily lives.
• Physical and health. Lower stress, safer streets, less pollution, etc. all result in greater general health and physical well-being.

Participation. Involve as many people in the community as possible in strategic planning and action. Try to engage key people particularly - opinion leaders, trusted community figures - but concentrate on making your effort participatory. That will give it credibility, encourage community ownership of the effort, make sure that a wide range of ideas and information are considered in developing a plan and action steps, and encourage community leadership of the effort.

Publicity. Use the media, the Internet, your community connections, and your imagination both to keep people informed of the effort and the issues, and to keep a high profile. You want the community to be aware of your policy-change efforts, to know how and why you're trying to change policies, and to understand why change is necessary. You can use everything from straight news stories to street theater and demonstrations to get the message out. Publicity will help you gain and maintain community support, which will greatly increase your chances of success.

Persistence. Policy change can take a long time. You have to monitor and evaluate your action to make sure it's having the desired effect, and change it if it's not. And you have to be prepared to keep at it for as long as it takes if you hope to be successful. As with all advocacy work, policy change takes a long-term commitment.

The rest of the sections in this chapter discuss specific tactics and how to use them effectively. The guidelines above - the Eight P's - should help you understand how best to apply any of those tactics to realize your overall strategy of changing policies for the benefit of the community.

In Summary

Just about every organization, governing body, and other group has a set of policies - the official or unofficial rules which these organizations employ in relating to the world. Policies - generally based on a combination of logic and people's assumptions, correct or incorrect, about the way the world is and works - dictate how those groups operate, and can have a great deal of influence over community health and development.

When the policies of governments, funders, corporations, or other groups stand in the way of beneficial interventions or necessary fundamental community change, you may need to change the policies themselves. Changing policy is a step on the road to changing social conditions and real community development. It saves you from constantly having to repeat your efforts, and, over the long term, actually changes people's minds and attitudes. It's usually the shortest road to permanent social change.

The ideal policy change agents are broad-based coalitions, although organizations that work with those affected by the policies in question, grass roots community initiatives, concerned professional groups, and determined individuals can all be effective in the right circumstances. The best times to try to change policy are when something important is at stake, either for policymakers (an election, e.g.) or for you (loss of funding, the imminent passage of a disastrous law or regulation); when the issue is at a crisis point; when it's already under discussion, especially for the first time; when public opinion is behind you; or when new information or a new publication draw attention to it.

The fundamental guidelines for changing policies are the 8 P's:

1. Planning, using a participatory strategic planning process.
2. Preparation, including doing all the necessary research and becoming expert on existing policies.
3. Personal contact with policy makers, other change agents, and anyone else you have to deal with.
4. Pulse of the community: knowing what the community's attitudes are, what citizens will accept, where to start in order to be successful.
5. Positivism, framing policy changes and their outcomes in a positive light.
6. Participation, including everyone affected by or concerned with the issue in planning and implementing policy change.
7. Publicity for your effort in general and for your suggested policy changes - and the reasons for them - in particular.
8. Persistence, monitoring and evaluating your actions, and keeping at it for as long as necessary.

These guidelines can apply to any of the tactics outlined in the rest of the sections of this chapter.

What do we mean by policies?

___Policies are the written or unwritten guidelines that governments, organizations and institutions, communities, or individuals use when responding to issues and situations.

You address:

___Official government policies.

___Policies made by government bureaucracies, and by public services such as police and fire departments.

___The policies of foundations and other private funders.

___Policies of businesses.

___Policies of the media.

___Policies adopted by the community as a whole.

Why try to change policies?

You change policies because:

___Addressing policies can start a community conversation about the issues in question.

___Changing policy is easier in the long run than fighting the same battles over and over again.

___Changed policies can change people's minds and attitudes.

___Changed policies have effects on the next generation.

___Policy change is the path to permanent social change.

Who should try to change policies?

To change polices, you turn to:

___A broad-based coalition.

___An organization that works with those affected by the policies in question.

___A grass roots community initiative.

___A concerned professional association.

___A determined individual.

When should you try to change policies?

You make an effort to change policies when:

___It's an election year.

___The issue first arises.

___A crisis is reached, and it's clear the current policy isn't working.

___Public opinion has reached critical mass.

___There's a specific debate about the issue.

___New information changes perceptions about the issue.

___A publication or other source brings an issue to the public attention.

How do you go about changing policies?

___You try to change policies by using the 8 P's:

• Planning
• Preparation
• Personal contact
• Pulse of the community
• Positivism
• Participation
• Publicity

Example #1: Achieving Regulatory Change: The Kansas Asthma Coalition

Sometimes “Plan B” works best for making positive policy change.

If you determine that introducing legislation is not practical or not likely to succeed, consider seeking a change in practice or regulations.While this type of change is often a compromise, it can accomplish the desired goals more quickly than attempting to pass or amend a bill.

In Kansas, a coalition of groups and individuals working to improve children’s health wanted to introduce a bill that required screening all children in public schools for respiratory illness, a process similar to the screenings that are conducted for vision and hearing.Asthma causes more lost school days and pediatric emergency room visits than any other chronic disease in the U.S., so the supporters felt their case for screening was strong.

But the Kansas Asthma Coalition members also realized that unfunded mandates are not popular, so they took a different strategy. They proposed that the state add these four “yes/no” questions to the school health assessment form that is used by Social and Rehabilitation Services (SRS):

• Has your child ever been diagnosed by a doctor as having asthma?
• Has your child ever been prescribed an inhaler?
• Has your child had an episode of wheezing in the last 12 months?
• In the last 12 months have you heard your child wheeze or cough after running or crying?

The questions are a meaningful addition to the health form because they screen for children with asthma, whose records can then be flagged to alert school nurses and other school staff to the need for preventing asthma attacks. In addition, the questions did not create any new expenses or require new training and processes for the people who conduct the screening.

The advisory board that was responsible for making such decisions approved adding the questions to the health form. While this change in regulatory practice is not as far-reaching as a statewide law for screening, it is progress toward a system-wide improvement in preventive health care for children with asthma.

This example also illustrates the fact that it usually takes a collaboration to make policy change. The Policy Committee of the Kansas Asthma Coalition drove this effort to improve care for children with asthma. The coalition included concerned physicians, along with representatives of the American Lung Association of Kansas and the Kansas Department of Health and Education.

Coalition member Judy Keller, executive director of the Lung Association of Kansas, summarizes the steps included in making this type of policy change:

1. Collect and analyze data.
2. Bring various stakeholders together to form a coalition to help in the process as early as possible.
3. Determine whether change is needed and how that change will take place.
4. Enlist support.
5. Implement change.
6. Evaluate.
7. Revise.
8. Work for continuous improvement as related to the coalition’s mission.

References

Is there a better way to influence policy? - American Psychological Association.

Example #2: Evidence-Based Environmental Strategies to Prevent Underage Drinking

Preventing Underage Drinking: Using Getting To Outcomes™ with the SAMHSA Strategic Prevention Framework to Achieve Results describes 10 environmental strategies for reducing underage drinking that have the strongest evidence base. Each example includes a brief research summary and additional text that describes issues related to planning, implementing, and evaluating the strategy. The examples also include samples of tools, worksheets, or ordinances to facilitate the community’s work. The ten strategies are briefly described below.

• Responsible beverage service is a merchant education program designed to reduce sales to minors and intoxicated adults. It involves media advocacy to promote policy changes, manager training, and server/seller training.
• Alcohol compliance checks are thought to be most effective when they are frequent and well publicized, solicit community support, and involve penalties for the licensed establishment rather than just the server.
• Happy hour restrictions eliminate one of the environments most conducive to overconsumption of alcohol.
• Controls on alcohol outlet location and density reduce the accessibility of alcohol to young people by making it less prevalent in their immediate environment.
• Sobriety/traffic-safety checkpoints, which are very effective in reducing alcohol-related traffi c accidents, injuries, and deaths, are even more effective when combined with a vigorous public awareness campaign.
• Graduated drivers’ licensing laws, which entail clearly specified learner, intermediate, and full license phases, are effective in reducing crashes among teen drivers, but they need to be adequately enforced.
• Social-host liability laws state that adults providing alcohol to minors or those who are obviously intoxicated are legally liable if the person is killed or injured, or kills or injures another person.
• Keg registration is intended to prevent friends or relatives of legal drinking age from buying beer kegs for teen parties. Registration can be achieved in a number of ways, for example, permanent markings on each keg that identify where and when it was purchased or a requirement that keg delivery requests be made in person at the store.
• Restricting sales of alcohol at public events controls the availability of alcohol at gatherings such as concerts, street fairs, and sporting events.
• Increasing taxes on the sale of alcohol leads to reductions in the levels and frequency of drinking and, especially, heavy drinking among youth, as well as lower traffic accident fatality rates and reduced incidence of some types of crime. Several surveys indicate that most Americans support increased alcohol taxes.

For more in-depth information on these evidence-based environmental strategies to prevent underage drinking, please see the full manual Preventing Underage Drinking: Using Getting To Outcomes™ with the SAMHSA Strategic Prevention Framework to Achieve Results.

 

 

example #3: housing policy to reduce source of income discrimination

 

In Lawrence-Douglas County, Kansas, high housing costs and a lack of affordable housing are major risk factors for sexual violence. In response, the LiveWell sexual violence prevention initiative formed a housing work group led by the Sexual Trauma and Abuse Care Center. They built partnerships with housing stakeholders like the Human Relations Commission, Lawrence City Commission, Tenants to Homeowners, the Lawrence Community Shelter, and others.

With research support from the KU Center for Community Health and Development, the group explored solutions like community land trusts, incentives for affordable housing, and better legal protections for tenants. They ultimately focused on passing a source of income (SOI) discrimination ordinance, addressing the local issue of landlords refusing renters who rely on vouchers or non-wage income like disability benefits or emergency relief funds.

The work group partnered with the Affordable Housing Advisory Board and hosted community events to raise awareness and correct misinformation. After years of advocacy, the Lawrence City Commission passed Ordinance No. 9960, banning discrimination in housing based on source of income, immigration status, and providing protections for survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, or stalking. The ordinance helps reduce barriers for renters most at risk of housing instability.

The group continues to support enforcement through the local community health improvement plan and A Place for Everyone: A Community Plan to End Homelessness. This work was highlighted on an NSVRC podcast and presented at the 2023 National Sexual Assault Conference, where Gabby Boyle and KU Evaluator Christina Holt shared lessons learned about addressing housing as a social determinant of sexual violence prevention.

 

 

example #4: safebar alliance and liquor licensing training ordinance

To address the risks of high alcohol outlet density and binge drinking, the Sexual Violence Prevention Work Group in Lawrence, Kansas, implemented bystander intervention and environmental strategies in bars and alcohol-serving businesses through the SafeBar Alliance and a city liquor licensing ordinance.

The SafeBar Alliance is a voluntary program where member bars commit to annual training for at least 75% of staff. The 2-hour interactive training covers social norms, warning signs, and bystander intervention, with staff practicing real scenarios and brainstorming safety improvements. Participating bars get free promotional materials and ongoing support. 

In addition, the City of Lawrence passed an ordinance requiring managers at alcohol-serving venues to complete sexual violence prevention training to renew their liquor license. Since its launch, the Sexual Trauma and Abuse CARE Center has delivered hundreds of trainings to participants from hundreds of establishments. Nearly 90% of trainees reported learning something new, showing strong support for expanding these conversations into the wider community. For more information, visit: https://www.stacarecenter.org/safebaralliance

 

 

A PowerPoint presentation summarizing the major points in the section.

The Lawrence Community Change Project (LCCP) was formed out of a consensus that the quality of life in the community needed improving. The Project, a collaboration of a number of local agencies and institutions, concerned citizens, and local government, had been through a strategic planning process.  It had generated a vision and mission statement, defined goals to work toward, developed strategies for reaching those goals, and formulated an action plan, which it had been carrying out for a year. Committees had been working on each of the goals, new structures and policies had been put in place, and many people were excited about what was happening.

Now it was time to see whether the action plan was working. The group responsible for overseeing the effort realized that they needed to find out if the issues they had started with were still the ones that needed attention, to determine which of their tactics were working and which needed to be changed or rethought, to let the community know just what the change effort was accomplishing, and to take responsibility for continuing the process. With all this in mind, LCCP set out to create a report on the first year of the Project.

Policy, the subject of this chapter, is motivated by several factors. An important one – in  addition to policymakers’ attitudes, public opinion, conventional wisdom, and crisis situations – is knowing how well current policy is working to change undesirable conditions in the community and to maintain desirable ones. This section introduces one set of tactics in an overall strategy for making or changing policy: assessing and reporting on the results (or lack) of community change efforts in order to hold the efforts themselves, and the policies and policymakers behind them, accountable for their results.  We’ll define our terms, and discuss why and when to prepare regular assessments and reports, who should be involved, and how to go about it.

What do we mean by regular community assessment, reporting, and accountability?

Community assessment and reporting are, of course, valuable in their own right, both to determine and highlight community needs, and to monitor how well your organization, initiative, or coalition is doing in meeting those needs.  In this section, however, we are considering them for their value in holding policies and policymakers accountable for meeting the needs of the community.

Assessment

Assessment in this case is both similar to and different from an initial community assessment.  It is similar in how it is conducted, using surveys, public forums, community informants, interviews, statistical indicators, observation, and/or focus groups to examine the particular issues in question.  It is different from an initial assessment in that it is comparing the results of the assessment to a previously established baseline in order to determine whether change efforts have had any effect.  The baseline may be one that was set at the beginning of the effort, or – if assessment is ongoing over a long period – it may be the findings from the last assessment.

A regular community assessment may be conducted on a particular issue, or on overall community health and quality of life. In the latter case, an assessment would examine a large number of issues, and might question community members about their level of satisfaction with the community, or their sense of well-being.  Your assessment, of course, will focus on the issues at hand for your community, and what it is that you want to know. Here are some issues that might be assessed, either individually or as part of a larger look at the community:

• Education. What you look at here depends upon what you’re aiming at. In some communities, it might be student performance on standardized tests, or the performance of local schools.  In others, it might be the number of teachers using innovative teaching techniques, changes in the school climate, dropout rates, school responses to diversity, or teacher salaries. Assessment in this category might also examine the availability of adult and higher education, from basic literacy to graduate degrees.
• Economics and economic development. This would include such elements as the number and types of new jobs created, employment rates, the number of new businesses started (as well, perhaps, as the number that failed), total business income, prevailing wages, tax revenues, etc.
• Poverty. A careful assessment of this issue would comprise not only an examination of citizens’ income (how many below the official poverty line, how many within 1.5 or two times poverty, how many below the state or national median, etc.), but also an exploration of homelessness, hunger, child poverty, eligibility for school lunches, the availability and accessibility of services, and other factors affecting or indicative of poverty in the community.
• The environment. The cleanliness of air, water, soil, and the community in general are concerns here, as is the amount and character of open space, its use, and its preservation from development and blight. Are environmental regulations in place and enforced?  Are esthetics and community health considered when development is in question?  What are community attitudes toward environmental issues?
• Safety and security. Here, you might examine the nature and frequency of violence in the community (domestic violence, youth violence, gangs, drug-related incidents, organized crime); lighting and other environmental violence prevention factors; the attitudes, practices, training, competency, oversight, and resources of police, fire, and other security services; traffic control and road surface conditions; workplace safety records for major employers; the safety of buildings (in earthquake-prone areas, for instance); etc.
• Transportation. The extent, cost, and ease of use of public transportation are major issues in this area.  Can you get from here to there easily, cheaply, and safely, with minimal damage to the environment?  Also an issue is whether the current network of roads is adequate for the traffic it must bear, and whether bridges, tunnels, and other structures that carry traffic are safe and efficient.
• Housing. The availability of subsidized and other affordable housing, the number of abandoned buildings, the pace of  development, average costs to rent and buy, the percentage of income that people at different economic levels spend for housing, the character of neighborhoods, tenants’ and landlords’ rights, discrimination – all of these and more may be areas to examine.
• Cultural and recreational opportunities. Are there in the community or nearby museums, libraries, theaters, concert halls, clubs, cinemas, cafes and restaurants, parks, bike paths, hiking trails, boating of various kinds, and/or other possibilities for culture and recreation?  Are they open to everyone? Who uses them?  How are they funded, and is funding adequate to sustain them?
• Human services. Here, you’d assess and report on the availability and accessibility of services designed to meet the needs of at-risk or disadvantaged target populations and of the community as a whole.
• Health. In this category, you’d look at the overall health of the population, including the incidence of various diseases or conditions (diabetes, infant mortality, obesity); the availability, quality, and accessibility of treatment services and personnel; and the amount and nature of wellness and prevention advocated and practiced in the community.

Creating and maintaining a healthy community – one that promotes and sustains the health and well-being of its citizens – involves far more than providing medical services. It includes, in fact, attention to all the quality-of-life factors listed here and more as well.

Reporting

Once you’ve conducted a community assessment, you have to have some way of reporting and disseminating the results. That may entail using the media, publishing a report in print, via PDF, and posting it on the Internet, and/or distributing it to the public and policymakers in other ways. We’ll discuss the actual forms such a report might take later in this section.

Reporting should follow as soon after assessment as possible. With a high quality report and good publicity, people will come to expect and look forward to these reports, and to pay attention to what they say. They can show whether conditions in the community – particularly the conditions surrounding the issues the report covers – are improving, and pinpoint what still needs to be addressed, or addressed more effectively. They can also demonstrate, and cement support for, those policies or programs or initiatives that seem to be working well. Overall, accurate reporting can highlight the areas where good policy is effective and should be supported, the areas where there is a need for policy development, and the areas where policy change is necessary to meet a need or resolve an issue.

Accountability

There are really three kinds of accountability here: the accountability of government officials and other policymakers; the accountability of the community as a whole; and the accountability of those doing the work of community change.

• In the instance of accountability of government officials and other policymakers, good ongoing assessment and reporting can point out areas that aren’t being addressed, that are being addressed inadequately, or that are being addressed in ways that may actually contribute to the problem. Part of the assessment may show who’s responsible for these areas, and clearly identify where policies aren’t working or need to be developed.  It can point to where the buck stops, allowing activists and the public to express their opinions on the matter to the appropriate person, governing body, or agency, and to use their votes or other methods to show their displeasure if the areas in question aren’t attended to.
• In the second case – the accountability of the community as a whole - it can demonstrate that the community is unaware of, or choosing not to adequately address, a serious issue that affects many of its citizens. This can lead to an information campaign, and an effort to convince the community of the importance of the issue, and of its responsibility to take action.
• In the last instance - the accountability of those doing the work of community change - good assessment and reporting make it obvious when the organizations actually doing the work are successfully addressing issues, and also when they should change course or expand what they’re already doing successfully or allow more time for things to work. They show when an initiative is accomplishing its mission and objectives, with the goal of ultimately leading to improvements in important population-level outcomes.

In all cases, even if the parties responsible are doing their best to bring about change, assessment and reporting can demonstrate the need for more funding, or for a greater focus on a particular area. They can serve to help increase the resources for change, and to assure that those resources go where they are most needed. Additionally, effective community assessments and reports can help build public support for the issue(s) at hand and can help ensure that future efforts have broad-based support.

Why propose assessment, reporting, and accountability?

A regular schedule of assessment, reporting, and holding everyone accountable accomplishes several purposes for the community.

• It clarifies the state of the issues at hand in the community, making strategic and action planning more effective.
• It shows which current efforts are successful and should be continued or strengthened.
• It shows which, if any, current efforts seem to be having less impact than hoped, and may need to be modified or discontinued.
• By showing progress, and shedding light on what needs to be worked on, a regular schedule of assessment, reporting, and accountability motivates the community, officials, and policymakers to continue the effort.
• It defines the areas – of both community assets and needs – that should be concentrated on.
• By defining the areas of concentration, it gives direction to the initiative, fleshing out the strategic plan, and allowing for modifications when necessary.
• It keeps the vision before the public, so efforts toward change remain supported.
• It helps with maintenance of the effort over time.  People must be reminded that change efforts have to be carried on indefinitely if they are to continue to work.  An assessment and reporting schedule can act as a reminder to that effect.

• Finally, as a policy tactic, a regular schedule of reporting and assessment can hold the feet of politicians, corporations, agencies, and other policymakers to the fire, pointing out their responsibility for addressing issues when appropriate, and reminding the public to whom to make their voices heard when issues are not addressed.

Who should propose and/or conduct assessment and reporting, and establish accountability?

A broad-based coalition.

The ideal is that assessment, reporting, and accountability constitute a community project, as does the community change effort itself.  One way to assure this end is to start the effort with a coalition that involves everyone concerned, from change agents – policymakers, politicians, government agencies, funders, community leaders – to community based organizations and institutions to beneficiaries of change.

A coalition provides opportunities to mobilize members of many different sectors of the community and bring them together to work on issues of importance to all of them.  An initial community assessment establishes a baseline for later ones, identifies the issues that need to be addressed, and points out the community resources and assets available for addressing them.  The more voices heard in the course of the strategic plan that grows out of that initial assessment, the more successful community change efforts will be, and the more likely you are to be able to structure ongoing assessment, reporting, and accountability as the responsibility of the community as a whole.

If, for some reason working with or developing a coalition isn’t possible, there are a number of other possibilities for parties to take responsibility for assessment, reporting, and accountability.

Local government.

An initiative to assess and report on community change can sometimes effectively be spearheaded by local officials or community government.  They can create a body to oversee the effort, or can themselves take charge of it directly.  In either case, regular assessment and reporting have official sanction, and the public knows that they will take place.  As a result, the change effort as a whole will be viewed as a community effort, although it may not be as inclusive as if it had been originated and operated by a coalition.

A local or state agency.

Especially if the effort is aimed at a specific issue that falls within the mission of a particular agency, it might make sense for that agency to take charge of assessing and reporting on the state of that issue.

A grassroots initiative.

Many campaigns for change are started by local initiatives, which then update the public on progress being made.  Depending upon the effects of its campaign, an initiative may work with local government and other entities on the project, may try to convince policymakers and politicians to address areas of concern, or may work to counter government entities, corporations, or others who are engaged, knowingly or not, in activities contrary to the public interest.

A community-based organization.

Community-based organizations, especially those that deliver direct services to a target population, are often in the best position to see and respond to the needs of the community.  In some cases, when other entities have different priorities, they may have to take the lead in addressing community issues, and in alerting citizens to the progress or deterioration of the conditions those issues affect.

A watchdog or advocacy organization.

This may be an organization specifically formed to report on the doings of government and other entities that influence public policy, or a statewide or professional organization focused on advocacy around one or more issues.  This type of organization often proposes and conducts ongoing assessment and reporting, and holds the appropriate entities publicly accountable.

When should you propose regular assessment, reporting, and accountability?

Any time you’re concerned with or trying to affect an issue is a good time to propose regular assessment and reporting, and to hold yourself or others accountable for progress or lack thereof.  There are, however, some times when making the report is especially useful, and when it’s most likely to be effective.

• At the beginning of an initiative. If you institute a regular schedule of reexamining the issue at the beginning of a change effort, you have a standard of comparison (the results of the initial community assessment), and establish the seriousness of the initiative about the issue.  You also establish and define accountability – the responsibilities of the organizations involved, those of the community, the state, funders, etc. – so that you and others can both take credit for what goes well, and take responsibility for correcting what doesn’t go well.
• When an issue is being ignored by policymakers. Proposing a regular schedule of assessment, reporting, and accountability raises the issue’s profile with the public and policymakers alike, and makes it harder for the latter to continue to ignore it.  It puts pressure on policymakers to recognize the need and act to meet it.  It also raises the questions that will lead to possible solutions:  What exactly is the problem?  How did it get this way?  Who is affected, and how?  Who needs to be involved in order to solve it? Are there solutions that have worked in other communities?  What resources do we have to address this issue?
• When a high-profile issue has been addressed for a period of time, but there has been no assessment of progress. An ongoing assessment and reporting schedule will demonstrate whether current efforts are having an effect, and help prompt necessary modifications if the efforts don’t seem to be having an effect.  This will help to maintain enthusiasm for dealing with the issue, both by keeping it in the public eye, and by showing citizens the efforts’ effects.  People may be more willing to pay taxes or provide other support to keep the effort going if there is some indication that things are getting better, or at least that the community is working to solve the problem.
• When an issue escalates to crisis proportions. A proposal for assessment and reporting will call attention to and define the crisis. The assessment itself can also begin the process of resolution by identifying the issues that need to be worked on and who should be working on them.
• When the public demands action on a long-standing issue. Assessment and reporting can be the first step in an action plan. If you look at the issue in relation to where it was in the past, it will become clear whether it’s getting worse or simply not changing from what was already a bad situation.  In either case, it will be clear that it’s time to strategize and take action.

How do you conduct assessment and reporting to gain accountability?

There are several steps to proposing and establishing regular assessment and reporting to increase accountability:

• Present the concept to the community to gain support.
• Determine whose accountability you hope to increase – policymakers, the community, and/or those who are actually doing the work (it may be all three).
• Decide exactly what you’ll assess.
• Propose or set a regular assessment and reporting schedule.
• Adopt methods of assessment and reporting.
• Carry out and evaluate the process.
• Maintain the process over time.

Step 1: Present the concept

• Present the idea of regular assessment, reporting, and accountability positively.  The community should see this as a positive step it can take to improve the quality of life for everyone.  You’re not asking citizens to find fault, but rather to celebrate and use their own considerable resources to solve community problems and strengthen community assets.

Regular assessment and reporting starts with the assumption that the community can be a great place to live.  It identifies assets and resources, and shows how they have grown and improved or been threatened over time.  This information sets the stage for using those assets and resources to the fullest.

At the same time, a program of regular assessment and reporting identifies problem areas, a circumstance that is also positive. Identifying a problem is the first step toward solving it: if it’s ignored, it will never be solved, and will continue to get worse.

• Present the idea as part of a long and ongoing process.  If real community change is to take place, assessment and reporting have to be continued over a long period.  Thinking long-term helps people understand that this will happen on a regular basis, and prepares them for expecting it on whatever schedule it runs.  It also highlights the fact that there is – or should be – a strategic plan at work here, one that looks at the community not only now, but well into the future.
• Show the community how regular assessment and reporting gives them a voice in, and ownership and oversight of, community change.  If a representative body – a coalition or similar group as described above – proposes and/or conducts the process, if citizens are consulted as part of each assessment, if reports of the results of assessments are widely distributed and citizens are consulted again about actions to be taken, the community will be more likely to welcome the process, and to support the related change effort.

Step 2: Determine whose accountability you hope to increase

• Accountability of policymakers.  In a situation where there is no plan, and where policymakers are ignoring or downplaying community issues, it is important to establish the need for attending to those issues, and the responsibility of policymakers for doing so.  In a situation where policymakers, corporations, or others are actually creating community problems – health hazards, discrimination, thoughtless real estate development – it is necessary not only to stop them, but to reverse the process.  A system of assessment and reporting can identify the problem and those responsible, and mobilize public opinion in favor of a solution.
• Accountability of the community. Part of the community’s responsibility is providing adequate resources to address an issue to which it has committed itself.  If an organization or initiative trying to address the issue is failing because of inadequate funding, it’s up to the community to bridge the gap.
• Accountability of those doing the work.  In a situation where particular organizations or agencies are assigned the responsibility of dealing with specific issues – homelessness, for instance, or AIDS treatment and prevention – those organizations or agencies should be accountable to the community, and particularly to the target population, for dealing with those issues effectively. If an organization is having little effect because what it’s doing is not adequately addressing the issue, it should modify its approach, or engage another organization that can do it well.

Step 3: Establish what areas you’re going to examine as part of ongoing assessments

A wide range of possibilities exists here.  As explained above, you may be focused on specific, relatively narrow issues – domestic violence, teen smoking, the pollution of a particular body of water – or broader, but still clearly defined, issues – violence, health, or the environment – or on overarching concerns, such as poverty or quality of life, that embody many issues within them.

You may also find, in the course of your planning, that even the narrower issues are, in fact, connected to many others.  You might not be able to have any effect on domestic violence, for instance, without also addressing substance use, employment and employment training (which could, in turn, include community economic development), teen pregnancy prevention, parenting skills, adult literacy, police training in handling domestic disputes, etc.

What criteria will you use to choose what to assess?  Relevance to community goals, ease of measurement, the existence of similar information (comparison data) from other communities or past years – all of these and many other factors may help you determine which issues you’ll examine.

Then there’s the question of exactly what you’re going to measure to find out about the areas you’re examining.  Sometimes, the most telling measures are indirect.  To measure people’s economic security, for instance, Santa Cruz County, California looks not only at income, but at such issues as consumer spending, building permits, and total agricultural production (agriculture is a major county employer).  Owensboro-Daviess County, Kentucky includes the numbers of subsidized school lunches and prenatal physician visits among their measures of the status of children.

A small sampling of the almost infinite number of measures you might use, depending on what you’re assessing:

• School dropout rates.
• Incidents of youth violence, which could be further broken down by type (gun-related, murder, assault, robbery, etc.), by geographical area, by the age of the participants, etc.
• Unemployment.
• Number of people using particular services (immunization, adult literacy, child care, WIC child nutrition services, etc.)
• Acres of green space in the community.
• Measures of air or water quality at various places.
• Citizen satisfaction with the condition of community parks.
• Library use.
• Units of subsidized housing for the elderly.

You may be measuring these and other areas against the objectives from your strategic plan (“By 2012, high school dropout rates will decrease to below 5%”), or simply against where they were at the last assessment.  Some measures may look at such projects as the construction of a wastewater treatment plant, and compare them to their projected completion dates.

In general, it makes sense to look at measures that refer to both long-term goals (Improving water quality in the community to the point where there is no water source below Class B, and at least 60% of all water sources in the community are rated Class A) and shorter-term achievements (Completing the new, state-of-the-art wastewater treatment plant by November 30, 2010).  Short-term, reachable objectives keep citizens and policymakers interested and focused on the longer term, and give them a sense of the effort’s forward movement.

Step 4: Propose or set a schedule for ongoing assessment and reporting

In most cases, an appropriate schedule would call for a yearly assessment and report, with, if necessary, a readjustment of goals for the coming year. Conducting assessment and reporting at intervals longer than a year doesn’t really allow for adequate accountability.  At the same time, shorter intervals, in general, don’t allow enough time to observe significant progress or deterioration in the status of the issues being assessed.

An exception to the annual schedule could be made in the case of specific tasks with a shorter timetable.  Some examples are the hiring of a certain number of people to begin an intervention or staff a new facility, the recruitment of a critical mass of participants for an intervention, the cessation of an activity (e.g., dumping industrial waste) by a particular date, or the screening of a set number of people for a given medical condition.

Step 5: Adopt methods of assessment and reporting

• Assessment. There are numerous methods for assessing your issues.  Surveys, focus groups, community forums, individual interviews in person or by phone, consultations with experts and community leaders, statistical indicators (i.e., census figures, organization and agency records), Global Information System (GIS) mapping, and other numerical and subjective measures can all be used to determine how the community has moved since the last assessment.

The methods you choose should depend on the resources available, the size of your community (your survey sample should be representative of the population you are sampling) and the nature of the issue.  Whatever methods you choose, try to keep them consistent from assessment to assessment, so you can actually compare results.

• Reporting. It may seem that reporting the findings of regular examinations of the state of the community or of specific issues needs no thought.  Just write up what you found, and everyone can read it.  What could be simpler?

Unfortunately, it’s not quite that easy. You certainly have to write up a report...but then what?  Will you get it printed and hand it out on street corners?  That’s a possibility, but it may not get to everyone who needs to see it.  Can you get the media to cover its main points?  That’s also a possibility, but you have to do some serious groundwork to make it happen.  How about making it available on the Internet and in the public library?  Good ideas, but how will you make people aware that the report is there, and, even more important, that they should want to know what it says?

Who issues the report, the form it takes, and the way it’s framed will have a lot to do with whether most citizens become aware of it and its findings, and consider it important.  If, for instance, it’s issued by the community government, or by a coalition that includes community government, it’s likely to have a high profile. The press will cover it, community leaders will refer to it, and citizens will hear about it.  They might even get a summary of it in the mail.

So one important consideration is having the report issued or sponsored by people with credibility. That may be local government or an inclusive coalition, but it may also be a well-known and respected service agency, or a watchdog organization recognized for its integrity.

Some other important considerations:

• The report should include progress toward goals leading to the change that’s desired.  They may be long-term goals (By 2010, at least 95% of all infants in the community will receive vaccinations at the appropriate times), or they may be annual goals or benchmarks, based on the past year’s assessment or on steps toward the final goal (We want to reach and vaccinate at least 80% of infants in 2009, as opposed to the 76% we reached in 2008.)
• The report should look at the same dimensions of the issue as in past assessments.  If an assessment of schools, for example, were to examine student test scores one year, teacher credentials another year, and parent satisfaction with the system yet another year, it would say nothing about the system’s progress.  You might add an area to an assessment if it seems that it would provide useful information, but, in general, it’s important to look at the same things from assessment to assessment.
• The report should be in a form that makes it easy for most people to understand the information in it. It might, for instance, be presented in a multi-media format on the Internet – either on its own website, or on that of the community or the assessment team.  It might include or consist of simple, easy-to-read charts and graphs, quotes from citizens interviewed, pictures (of new affordable housing, for instance), and/or a simple narrative explaining changes since the last assessment.

One way to frame a report is as a community report card.  Community report cards are regular assessments that are reported with grades representing the community’s progress in dealing with important issues.

If the report card is part of an overall effort, then the grade might be measured against a predetermined goal for the period being assessed.  If the report card is meant to stimulate policy to address issues, the grade may be measured against some external standard – for example, the state or national average or the level recommended by professionals.

A community report card makes sense in a number of ways. It provides a running record of success in dealing with community issues, as grades go up, or continue at a reasonably high level.  It can document improvements in the life of the community, as grades on such issues as youth violence and mother and child health go from C’s and D’s to A’s and B’s.  Equally important, it can pick up and call attention to changes in needs and resources, and help an effort respond to the real long-term needs of the community.

A community report card can actually have advantages for officials and policymakers.  If they’re sponsoring the report, they’re both taking responsibility for the grades in it – which is not only appropriate, but also makes them look good – and critiquing their own performance before someone else can. If they’re willing to sponsor and deal with an objective report card, and act on its findings, they can make it a great tool for community development and resolving issues, and use it to their own political benefit as well.

By the same token, a community report card – or even a simpler assessment report – can be used as a political tool by other groups.  A watchdog group or community initiative can use it to point out the responsibility of particular politicians or others who are causing or refusing to address an important problem, or who are addressing an issue in a short-sighted or ineffective way.

Another tool for framing a report is to document community heroes.These are the people who work to turn the community’s goals into reality. They may be unsung volunteers, staff members of community-based organizations, citizen activists, politicians who put their careers on the line for what they believe in, or anyone else who goes the extra mile to make things better for everyone in the community.  Recognizing them accomplishes several purposes:

• It energizes the heroes themselves and others like them who may work long hours at difficult tasks with little acknowledgement of their contributions.
• It inspires others to want to become community heroes.
• It spotlights the work they’re doing and its importance.
• It casts the whole assessment process in a positive light.
• It emphasizes the positive side of accountability: here are people who hold themselves accountable, and are willing to work as hard as necessary to make sure they don’t fall short of their own expectations, and don’t let the community down.

The Santa Cruz County CAP has a provision for selecting community heroes for each of their goals each year, recognizing the person or organization that’s done the most toward achieving that goal in the year studied.

Step 6: Carry out the assessment and reporting process

Now that you have it all figured out, this should be the easy part.  Using the decisions you’ve made about how to do it, act!  Conduct your assessment and create and disseminate your report.

You might also want to evaluate your effort, and to continue to do so over time, so that you can continue to refine it and make it more accurate and useful.

Step 7: Be prepared to continue the assessment and reporting process indefinitely

As stated numerous times in this section and elsewhere in the Community Tool Box, the work of health and community development is ongoing. It doesn’t stop because a particular effort ends, or because a specific goal has been accomplished.  If your community conducts a ten-year campaign to improve its quality of life, the process won’t end at the end of ten years. If you’ve been successful, you then have to maintain that improved quality, and monitor it to make sure it continues. If you haven’t reached your goals, you still have work to do. Either way, you still need assessment and reporting to assure that conditions in the community continue to improve.

High school and college students, looking ahead to independent adulthood, often think it will be nice to no longer be graded on their accomplishments. What they fail to realize, of course, is that the grading doesn’t stop: only the grading system changes. Communities, too, continue to be graded, and those interested in health and community development must be willing to continue grading for as long as the community exists.

In Summary

Regular assessment and reporting of community issues is one way to influence policy. It holds policymakers, direct service organizations, and the community accountable for the resolution of community issues, and informs the public about problem areas and progress.

Done well, a regular community assessment and report can become an anticipated event, and serve both to point out notable successes and areas needing work, and to energize and inspire the community to pursue what still needs to be done.

The ideal is that a regular assessment/reporting/accountability process be conducted by the community itself, either through a broad-based coalition involving all stakeholders, or an “official” process run by policymakers. The advantages of the former are that it is apt to be reasonably objective, and to ensure that all those affected and concerned have a voice in planning strategies to address issues and in owning the process – circumstances that make it more likely that effective action will be taken.

When policymakers ignore or resist addressing important issues, an assessment and reporting process might be proposed or conducted by an agency that works directly with those most affected, a community initiative or other local activist group, or a watchdog organization. In these cases, major goals of the process may be to identify those responsible for policy and to goad them into action through the use of public opinion.

Proposing a regular assessment and reporting schedule may be most effective at the beginning of an initiative, when it can be institutionalized as part of the larger strategic plan.  Other times when such a schedule might readily be adopted include when an issue has a history of being ignored by policymakers; when the community is ready to look at the results of an ongoing effort; when an issue has escalated to crisis proportions; or when the public demands action.

Some basic guidelines for conducting successful regular assessment and reporting:

• Present them as positive, part of an ongoing process of community development, and a way for citizens to have a voice in community change.
• Determine whose accountability you hope to increase.
• Establish the areas the assessment should examine.
• Set a schedule for assessment and reporting (usually annual, but it may vary depending upon what you’re assessing and the needs of the community).
• Adopt methods of assessment (surveys, focus groups, etc.) and reporting (community report cards, recognition of community heroes).
• Carry out the process.
• Be prepared to continue the assessment and reporting process indefinitely, even after your effort is officially completed or your goals have been achieved.

What do we mean by regular community assessment, reporting, and accountability?

___You use regular assessment to examine anything from specific areas (education, child health) to the overall conditions and quality of life in the community.

___You compare the results of regular assessments to those of the previous assessments, and/or to the benchmarks or long-term goals from your strategic plan.

Why propose regular community assessment, reporting, and accountability?

You propose regular assessment, reporting and accountability because

___They clarify the state of the issues at hand in the community, making ongoing rational planning possible.

___They show which, if any, current efforts are bearing fruit and should be continued or strengthened.

___They show which, if any, current efforts seem to be having less impact than hoped, and need to be watched carefully, changed, or discontinued.

___They define the areas – of both community assets and needs – that should be concentrated on.

___By defining the areas of concentration, they give direction to the initiative, fleshing out the strategic plan, and allowing for changes of emphasis when necessary.

___By showing progress, and shedding light on what needs to be worked on, they motivate the community, officials, and policymakers to continue the effort.

___They keep the community vision before the public, so efforts toward change remain supported.

___They help with maintenance of the effort over time.

___They can hold the feet of politicians, corporations, agencies, and other policymakers to the fire, pointing out their responsibility for addressing issues when appropriate, and reminding the public to whom to complain – or protest – when issues are not addressed.

Who should propose and/or conduct regular community assessment andreporting, and establish accountability?

You propose and/or conduct regular community assessment and reporting, and establish accountability, through the work of :

___A broad-based coalition.

___Local government.

___A local or state agency.

___A grass roots initiative.

___A community-based organization.

___A watchdog or advocacy organization.

When should you propose regular community assessment, reporting, and accountability?

You propose regular community assessment, reporting, and accountability:

___At the beginning of an initiative.

___When an issue is being ignored by policymakers.

___When a high-profile issue has been addressed for a period of time, but there has been no assessment of progress.

___When an issue escalates to crisis proportions.

___When the public demands action on a long-standing issue.

How do you conduct regular community assessment and reporting to gain accountability?

___Present the process as positive.

___Present the process as part of an ongoing effort.

___Present the process as a way for citizens to have a voice in community change.

___Determine whose accountability you hope to increase.

___Establish the areas the assessment will examine.

___Set a regular assessment and reporting schedule.

___Adopt methods of assessment.

___Keep your methods of assessment consistent from one assessment to the next.

___Adopt methods of reporting.

___Determine how to get the reports out to the public.

___Carry out the process.

___Prepare to continue the process indefinitely.

Santa Cruz County Community Assessment Project

The Santa Cruz County Community Assessment Project (CAP) has been providing Santa Cruz County with useful data regarding the needs of the County for over 17 years.

Since 1994, a consortium of public and private health, education, human service, and civic organizations convened by the United Way of Santa Cruz County have sponsored the Community Assessment Project of Santa Cruz County (CAP), a collaborative project to measure and improve the quality of life in Santa Cruz County.

The goal of CAP is to continually improve the quality of life for Santa Cruz County residents by:

• Raising public awareness of human needs, changing trends, emerging issues, and community problems;
• Providing accurate, credible and valid information on an ongoing basis to human service planners, and those providing funds;
• Providing information for individual institutions to guide decision-making about creation, management and redesign of programs; setting community goals using measurable quality of life indicators that will lead to positive healthy development for individuals, families, and communities; and
• Supporting and assisting with the establishment of collaborative action plans to achieve the community goals.

The Community Assessment Project Report (CAP) provides a comprehensive view of the quality of life in Santa Cruz County.

Economy

• Goal 1 By the year 2020, reduce the winter unemployment rate by one-half percent, creating 725 new winter jobs in Santa Cruz County.
  • Darrie Ganzhorn
• Goal 2 By the year 2020, increase the housing stock by 1,000 units in Santa Cruz County.
  • Pastor James and Congregation at St. Stephens Lutheran Church

Education

• Goal 1 By the year 2020, all students will be fully connected and engaged with their school community, and will see their school as a welcoming, essential, and safe place.
  • Kathleen Crocetti
• Goal 2 By the year 2020, all students will have broader access to courses and enrichment activities, including visual and performing arts, career technical education and digital technology.
  • Deidre Hamilton
• Goal 3 By the year 2020, all students will be provided sufficient behavior, health, and counseling services to succeed in their chosen educational and career pathways.
  • Live Oak Cradle to Career Parent Leadership

Health

• Goal 1 By the year 2020, all Santa Cruz County residents will have a regular source of primary care and integrated behavioral health services with a focus on: Decreasing disparities; decreasing reliance on Emergency Rooms as a regular source of health care; and increasing access to mental health and substance use disorder treatment.
  • Cathy Simmons
• Goal 2 By the year 2020, obesity in Santa Cruz County will be reduced by 10%.
  • Abby Bell

Public safety

• Goal 1 By the year 2020, the juvenile crime rate will be reduced by 10% through the use of culturally responsive evidence based strategies that promote positive interaction and reduce conflict with public safety officials.
  • Mary Gaukel
• Goal 2 By the year 2020, there will be a 20% reduction in youth reporting gang involvement, resulting in a 10% reduction of gang related criminal activity.
  • Valerie Thompson
• Goal 3 By the year 2020, there will be a 10% decrease in arrests or citations of individuals with chronic SUD/COD through the increase of on-demand treatment for adults with such disorders.
  • Carol Williamson
• Goal 4 By the year 2020, the violent crime rate of 18 to 25 year olds will be reduced by 10% through the use of targeted gang involvement intervention strategies, including restorative practices, street outreach, and alternatives to adult gang involvement.
  • Paulina Moreno

Social environment

• Goal 1 By the year 2020, more Santa Cruz County residents will build meaningful social bridges across differences in age, race, ethnicity, class, and culture.
  • Margaret Gordon
• Goal 2 By the year 2020, schools and communities will be safe, supportive, and engaging places for children, youth, and families.
  • Ingrid Trejo
• Goal 3 By the year 2020, more Santa Cruz County residents will feel empowered to experience and pursue long-term quality of life.

Natural environment

• Goal 1 By the year 2020, residential per capita water use will be sustained at or under 2013 baseline levels through 2020.
• Goal 2 By the year 2020, 5% of homes in Santa Cruz County will have a solar electric or hot water system.
  • Lynne Achtenberg
• Goal 3 By the year 2020, stewardship actions for our waters will be increased by 10%.
• Goal 4 By the year 2020, 50 miles of urban bike and multi-use trails will be constructed within Santa Cruz County to decrease traffic, increase active transportation, and connect urban areas to open spaces.

A PowerPoint presentation summarizing the major points in the section.

• What are tax incentives?

• What do we mean by using tax incentives to support community health and development?

• Why use tax incentives to support community health and development?

• When would you use tax incentives?

• Who should you use tax incentives to support community health and development?

• How do you use tax incentives to support community health and development?

In downtown Seattle, Washington, the old Leamington Hotel and Apartments was turning into an eyesore in an already down-at-the-heels neighborhood. The 1912 building, somewhat of an architectural landmark, had originally housed both short- and long-term guests in hotel rooms and studio apartments. Unable to compete with newer and fancier places to stay, it closed in the 1980’s and remained empty for the next ten years, as the surrounding area gave way to drug dealers and people experiencing homelessness.

Eventually, a homeless advocacy organization started using the empty building to house people who would otherwise be on the streets.  When the hotel was slated to be sold for offices, the organization and its participants staged a protest that eventually resulted in the redevelopment of the property as a combination of low-income permanent housing (through renovation and restructuring of the original studios into one-bedroom apartments) and single-room occupancy units for the homeless (the old hotel rooms).

The transformation of the hotel, now named the Pacific, came about largely because of the existence of two federal programs that allowed major tax incentives for the developers.  One was the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC), and the other was the Historic Preservation Tax Credit offered by the National Park Service, which involved getting the building listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  The combined tax credits accounted for about 40% of the $8.5 million rehabilitation cost, and made the project financially possible.

Tax incentives are one way to encourage developers, businesses, and private citizens to make investments that benefit the community.  By helping people to get part of their money back, in the form of tax relief of various kinds, they make it easier to spend money on or contribute to socially responsible projects.  In this section, we’ll explain what tax incentives are and how they work, and discuss how they can be used to improve the quality of life in your community.

What are tax incentives?

An incentive is a benefit given to someone in order to encourage him to do something specific. Tax incentives are ways of reducing taxes for businesses and individuals in exchange for specific desirable actions or investments on their parts.  Their purpose is to encourage those businesses and individuals to engage in behavior that is socially responsible and/or benefits the community. Perhaps the most familiar tax incentive to tax-paying Americans is the deduction for charitable contributions: when figuring your taxes, you can deduct the amount you gave to charitable, tax-exempt organizations from your taxable income.  The deduction exists to help persuade people to contribute to charity.

Tax incentives can be offered by any level of government that levies taxes: federal, state or province, county, or municipality. They can be aimed at businesses, organizations, individuals – any entity that pays taxes. In general, they take one of three forms:

Tax deductions.

Tax deductions allow you to subtract some or all of your expenses for certain things from your taxable income (the amount that you pay taxes on). Your taxes are lower because you’re taxed on a smaller amount.

Your business had income of $200,000.00 last year. You spent $20,000.00 on equipment to clean the industrial waste from your operation. Since your state offers a 100% tax deduction to businesses on spending for environmental improvements, you can deduct that $20,000.00 from your income when you figure your taxes. Thus, you’ll only pay taxes on $180,000.00. In practice, that would save you up to about $8,000.00.

Tax credits.

A tax credit allows you to subtract some or all of your expenses for certain things from the amount of taxes you have to pay. Your taxes are lower because you’re actually paying less, even though you’re taxed on the full amount of your income.

Let’s take the same example we’ve just used. With an income of $200,000.00, your business has spent $20,000.00 on anti-pollution equipment. The state allows you a 100% tax credit on spending for environmental improvement. As a result, you can subtract $20,000.00 from your total tax bill.

Business tax rates vary, depending on the nature of the business and its amount of income. The highest rate approaches 40%. Therefore, a tax credit of more than 40% of the amount you spend will usually be more valuable than a tax deduction. (We use “usually” here because tax law is so complex that there are almost always exceptions to any rule.)

Tax reduction or forgiveness.

In return for particular actions or investments, you don’t have to pay part or all of your taxes – usually for a given amount of time. Your taxes are lower because they simply don’t have to be paid. The example below concerns state business taxes, but municipalities might also forgive property taxes (which, for an industrial facility, can represent a great deal of money) on a similar schedule for similar reasons.

You build a factory in a designated enterprise zone (low-income area marked for economic development), and provide 75 jobs for area residents. As a result, the state forgives your state taxes for the first three years of operation, and then taxes you at 33.33% for the next three years, 66.66% for the next four, and only then – after ten years – at 100%. An arrangement like this usually holds only if you continue to operate in the same place and maintain the number of jobs for area residents for those first ten years.

What do we mean by using tax incentives to support community health and development?

Federal, state, and local governments all use tax incentives for various purposes. Many states and communities employ tax incentives simply to attract businesses. That use can have many positive consequences for the public good, depending on the business: more local jobs, more tax revenue (leading to the possibility of more funding for schools and services), an injection of energy into the community, etc. However, it’s directly aimed at purely economic concerns, rather than the building of a healthy community in all its aspects.

In this section, we’ll focus as well on the use of tax incentives to encourage activities that lead specifically toward the development of a healthy community. The nine elements of a healthy community, as defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) at the 1986 Ottawa conference, are:

• Peace
• Shelter
• Education
• Food
• Income
• A stable ecosystem
• Sustainable resources
• Social justice
• Equity

Economic development is certainly a contributor to most of these elements, but it’s hardly the only one. Tax incentives can be used to stimulate action in a broad range of categories, such as housing, the environment, health, and employment.

We’ll discuss the uses of tax incentives in detail later in the section. They can contribute to almost all of the WHO’s nine elements (although peace has proven difficult to achieve for any length of time over the past several thousand years).

Tax incentives can be aimed at a variety of results. They can persuade businesses and individuals to take positive action, and they may also, at least occasionally, be used to persuade them to stop doing something harmful. The ways they can be used are limited only by the creativity of those who devise them. We’ll explore some creative uses of tax incentives when we discuss how to employ them.

Tax incentives can be viewed in two ways. By providing an incentive for taking a particular action or operating in a particular way, governments also provide a disincentive for doing the opposite. The people who take advantage of the incentive are receiving a benefit that others aren’t. This could just as easily be done by penalizing those who don’t follow the recommended path – i.e., by making them pay more taxes, rather than offering others the opportunity to pay less. By couching the difference in positive terms, however – offering a reward for taking positive steps, rather than threatening punishment for not taking them – governments make taking those positive steps easier to swallow, and create willing partners rather than resentful adversaries. For that reason, this section focuses on incentives, rather than disincentives. Keep in mind, however, that there may be times when using tax disincentives is appropriate.

Why use tax incentives to support community health and development?

There are many reasons why tax incentives can be a particularly good way to encourage the development of healthy communities, but they really boil down to one: they offer what for many people is the most desirable reward for desirable behavior.

• Tax incentives speak to businesses’ and individuals’ self-interest. Virtually all businesses and most individuals respond readily to offers that advance their own interests, and most particularly to offers of money. Our whole social structure is based on this assumption: how many of us would work if we weren’t paid? Some form of payment, therefore, is usually the most effective way to convince businesses and individuals to do something they are unsure about or might otherwise be reluctant to do.
• Tax incentives make allies rather than adversaries. They’re the policy equivalent of the old proverb “You can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar.” By using tax incentives rather than (or along with) regulation to achieve your goals, you make the businesses or individuals receiving the incentives your partners. It’s much easier, for instance, to work with a developer who wants to make sure that his project meets environmental standards so that he can get a significant amount of his investment back than with one who considers environmental regulations an unnecessary barrier, and looks for ways to get around them.
• Tax incentives can show businesses that community-building projects can be both feasible and profitable, thus leading to more of them. In a Sioux Falls, Iowa project similar to the redevelopment of the Pacific Hotel, tax incentives convinced a developer to turn an old library into affordable housing. That project, the first of its kind in the area, worked out so well that it stimulated the developer to embark on other, similar projects elsewhere in the state.
• Tax incentives can be an efficient use of taxpayer money. They can bring in far more in cash (private investment) and social benefits than they cost in lost revenue. Providing tax incentives to employers to help them provide health insurance for their employees, for instance, is usually far less expensive for the public than the consequences of those employees having no insurance – the cost of providing free or reduced-fee care, overuse of hospital emergency rooms, more and more serious illness because of lack of regular medical care, lost taxes because of lost work time, etc.

If the Pacific Hotel had been renovated and run by a government agency, the whole cost of restoring it, as well as the cost of running it – finding and serving tenants, maintaining the building, coordinating homeless services, etc. – would be borne by taxpayers, rather than by a combination of public and private sources. By the same token, government subsidies for businesses that provide health care plans for employees may be a lot cheaper than dealing with the consequences of those employees being uninsured.

• Tax incentives can be directed exactly where they’re needed. They can be targeted broadly or narrowly, to individuals or to businesses, to a particular time period, etc. Policymakers can fine-tune incentives to try to achieve a very specific result.

Consumer tax credits for the purchase of hybrid or alternative-fuel vehicles, for instance, are graded according to the fuel efficiency of the model, and are set to run out for each model when it reaches the 60,000 sales mark. The assumption is that, at that point, the model has enough sales momentum that consumers will buy it whether or not there is a tax incentive attached to the purchase. The tax incentives are meant to encourage car buyers to become innovation leaders – the people who show others that something new is feasible and desirable.

The Health Savings Account program provides a tax deduction on money that workers set aside and/or their employers provide for health care (if they meet eligibility requirements). Governments can also provide incentives to companies to offer certain types or a certain level of health insurance, or to offer wellness or prevention programs or opportunities (an on-site gym or pool, for example, or health club memberships).

When would you use tax incentives?

Since tax incentives can be aimed specifically, there are a great number of possible uses for them. How do you decide when their use is most appropriate? The general answer is that they can be used almost anytime, often in combination with regulation and other types of incentives. Some times when they come in particularly handy:

• When you’re trying to encourage, limit, or manage growth. Tax incentives can be used to encourage building and development in already-built-up areas, and thus to prevent sprawl. They can influence the size of developments, invite the preservation of open space, spur the redevelopment of abandoned sites, or foster the rehabilitation of empty buildings into affordable housing. Whatever your community’s comprehensive growth plan, tax incentives can almost always play a role in carrying it forward.
• When you’re revitalizing neighborhoods, communities, or rural areas. Here, tax incentives might be used to try to attract industry or commerce (and local jobs), to develop mixed-income housing, or to bring in or rehabilitate an “anchor” institution (a theater, a museum, a sports facility) to attract residents and businesses. In a rural area, you might employ tax incentives to create environmentally friendly tourism (bicycle touring, farm stays, etc.), to encourage farming, or to attract clean industrial operations.
• When you’re trying to meet community needs. Tax incentives are often used to assist in the development of affordable housing, but can also contribute to meeting needs in education (business involvement in school systems), employment (job creation), livability (the creation of pedestrian streets and walkable neighborhoods), health (the development of walking and bike paths, subsidies for businesses’ health insurance plans), and transportation (support for needed routes).
• When you’re trying to prevent or fix environmental problems. Green building (using environmentally friendly techniques and materials), the purchase and installation of anti-pollution equipment, the use of alternative energy, energy conservation, environmentally sensitive development, research into environmentally friendly industrial processes – all of these and more can be made more attractive and feasible for businesses and individuals through the offer of tax incentives.
• When tax incentives can be part of a coordinated strategy. Often, a well-thought-out combination of tax and other incentives, careful regulation and enforcement, and participatory planning can yield the best results for a community-building effort.

Who should use tax incentives to support community health and development?

Government at any level – any government that has the authority to levy taxes – can use tax incentives to accomplish short- and long-term goals. For governments, the questions are not who should use tax incentives, but whether to use them and when. The real “Who...?” question here is “Who should support and advocate for tax incentives?” The answer to that question is much broader, and has to do with who can benefit from them.

Governments only benefit from tax incentives in the sense that incentives encourage actions that work toward the public interest.  Maintaining and enhancing the public good is the job of government, and it therefore has a stake in doing so. The direct benefits of tax incentives, however, usually go to others. It makes sense for those who benefit to advocate with policymakers to institute appropriate tax incentives, to support government action in doing so, and to advocate for public support as well.

Nearly anyone might benefit from tax incentives, but here’s a short list of people and groups that you might see supporting them:

• Direct beneficiaries of tax incentives. These may include low-income citizens, people without health insurance, the homeless, etc.
• Human service providers and advocates for the poor. Since tax incentives can be aimed at improving life for low-income citizens, the agencies and individuals that work with that group may find themselves advocating for or suggesting them to policymakers.
• Economic developers and community planners. These folks are sometimes the policymakers themselves, and are in a position to see that tax incentives are offered for particular investments or types of development. If that’s not the case, they may still be strong advocates for incentives that further their work.
• Local officials, especially those in economically depressed areas, or areas with other problems that might be addressed through incentives. Local taxes may not present an opportunity to offer appropriate incentives, in which case these officials might lobby state legislators, the governor, or even the federal government, for incentives that would be appropriate to carry their goals forward.
• Businesses, corporations, real estate developers, etc. Since these are on the receiving end of tax incentives, it’s in their interest to advocate for them. Some corporations have a civic conscience, and want to help the communities they do business in, but also have to be accountable to shareholders. Tax incentives can help them satisfy both these needs.
• Environmental activists. Tax incentives can be particularly useful in furthering such environmental ends as pollution control, energy conservation, and alternative energy use.
• Farmers. Tax incentives for sustainable agriculture equipment and practices, as well as for keeping farmland in production, can help farmers stay on the land and preserve open space in rural areas.

How do you use tax incentives to support community health and development?

There are really two questions to consider here:

• Where and how can you apply tax incentives to get the results you want?
• How do you convince policymakers to put particular tax incentives in place?

We’ll try to answer each of these questions separately.

Where and how can you apply tax incentives to get the results you want?

Tax incentives can be used in just about any situation where there are taxes to be paid. Some of the ways they can be applied:

Affordable housing.

Tax incentives to stimulate the building not only of affordable housing, but of particular kinds of affordable housing (mixed-income, mixed-use, cooperative, etc.), have existed for decades. They can include total or partial forgiveness of property taxes for a period, the Low Income Housing Tax Credit mentioned in the introduction, and specific deductions or credits for other aspects of affordable development.

Among the outcomes that tax incentives might help bring about in this area are the preservation of historic buildings as affordable housing; the development of affordable housing on a specific site; the redevelopment of abandoned industrial sites as housing, with a certain percentage set aside as affordable; adherence to certain construction restrictions (use of particular materials, techniques, or design features) – in other words, almost any configuration that seems desirable in a given circumstance.

Neighborhood development.

Incentives, combined with zoning changes and other mechanisms, can result in rehabilitation of abandoned or substandard buildings, cleanup and reuse of industrial sites, the development of pedestrian malls and other walkable gathering spaces, targeted commercial development and neighborhood job creation – the list goes on and on.  Neighborhood development is a particularly fertile area for the use of tax incentives, because there are so many possibilities.

Historic Preservation.

Historic buildings and neighborhoods, because of their age and because of changing demographics and land use, often deteriorate, and are torn down to make way for newer structures. Communities, in order to preserve both their cultural and architectural heritage, often offer tax incentives to developers who will restore or adapt historic buildings for current uses, or invest in the restoration and revitalization of historic neighborhoods.

Enterprise zones.

Enterprise zones are financially distressed areas that have been targeted by states or the federal government for economic development. In cities, they may comprise a single neighborhood or group of neighborhoods. In rural areas, they may include whole towns, or even entire counties. Even in non-rural areas – one-industry towns that have lost their industry, for instance – whole towns or cities may be designated as enterprise zones. States and the federal government use tax incentives to encourage investment in these zones – i.e., starting businesses or moving operations into them, investing in already-existing businesses, training local people to start their own businesses, etc.

Health.

Tax incentives can attract hospitals and clinics to a community, or help employers provide health insurance to workers. They can convince employers and businesses to adopt healthier workplace practices: incentives can be offered to businesses that provide smoking cessation groups for employees, for example, or that declare their workplaces smoke-free. They can also be used to sweeten the consequences of health regulations that could cost businesses some customers (an incentive to help offset any loss of business from a ban on smoking in bars, for instance.) A fairly common wellness promotion incentive is the use of tax credits or deductions to encourage developers to create walking and biking paths when they design large developments.

Environmental responsibility.

This covers a huge area, and overlaps with such other uses of tax incentives as affordable housing, energy conservation, health and safety, sustainable economic development, etc. Activities that affect the environment that might be managed to some extent with tax incentives include:

• Residential, commercial, and industrial development site selection and preparation. Incentives could be used to steer developers toward sites in built-up areas, or toward particular sites that the community wants occupied. They could also help to persuade developers to alter sites as little as possible (sparing most of the trees, leaving watercourses undisturbed, and preserving the natural contours of the land).
• Open space preservation. Tax incentives might result in a business or developer setting aside a certain amount of a large site as open space (anything from a small wild area to an urban plaza), often space accessible to the public.

Brownfields reclamation is a prime example of the overlap of economic development, environmental responsibility, and community health. A brownfield is a former industrial site that has been polluted by previous activities. Tax incentives can persuade a potential developer to clean up and use such a site, either by removing and replacing polluted soil or other material, or by capping the site so that the pollution is permanently contained. This can be a big and expensive job, but the financial burden can be eased by incentives, and the sites themselves are often desirable enough – close to downtown, or large pieces of valuable open land in an area where there is little developable space left – that the cost is worth it. In addition, the results for the developer include both a good site and a reputation as a responsible citizen, which may make the development easier to market.

• Water conservation. Tax incentives here might persuade a developer to both preserve water features on a site – streams, ponds, etc. – and find ways to use less water in a building, industrial plant, development, or agricultural operation. The latter might include recycling of gray water (water from sinks, tubs, and washing machines, but not toilets) for cooling or irrigation; landscaping with native plants that need little or no watering; installing low-flow faucets and showerheads; and changing industrial and other processes to use less water.

• Green building. Incentives can be used to encourage developers to “build green.” This often means meeting LEED (Leaders in Energy and Environmental Design) standards, the environmental standards of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), but many states and municipalities have developed their own standards as well. Some aspects of green building include the use of recycled and/or environmentally friendly building materials (no dangerous chemicals, no unnecessary use of limited resources, etc.), energy conservation and/or generation (see below), site considerations (positioning buildings to use the sun for heating, for instance), and building design. (For more information on LEED standards, see the website of the USGBC, http://www.usgbc.org.)
• Waste management and pollution control. One of the most familiar environmental concerns is the prevention or elimination of pollution from industrial, residential, and agricultural sources.  Many pollutants can cause serious medical conditions and even death. Others may not affect humans directly, but can throw off the balance in local – or not-so-local – ecosystems, disrupt the life cycles or habitats of wildlife, or contribute to global warming.

• Sustainable agriculture. Tax incentives are offered in many states to farmers to encourage the use of methods that don’t deplete the soil or damage the environment. They might also be offered to businesses for the development of products or equipment that contribute to the same goals.
• Farmland/open space/wildlife habitat preservation. Farming in areas of encroaching development is difficult to maintain because farmland is taxed at its worth as houselots. Even if the farmer has no desire to sell, he may have to, just to pay his taxes. Tax incentives, particularly continuing to tax the farmer at agricultural rates in return for a promise to keep the land in agricultural use, can keep farmland in production. Some states provide similar incentives for allowing land to go wild or to be only minimally maintained in order to create wildlife habitat.

Energy conservation.

Energy conservation has already been mentioned above, but is an important enough topic to deserve its own discussion. It has effects on pollution control, global warming, green building, and housing affordability, among other areas.

Some methods of energy conservation include:

• The purchase of alternative-fuel or hybrid vehicles. We’ve already remarked on the use of tax credits – which apply both to individuals and businesses – to encourage such purchases.  They do double duty, in that hybrids and alternative-fuel vehicles both use less energy than conventional ones, and also, as a result, produce less pollution.
• Recycling. Most people are familiar with the recycling of newspapers, plastic bottles, and other household trash, but a great deal of industrial waste can be recycled as well. Many dangerous and not-so-dangerous substances from industrial waste, metals, plastics of various kinds – much of what the developed world throws away, as a matter of fact – can be recycled and/or reused. Some of this material can be sold outright. (Scrap metal is the prime example; while prices go up and down, copper, for instance, is sometimes so valuable that thieves will steal the copper water pipes from partially-constructed buildings.) When that’s not the case, tax incentives can help to convince businesses to recycle as much as possible.

• On-site power generation. Buildings, and even whole developments, can generate all or part of their own hot water, heating, and electricity needs through the use of solar panels and other alternative-power devices. Tax incentives can make the installation of those devices more attractive, as can the opportunity to sell excess electric power back to the power company.

• Energy conservation. The installation of low-energy EnergyStar-rated appliances, double- or triple-glazed windows, proper insulation, heat-absorbing or -reflecting surfaces (depending on the climate), can cut the amount of energy needed to heat, cool, and power activities within a building by 50% or more. Not only does such conservation preserve resources, but it also cuts costs for businesses, organizations and institutions, and homeowners.
• The development and/or use of renewable energy and sustainable technology. Incentives can help persuade businesses and industries to look for alternative solutions to energy needs, and to develop processes that use less energy or renewable energy sources (sun, wind, water, etc.) Again, in addition to the immediate benefit provided by tax incentives, such processes usually can save businesses money over the long term.

Employment and workforce development.

There are several ways that tax incentives can be used here:

• Job creation. Depending on where the incentives are coming from, employers might receive incentives for each new job created, for each new job taken by a member of a particular community or disadvantaged group, or for creating a certain number of new jobs.
• Job training. In return for tax incentives, an employer might provide training to members of the community, who might be hired at the successful completion of the training. Alternatively, tax incentives might help an employer develop a training program for at-risk youth, or for its own low-level workers to help them advance.
• Workplace education. Employers might be encouraged by incentives to provide basic education or ESOL (English as a Second or Other Language) for its employees who lack basic skills or facility in English.
• Workforce development. A single employer or a group might receive incentives in return for offering pre-employment courses (workplace and job interview behavior, getting along with supervisors and co-workers, resume writing, workplace expectations, etc.) to the homeless or chronically unemployed. Some of the programs suggested in the job training category might also fit here.
• Hiring people from disadvantaged groups. Incentives might be offered for hiring a certain number of people with disabilities, people from minority groups that have been the targets of discrimination, welfare recipients, or recently released ex-convicts.

ADA compliance.

Any business, organization, or institution that serves the public is subject to the regulations of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which provide for accessibility for persons with disabilities to the same services and products as everyone else. Meeting these regulations often requires changing the physical setup of a business (building ramps, redoing bathrooms, etc.), and businesses are only required to make “reasonable accommodations,” i.e., changes that won’t negatively affect them financially. In order to make changes more feasible, the federal government offers tax credits to small businesses and tax deductions to all businesses for alterations that improve accessibility for people with disabilities.

Charitable contributions.

As mentioned above, one of the most familiar tax incentives, because it’s offered to all individuals in the U.S., is the charitable deduction. You can deduct any contribution to a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, as long as it isn’t payment for goods or services. (When you pay to go to a charitable event that includes dinner, for instance, you can only deduct the amount that doesn’t pay for the food. The organization sponsoring the event can tell you what the correct deduction would be.)

Deductible as charitable contributions

Money or property you give to:

• Churches, synagogues, temples, mosques and other religious organizations
• Federal, state, and local governments – if your contribution is solely for public purposes (for a gift to reduce the public debt)
• Nonprofit schools and hospitals
• Public parks and recreation facilities
• Salvation Army, Red Cross, CARE, Goodwill Industries, United Way, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Boys and Girls Clubs of America, etc.

Not deductible as charitable contributions

Money or property you give to:

• Civic leagues, social and sports clubs, labor unions, and chambers of commerce
• Foreign organizations (except certain charities)
• Groups run for personal profit
• Lobbyists
• Homeowners’ associations
• Individuals
• Political groups or candidates for public office
• Dues, fees or bills
• Raffle, bingo or lottery tickets
• Value of your time and services

From IRS Publication 526, “Charitable Contributions”.

The above represent only some examples of how tax incentives can be used. Especially on a local level, governments can and should be creative in designing particular incentives that will work most effectively in their particular situation.

How do you convince policymakers to put particular tax incentives in place?

As we discussed in the “Who...?” portion of this section, unless you’re a policy maker yourself, you’ll need to convince policymakers to offer the particular tax incentives that target the goals you’re aiming for. As with so many other community-building efforts, this requires advocacy. The general guidelines for advocacy range across five chapters (30-34) of the Tool Box. Rather than try to summarize all that material, we’ll suggest some specifics here, and include references to specific sections that might be helpful.

There are two major groups with whom you might need to advocate: legislators and policymakers, who make the final decisions on tax policy; and the public, who can be enlisted to put pressure on elected officials when they resist taking action.

• Advocate with legislators and policymakers. The first step in advocating for anything with officials is to get to know them. Establishing relationships with legislators and other policymakers means that you’ll have easier access to them, and that they’ll be more likely to listen to what you have to say.

You have to establish a certain level of credibility as well. Make sure that you always have your facts straight, and that you always tell the truth, without exaggeration or embroidery. If these folks know they can trust your information, you’re in a far better position than if you’re just one of many vying for their attention.

In general, the arguments that legislators and other policymakers respond to are economic. Even when they are personally concerned with the social implications of an issue, or with its fairness, they often feel that economic arguments are the only ones they can sell to fellow legislators and the public. For that reason, it’s important to bring economic arguments to the discussion. Research the actual costs of offering tax incentives (be realistic: don’t downplay costs if they’re considerable – it will only hurt your argument in the long run), as well as the benefits you expect. Those benefits are often economic – the generation of private funds, long-term tax revenue, community development that will attract more business and population, etc.

It helps any advocacy effort if you can find a legislative champion – someone who will sponsor a bill, work with her colleagues and constituents to convince them to support the incentives in question, and generally take on your cause as her own. Often, the task here is not to convince a legislator to be concerned about the issue, but to find one who is already concerned about it, and eager to take it on. Once you’ve found that person, advocacy becomes much easier, because she can give you access to her colleagues.

Finally, marshal your forces. If yours is a statewide effort, it’s important to get people from all over the state involved, so that legislators can see that this is a broad-based need. Legislators respond most readily to people who live or work in their own districts, so the more widely spread your advocacy effort is, the more clout you’ll have. Whether you need to bombard elected officials with letters and phone calls on an issue, or to simply contact a number of them through people they know and trust, a well-organized state-wide effort will serve you well.

There are some particular advantages in this area when you’re advocating for tax incentives. You can often enlist businesses and business organizations in your advocacy effort. Their voices count with legislators (there’s that economic argument again), and they’re usually well-organized and able to provide logistical support (copying, mailing, phone banks, etc.) Make sure to include them when you start gathering support.

• Advocate with the public. Often, legislative advocacy is enough to get the job done. When it isn’t, it might be necessary to apply public pressure. The best way to influence public opinion is through the media. You’ll want to try to get your ideas out in stories that make both cost-benefit (the same research you did for legislators and policymakers) and emotional arguments. Calling attention to how the tax incentives you’re in favor of will positively affect the health of children and the elderly, protect the environment, and/or better the quality of community life will help to get public opinion on your side.
• Evaluate the effectiveness of tax incentives so that you can continue to make the case for them. It’s important to know whether the incentives that you’re working to institute or maintain actually work to accomplish their purposes. You need to evaluate their effectiveness, either in your own community, if you’re trying to maintain an incentive already on the books, or in a community where they’re currently in use. If they’re not working, then there’s no reason to advocate for them. If an evaluation shows that they’re successful, that’s powerful ammunition for an advocacy campaign.

In addition to monitoring the success or failure of tax incentives, an evaluation can also show you where to tweak a successful incentive to make it even more effective, and where else to apply incentives to gain the results you want. It may even be able to suggest how to turn an unproductive incentive into a productive one. Don’t neglect evaluating tax incentives – it can improve your whole effort.

• Keep at it indefinitely. As with any advocacy effort, you have to view this as a long-term commitment. Legislative and public priorities change. Tax incentives are often time-limited, and have to be renewed – or not – every few years. It’s important to maintain contact with legislators, particularly your champion, and to keep placing stories in the media about how well incentives are working for the community. If your attention drifts away, those tax incentives you worked so hard to put in place may drift away, too.

In Summary

Tax incentives – tax credits, deductions, or reduction or forgiveness – can be used by communities, states, or the federal government to obtain desirable economic, aesthetic, and social ends. They can help convince developers to build affordable housing or restore historic buildings for new uses, persuade corporations to move operations into depressed areas, or encourage businesses and individuals to conserve energy and protect the environment.

Tax incentives can accomplish more than the specific purposes they’re aimed at. By being the carrot that’s used instead of, or in addition to, the stick of regulation, they make recipients into partners in trying to reach community goals, rather than adversaries.  They can change the whole way developers or corporations look at doing certain kinds of business, and leave them willing to continue in directions that benefit the community as well as themselves.

Assuming you’re not a policy maker yourself, you’ll have to advocate with legislators, other policymakers, and the public for the incentives you want. That means establishing relationships with legislators and policymakers and with the media, doing your homework, and sticking with the issue for as long as the incentives continue to be useful.

What are tax incentives?

___Tax incentives are ways of reducing taxes for businesses and individuals in exchange for specific desirable actions or investments.

___Tax incentives generally take one of three forms:

• Tax deductions
• Tax credits
• Tax reduction or forgiveness

What do we mean by using tax incentives to support community health and development?

___Tax incentives can be used to persuade businesses and individuals to take positive action that leads to the achievement of community goals and to the betterment of the community.

___Tax incentives can sometimes be used to persuade businesses and individuals not to take action that would create barriers to community goals and to the betterment of the community.

Why use tax incentives to support community health and development?

___Tax incentives speak to businesses’ and individuals’ self-interest.

___Tax incentives make allies rather than adversaries.

___Tax incentives can show businesses that  community-building projects can be both feasible and profitable, thus leading to more of them.

___Tax incentives can be an efficient use of taxpayer money.

___Tax incentives can be directed exactly where they’re needed.

When would you use tax incentives?

___When you’re trying to manage growth.

___When you’re revitalizing neighborhoods, communities, or rural areas.

___When you’re trying to meet community needs.

___When you’re trying to prevent or fix environmental problems.

___When tax incentives can be part of a coordinated strategy.

Who should use tax incentives to support community health and development?

___Policy makers and legislators should apply tax incentives.

___Supporting and advocating for tax incentives should be the work of:

• Direct beneficiaries of tax incentives.
• Human service providers and advocates for the poor.
• Economic developers and community planners.
• Local officials, especially those in economically depressed areas, or areas with other problems that might be addressed through incentives.
• Businesses, corporations, real estate developers, etc.
• Environmental activists.
• Farmers.

How do you use tax incentives to support community health and development?

You can apply tax incentives to:

___Affordable housing.

___Neighborhood development.

___Historic Preservation.

___Enterprise zones.

___Environmental responsibility.

• Residential, commercial, and industrial development site selection and preparation.
• Open space preservation.
• Brownfields reclamation.
• Water conservation.
• Green building.
• Waste management and pollution control.
• Sustainable agriculture.
• Farmland/open space/wildlife habitat preservation. 

___Energy conservation. 

• The purchase of alternative-fuel or hybrid vehicles.
• Recycling.
• On-site power generation.
• Resource conservation.
• The development and/or use of renewable energy and sustainable technology.

___Health.

___Employment and workforce development.

• Job creation.
• Job training.
• Workplace education.
• Workforce development.
• Hiring people from disadvantaged groups.

___ADA compliance.

___Charitable contributions.

You can convince policy makers to put incentives in place by:

___Advocating with legislators and policy makers.

___Using the media to get public opinion on your side.

___Keeping at it for as long as incentives are needed and useful.

A PowerPoint presentation summarizing the major points in the section.

 

Obesity in the United States and some other developing countries is, by all reports, moving toward epidemic proportions. A large number, perhaps a majority, of American adults and, more disturbing, American children, are overweight. The causes of this situation are generally thought to be twofold: a lack of exercise and a high-fat, high-calorie diet.

Communities often try to encourage residents to exercise by making it easier. They create or upgrade sidewalks and walking and bike paths, convert old railroad lines to bike trails, and develop public facilities for swimming, tennis, soccer, and other sports, making it more likely that people will exercise.

Unhealthy food is another matter. You can’t ban high-fat, overly-sugared, non-nutritious, or high-calorie food: it’s not poisonous, not harmful in small quantities, and many people enjoy it, and are able to eat it in moderation with no ill effects. Far too many people eat far too much of it, however, and that’s the problem. How do you make it less likely that people will eat too much unhealthy food, while not dictating their choices?

Just as communities try to make exercise more attractive by making it easier and more rewarding, perhaps you can change people’s consumption of unhealthy food by making it a bit harder.  If supermarkets devote more room to healthy food and less to high-calorie snacks and soda, for instance, there’s a possibility that people would buy more carrots and fewer cookies.  If schools eliminate vending machines, or fill them with apples and water instead of chips and soda, it is likely that kids will eat fewer unhealthy snacks and possibly pick up healthier eating habits.

This section is about ways to support efforts to make access to unhealthy products and practices more difficult. Some of those ways involve limiting access to some people, or in some places or altogether.  Others, like those above, are simply ways to make it a bit harder or less convenient to use unhealthy products or engage in unhealthy practices. All are aimed at creating healthier individuals and a healthier community, and improving the quality of life for everyone.

What do we mean by unhealthy products and practices?

We all know what the terms “unhealthy products” and “unhealthy practices” mean. They’re products and practices that can be harmful, in either the long term or the short term, to those who use or engage in them, and/or to others as well. The others could be those they live, work, study, or otherwise spend time with, or bystanders who could be injured or placed at risk by the use of the product or the practice (e.g., being exposed to secondhand smoke).

Modifying access to these products and practices isn’t necessarily a simple matter of forbidding them by law. For the most part, the things we’re talking about are legal, although not necessarily for everyone (it’s illegal in the U.S. to sell alcohol to people under 21, for instance) or in all circumstances (many communities have passed bans on smoking in public indoor spaces).  Many or most of these products and practices can’t be completely banned, but they can be limited in ways that can contribute to individual and community health.                  

Examples of unhealthy products and practices to which access is limited in some places or circumstances:

• Food that is unfit to eat to begin with, or that is improperly handled or preserved, leaving it open to harboring harmful bacteria. Some people believe that any food that is treated or raised other than naturally can be harmful.  The European Union bars food that has been genetically modified or irradiated, for example. Most developed and many developing nations have some sort of inspection program to ensure that food sold to consumers is fit to eat.
• Smoking is harmful both to the smoker and to those around him.  Statistically, smoking kills approximately 25-50% of smokers who continue the practice (primarily through heart attack, stroke, and lung cancer), and a smaller but significant number of those who live with second-hand smoke.  In the U.S. and much of Europe, smoking is now prohibited or limited in certain public spaces, ranging from only restaurants in some communities to all public buildings and facilities in others.The sale of cigarettes to children under 18 is illegal in the U.S., and tobacco is usually kept behind the counter, where it can only be supplied to customers by store personnel. High taxes on tobacco in some countries serve to limit its sale as well, as do restrictions on tobacco advertising.
• High-calorie, high-fat food – soda and junk food, such as french fries, potato chips, fast-food-chain milk shakes, etc. – poses a considerable health risk. Attention has been growing on childhood obesity, which can contribute to heart disease, diabetes, and other chronic, life-shortening illnesses. Many parents try to restrict their children’s diets to healthy foods, and many schools have begun to eliminate snack-food vending machines and to provide healthier school lunches.In the UK, advertising of unhealthy food on TV is restricted to late-hour adult-oriented programming.
• Alcohol, which can be highly addictive, can have serious physical, social, and psychological consequences for drinkers. Youth are particularly at risk, since they generally have less judgment and restraint than most adults, and can be affected developmentally by overuse. Furthermore, the earlier alcohol use begins, the greater the potential for abuse and alcoholism.  As a result, most countries have a minimum age at which youth can legally purchase and drink alcohol (ages range from 0 to 21, with 18 being most common).  Most countries also have fairly strict laws against drunk driving, which can have serious consequences for the driver and others in the community.
• Over-the-counter drugs that can be used to get high. When these are abused, their status is sometimes changed so that they must be prescribed by a doctor. (This happened in the 1970’s with a version of Robitussin cough syrup that contained a good amount of codeine, an opiate often used as a recreational drug.) Other widely available products that are sometimes abused include some solvents and glues, which, if sniffed for their effects, can cause brain damage and other serious problems.
• The use of anabolic steroids, Human Growth Hormone, and other performance-enhancing drugs.Most of these drugs have been banned by virtually all school, college, and professional sports associations for years, and are only available by prescription in many countries. Leaving aside their effect on the outcome of athletic contests, steroids and other similar drugs can have medical consequences ranging from skin rashes to heart attacks and cancer.
• Infant formula. In developing countries, feeding babies formula can lead to serious health problems and death. There is often a lack of clean water to mix the formula with, illiteracy can prevent parents from understanding how to use it properly, and many families can’t afford to buy as much as they need.  Additionally, there have been claims that Nestle has supported the distribution of free powdered formula samples to hospitals and maternity wards; after leaving the hospital, the formula is no longer free, but because the supplementation has interfered with lactation the family must continue to buy the formula. Although a world-wide boycott of Nestle products (Nestle is the world’s largest supplier of infant formula) eventually led to most formula companies agreeing not to promote or advertise formula in the developing world, many continue either to exploit gray areas of the agreement, or to ignore it altogether. The result is often a malnourished baby, or one with diarrhea, which can be a death sentence in developing nations.

There are also unhealthy practices that don’t require the use of a specific unhealthy product.

• Problem gambling. For some people, gambling becomes the focus of their lives.  There is the continual need to gamble, to make back money lost, to get more money to gamble.  This can lead to problems in finances, relationships, work, and other areas of life.

• Overtraining, playing with injuries, or taking extreme weight-control measures to improve athletic performance. High school and college athletes may be encouraged – or may push themselves – to engage in these activities in the hopes, not only of winning, but of moving on to the pro ranks. Muscle and joint injuries, often career-ending, and other medical problems probably far outnumber professional contracts as a result.
• Extreme weight-control measures to enhance body image. Young women are particularly subject to believing they’re too fat, and resorting to diet measures that can turn into full-fledged eating disorders.
• Unprotected sex.  This has always had medical consequences – STD’s (sexually transmitted diseases, such as gonorrhea and chlamydia), pregnancy – but since the onset of HIV/AIDS, those consequences have become even more serious.
• Not using seatbelts, motorcycle and bike helmets, and other safety devices.
• Experiencing stress – in work or other areas of life – serious enough to affect your relationships and the general quality of your life and the lives of those close to you. Stress isn’t all bad.  A certain amount can keep you functioning at your peak, if you’re in control of the forces that cause it. Studies show, however, that people in high stress situations with little or no control over their options are affected in a number of negative ways, including compromised physical and psychological health. It is in the interest of society to limit these situations through such mechanisms as sexual harassment laws and workplace safety regulations.

Why modify access to unhealthy products and practices?

So, people use unhealthy products and do unhealthy things. They’ve done that for thousands of years. Why bother to try to change human nature?

It’s not necessarily human nature to endanger your own health or quality of life.  As often as not, it’s a matter of not knowing that what you’re doing is unhealthy, or of not believing that it will affect you, even though it affects others. Furthermore, society has a vested interest in keeping people healthy, since healthy people contribute to the health of the community as a whole.  A short list of reasons for trying to prevent the use of unhealthy products and practices:

• To encourage healthy lifestyles and improve health and life expectancy for everyone. One aspect of a healthy community is that it has healthy members. Physically and psychologically healthy people are in general more productive, happier, and more able to contribute fully to the life of the community than those weighed down by illness, injury, or other health problems, or by stress or anxiety caused by their lifestyles and choices.
• To prevent or alleviate social expense. In countries that have national health plans – virtually all developed countries except the U.S. – everyone pays when someone needs medical care, since the system is generally funded by taxes.  In the U.S. and other countries where private insurance covers a good part of most health care, everyone also pays: the more insurance companies pay out, the higher the cost of insurance for all.  And, the more expensive private insurance, the less likely people can afford coverage and the more likely they will only access emergency services (oftentimes costing much more in terms of human life and financial resources). Also, since business picks up the cost of much of the country’s health insurance, and since the cost of health care also helps determine how much individuals and families have to spend, that cost affects the national economy.  The U.S., with the world’s highest GDP (Gross Domestic Product – the total value of goods and services produced in the country each year), spends 16% of it on health care.

Business and the economy are also affected by the fact that employees who are out of work because of illness or injury aren’t producing anything.  If they can’t work at all, either permanently or for a period of time, they not only produce nothing, but don’t contribute to the expense of government (i.e., they pay no taxes.)  Using unhealthy products and practices is thus not only costly to the individual, but to the society as well.

• To improve the quality of life for everyone in the community. Everyone is touched by the use of unhealthy products and practices.  Even if an individual does everything she can to maintain her own health, she may be injured by a drunk driver, stressed by the health problems of other family members, or sickened by second-hand smoke or carelessly-handled food.  Making unhealthy products and practices less available makes the community better for everyone, not just those whose health is directly affected.
• To improve the chances of healthy child development. Children, who lack judgment, self-restraint, and the knowledge to understand the effect of their present actions on their future, are most at risk.   Access to unhealthy choices affects them in two ways. First, it’s important for their physical and emotional well-being that they get proper nutrition, exercise, and support of various kinds in order to grow and flourish. Overeating, lack of exercise, unhealthy food, alcohol, and tobacco are even worse for children and youth than they are for adults, since they both interfere with healthy development and set the pattern for lifelong unhealthy habits.

Second, in addition to proper nutrition and exercise, children need emotional nurturing, a safe environment to learn and play in, a social network, opportunities for self-expression, and intellectual stimulation in order to fully develop their physical, intellectual, social, psychological, and creative capacities.  That means that they need healthy adults as caretakers, role models, and teachers to help them grasp why some choices are healthy and some are not, distinguish between the two, and make the choices that are best for them.  Thus, children are deeply affected not only by their own choices and health, but by those of the adults around them.  Since one of the main purposes of any community or society is to raise healthy children to be competent and productive adults, it is in the community’s interest to safeguard both children and adults by discouraging the use of unhealthy products and practices.

• To send the right messages to youth. If the community is serious about protecting the health and well-being of children and youth, it must practice what it preaches.  A commitment to healthy products and practices implies setting some limits on unhealthy ones.  If the community is unwilling to take that step, it is likely that children and youth – always on the lookout for adult hypocrisy – are unlikely to pay attention to “Do as I say, not as I do” warnings about unhealthy choices.
• To create and sustain a healthy community.  A healthy community depends on the health of all its citizens.

When should you support efforts to modify access to unhealthy products and practices?

The short answer here is whenever there’s an opportunity.  But what does an opportunity consist of?  Here are a few answers to that question:

• When new facilities are opening. New facilities, particularly businesses that are hoping to attract customers, may be disposed to try limiting access to unhealthy products if people in the community request it.  A new neighborhood grocery store or supermarket may be willing to experiment with limiting shelf space for junk food, for example.  An industry newly locating in an area may also be open to requests to limit pollutants, use recycled materials, muffle or prevent noise, etc.
• When there’s a change in local administration.  Sometimes the difference between limiting and not limiting access to potential dangers lies in the person of a particular individual policy maker or in the makeup of a community governing body or board.  The Board of Health, the Town Council, the Conservation Commission – any of these and various other bodies may have some control over access to products and practices.  When a new official takes office, or when the character of a board shifts with the appointment or election of new members, it often creates an opportunity for change, especially if you’ve previously faced foot-dragging or outright opposition.
• When a community health problem that can be prevented or reduced by modifying access – obesity, smoking, substance use, etc. – is in the news.  When a health issue is already a matter of public discussion, people are more likely to be concerned about it and to support efforts to deal with it.  By the same token, policy makers, businesses, and others are more likely, because of public interest and public pressure, to be willing to put measures in place to limit or otherwise modify access to the factors that contribute to it.
• When a particular community health issue reaches a critical level.  When something becomes enough of a problem that people in the community are actually aware of it as a problem, public pressure generally forms to do something about it.  At that point, you can quickly be in the situation described above: the media takes hold of the issue, and suddenly it’s on everyone’s lips.  Officials often start proposing solutions – usually including modifying access to contributing factors – and it’s an ideal time to work to put those modifications in place.
• When there’s a community health-related campaign already under way.  Whether it’s related to smoking, health coverage for all, use of the local clinic, or water filtration in developing countries, a health-related campaign might present the opportunity to reach goals through changing access to undesirable products and practices.
• Before something becomes a problem.  The very best time to work to limit access to unhealthy products and practices is before they are common enough to pose a real threat to the community.  Unfortunately, an issue often has to reach crisis proportions before anyone is willing to do something about it, or before it’s studied enough so that people know what to do.  If you’re aware of an unhealthy product or practice that could become a problem – a steady, though still small, increase in heroin use among youth, for instance – and can alert the community and policy makers to it, you may be able to generate or support efforts to address it by modifying access before it reaches the crisis stage.

Who should be involved in modifying access to unhealthy products and practices?

As with most situations discussed in the Community Tool Box, we recommend that the more stakeholders you involve, the more likely your effort is to succeed.  People who should be involved, depending upon the products or practices you’re concerned with, might include:

Policy makers at both public and private levels in the community.

• Local councils, Boards of Health, etc.
• Managers of markets, restaurants, bars, liquor and convenience stores
• CEO’s and/or board chairs of local corporations
• Managers of local industries

Health and other professionals.

• Doctors and medical personnel
• Public health officials
• Human service workers
• Educators at all levels
• Coaches, nutritionists

People affected by the product or practice.

• Consumers
• Parents
• Youth
• Retailers

How do you support local efforts to modify access to unhealthy products and practices?

Methods of modifying access

Before we get into just how you might go about modifying access, let’s discuss some different methods.  Some are direct – passing a law – and some quite indirect – public education.  Each of them can be effective in the right circumstances and/or in combination with one or more of the others.

Laws and ordinances. One common way to modify access is through laws and ordinances that specifically restrict the use of particular products or practices, or set an extra cost to them.  Some of the different ways that laws and ordinances operate:

• Forbidding the sale or possession of products outright. Most currently illegal drugs were once legal, for instance, until laws were passed banning their distribution and use.
• Restrictions on the distribution of products. It is illegal in the U.S. to sell alcohol to people under 21 or cigarettes to people under 18.
• Making specific practices illegal or requiring others. Many communities have laws against drinking in public, for example.  Exceeding the speed limit or not wearing a seat belt are both subject to fines (or worse, for repeat offenders) in the U.S.
• Restrictions on specific activities. In many places, smoking is not allowed in restaurants and/or bars.  It’s usually also forbidden on public transportation, and often in other indoor public spaces.

Regulations. There are two kinds of regulations. The first – regulations made by government agencies – often have the force of law.  Rather than setting out regulations, laws give agencies discretion in setting regulations in their areas, as well as the power to enforce them. These kinds of regulations might include:

• Labeling requirements for food and products that contain harmful chemicals or might cause harm if misused – solvents, cleaners, paint, bleach, etc.
• Inspection requirements at food packing plants, slaughterhouses, etc.
• Workplace safety regulations.
• Certification requirements for drugs and medications.
• Limits on the amounts of pollutants that industries can emit, as well as limits on waste disposal.

The second type of regulation is set by a business or other organization or institution to control its own internal functioning.  These may be similar to government regulations, but the major difference is that the regulating body has the final say on whether and how it is enforced.  There may or may not be an internal grievance procedure, but court is only an option if the regulation is illegal or unconstitutional.  Some examples:

• Employees must be non-smokers because of health care costs.
• The school district only allows vending machines with healthy food and drink – fruit, nuts, water, fresh juices – in school or other district buildings.
• Anyone working with certain tools or in certain places must wear safety equipment.
• Company drivers who are stopped for speeding a certain number of times will lose their jobs.

Taxes or other economic measures.  While similar to laws and government regulations, taxes and similar measures use economics to modify access to specific products or practices.  Sometimes, the money raised from such measures is used to further encourage health – a portion of cigarette taxes may be set aside for anti-smoking education in schools, or for health care, for example.  Sometimes, as in the case of the option of buying “pollution credits,” the measure can be designed to cause enough financial pain that the payer will simply meet the required standard.

Some examples of economic measures:

• Cigarette taxes are often used to discourage smoking.
• Gasoline taxes are sometimes used to encourage people to drive less, thus reducing pollution and, in some cases, encouraging travel by foot, bicycle, or public transportation.
• The current Massachusetts universal health care coverage law requires businesses of a certain size to provide health care plans for all employees or to pay a fixed cost per employee to cover state-sponsored health care for those who are uninsured.

Voluntary actions taken by retailers or other businesses and industries because of community pressure or because of corporate civic responsibility.  Many businesses – particularly those that deal directly with their customers, such as supermarkets and department stores – are responsive to public opinion.  When it’s clear that those customers are concerned about a product or business practice, these businesses often make adjustments.  Many supermarkets now label foods with their country of origin, for instance, and/or with some indication of their contribution to overall health.

Large corporations as well, concerned with profits, generally know that they have to be aware of their public image, and to address community health concerns.  By the same token, some large corporations have policies of displaying community-friendly and healthy corporate behavior.  These may apply both internally and community-wide, and extend to everything from the food in the employee cafeteria, to exercise opportunities available to employees, to corporate attitudes toward the global environment.

Some examples of voluntary actions businesses might take to modify access to unhealthy products and practices:

• Reducing shelf space for chips and soda in favor of healthier snacks, and/or stocking more organic foods.
• The elimination of  unhealthy food in employee cafeterias
• Employee assistance programs offering counseling and substance use treatment
• Recycling of waste and/or use of recycled and sustainable materials in their operations.
• Put a cap on the amount of overtime an employee is able (or asked) to work.
• Removing cigarette vending machines from bars, stores, etc.
• Ceasing to stock, or restricting access to products that are still legal, but whose safety is in question.
• Being meticulous about checking ages of buyers of alcohol and tobacco.

Physical barriers. Access to some unhealthy products or practices can be limited by actually placing physical obstacles in the way.  Some ways of obstructing access to unhealthy products and practices:

• Placing speed bumps on pass-through streets in residential neighborhoods.
• Placing candy above the reach and eye level of young children on “impulse-buy” shelves next to supermarket checkout lines, or eliminating candy on such shelves.
• Placing cigarettes behind the counter, where customers have to ask for them.

Enforcement of existing laws and regulations. Sometimes the most effective way of modifying access to unhealthy products and practices is simply to enforce what’s already on the books.  Underage drinking can be curbed at least somewhat by rigorous enforcement of the law.  Some existing laws whose vigorous enforcement can make for a healthier community:

• The sale of alcohol and tobacco to underage customers.
• Air- and water-pollution control laws.
• Ordinances against smoking in bars and restaurants or other public spaces.
• Food-inspection and -handling laws and regulations.
• Building codes, especially those regarding the use of unhealthy chemicals and VOC’s (Volatile Organic Compounds).

Public education. Public education may not seem like a method of modifying access to unhealthy products and practices, but it can be the first step toward making change.  Giving people information about the things they may have used without thinking can keep them healthy in any number of ways.  The health warning on cigarette packs, poison control directions on household substances, and TV programs that focus on the reasons for healthy eating and exercise all can affect what products people use and what they do.  Some other examples include:

• Contents and nutrition labeling on packaged food.
• Anti-smoking advertising campaigns.
• Trained peer sex educators and making condoms available to those at risk for HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.
• Investigative journalism that examines – in newspapers or on radio and TV – such issues as the nature of waste produced by certain industries or the effects of particular prescription drugs.

How to go about supporting efforts to limit access

There are really two ways you can go about supporting efforts to address unhealthy products and practices. One is to help with, and advocate for, a local effort already going on that’s spearheaded by a government body or an advocacy or other group.  The other is to mount an initiative yourself – as an existing organization, an existing community action group, a newly-formed community group specifically aimed at addressing this issue or health issues in general, or even as an individual (although only at first – no effort is likely to succeed if it involves only one person).  We’ll try to look at both cases, and discuss what you might do in each.

Supporting someone else’s effort

If another body has begun a push to regulate – legally or through formal or informal policy – unhealthy products or activities, you can join that effort, and work to make it a reality. There are a number of actions you can take.

Advocacy. Usually, the most effective way to help an ongoing effort along is through advocacy. There are several chapters of the Community Tool Box devoted specifically to setting up and running an advocacy campaign.

• Start with the group that is running the effort. What is their focus, and what can you do to strengthen their actions?  Make sure there’s coordination among all the groups and individuals involved in the effort, so that everyone’s working toward the same purpose at any given time.
• Involve as many stakeholders as possible. That might include all sectors of the community if the unhealthy product or practice affects the community as a whole.
• Establish relationships with the legislators, aides, policy makers, appointed and elected officials, agency people, and anyone else who can make the law, regulation, or policy a reality.
• Find a champion within the body that will have to institute and/or approve the proposed change who can help to guide it along. Coordinate your activities with that person so that she knows and approves of what you’re doing. Don’t embarrass or compromise the person who can actually get the job done.
• Do your homework, and make sure you know the facts, science, and other particulars of the issue.
• Be prepared to counter the arguments of opponents with facts, hard scientific evidence, and common sense.
• Use the media to get the message out.
• Inform the public about the issue, and bring public pressure to bear through the media, public meetings, messages from constituents to policy makers, etc.

Research. Your group or organization may be able to conduct research that’s helpful to the effort. That might include finding people with personal stories that illustrate why modifying access is necessary, or getting the scientific background on the issue. It might also involve finding organizations that can provide support and information, or other communities where a similar ordinance or policy has had good results.

Support and logistics. Even if you’re not directly engaged in advocacy, you may be able to produce a number of people for a rally or meeting, help to set up tables and chairs, provide food, stuff envelopes, provide child care and/or transportation, and otherwise support the events and actions that make up the substance of the effort.

Mounting an initiative

If you and/or your group take the lead in an effort to deal with unhealthy products or practices, what should you do in order to be successful?  Here are some brief guidelines, which should be added to those above for advocacy.  Nearly every effort has to include an advocacy component to be effective.  If no one understands what you’re concerned about, or realizes that there are other people concerned as well, you won’t get any action.

• Assemble a diverse group, with representatives of at least the sectors identified in the “who” part of the section, to plan and spearhead the effort.  The more of the community is represented, the more sectors you can bring into play, and the more everyone will feel that this is a community effort, and not one conceived by a small, elite group.  In addition, broad representation brings a range of ideas, and helps to ensure that the concerns of all elements of the community are addressed.
• Determine the readiness of the population to change behavior.  In several places in the Tool Box, we discuss the fact that people go through a series of stages in relation to behavior change.  In order to successfully change their behavior, they have to:
  • Know about the issue that the behavior concerns
  • Understand its importance
  • Believe they are capable of change
  • Desire to make the change
  • Implement the change
  • Maintain the change

Of course, maintaining lasting change is most likely to happen in an environment that is supportive of the change (and not in which previous alternative behaviors are readily supported and endorsed).

For your intervention to work, you’ll have to work with people where they are. If you’re trying to get a supermarket to change its display of snack food, for instance, the manager will have to understand that there’s a problem before you can convince her to do something about it.  The same is true for a community as a whole, as the Community Readiness section explains.  Understanding where targets of change are on the change scale will help you with the next of these guidelines.

• Decide what kind of modification you’re going to work for.  In addition to the question of change discussed above, this depends on a number of factors, including:

How dangerous is the product or practice to the user?  Eating large amounts of french fries may have a long-term negative effect on many people, but simply buying and eating an order of fries in a fast food restaurant is not likely to cause a calamity. Abusing alcohol, on the other hand, can have immediate and serious effects.

How dangerous is the product or practice to others?  This may be the more important question from the point of view of the community.  There are limits to how far you should go in a free society to protect people from their own desires, but no one has a right to endanger others for his own pleasure or advancement.

• Are the unhealthy effects generally known by users?  If not, have they only been recently discovered, or have they been covered up by producers or sellers?  If the latter, is a lawsuit or criminal prosecution appropriate? Is a social marketing campaign in order?
• Does the product or practice present important advantages, despite its threats to health?  Many dangerous products are used as medicines or pain relievers.  (Morphine – an addictive drug – is used for pain relief in hospitals.)  The way they’re regulated is meant to minimize the danger both to those for whom they’re prescribed and for others (potential addicts, for example). It makes little sense to try to modify access to the point where a product or practice can’t be used positively.
• Can the situation be changed without resorting to regulation or some other exercise of power?  Convincing a merchant to change policy – to give more shelf space to healthy foods, for instance – because it’s good for business and will be seen as a community service is ultimately far more effective than legislating the amount of shelf space, which is likely to make him resentful.  It’s almost always smarter to become a partner than to become an enemy.
• Who controls availability, distribution, and choice of use?  The producer?  The user?  The seller?  Someone else?  (In the case of baby formula in developing countries, the choice to use it is controlled not by the direct user – the baby – but by parents.  Their choices in turn are controlled to some extent by doctors or nurses.  Their choices are controlled to some extent by the distributor, who may offer them incentives to hand out and recommend the use of formula.)

The answers to these questions can tell you whom to target, and how.  That’s what we’ll cover in the rest of this section.

Target local lawmakers to pass laws and ordinances. The task here is largely advocacy, and most of the guidelines for that activity can be followed here. The difference is that you, rather than the lawmaker, are starting the effort.  You’ll have to demonstrate the need, and demonstrate that you have community support.  You may have to be willing to settle for a resolution that isn’t exactly what you wanted, but is a step in the right direction. Finding a champion from among lawmakers’ ranks is crucial, not only because that person can help you through the political minefield, but also because it gives you access, through her, to all the members of the lawmaking body.

Start by respecting those you’re trying to influence, and assuming they’re people of good will. The fact that they may not agree with you doesn’t necessarily mean that they don’t care. They may have other concerns that they consider more pressing, or disagree philosophically about how to go about building a healthy community. If you keep communication lines open and continue to press the issue, and if you have widespread support, the chances are that you’ll end up with an acceptable result.

If, on the other hand, there seems to be no chance of resolution, because of opponents’ lobbying or other reasons, you may have to be more assertive, using community organizing and/or direct action in order to get results.  If you’re sure you’re on the right side of the issue, you may have to fight to get what the community needs.

Approach agencies to institute or change policies or regulations. Most local, state, and federal agencies are empowered by law to set policy and sanctions which they or the local, state, or federal government will then enforce.  The guidelines here are similar to advocacy, in that you should:

• Establish personal relationships with people in the agency. When you call, you want to be able to ask for a specific person, and to have that person know you and be willing to return your calls.
• Learn the structure of the agency, so that you’ll know who makes the decisions, and whom you have to reach in order to get things done.  Sometimes, the decision-makers are influenced by particular people, and if you can find out who they are, you may be able to get results through them.
• Find an in-house champion to help you push the regulation and guide you through the bureaucracy.  This is sometimes even more important when dealing with an agency than with lawmakers, since agency bureaucracies can be mazes of unwritten rules that only those in the agency – and sometimes not all of them – know how to negotiate.
• Present the alternative that you want, with the understanding that it may be changed in the process of becoming policy.  Be prepared to settle for something acceptable, but not perfect.
• Know how to bring pressure to bear on the agency if you get no results.  That may mean calling in legislators or other elected officials, applying the force of public opinion, or even exposing agency incompetence or collusion with those it’s supposed to regulate, if those are the reasons for lack of change.

Negotiate with business or industry for changes in their internal or external policies or practices. You may be concerned with a business’s internal policies, and try to encourage it to shield employees from unhealthy practices by sponsoring healthy ones – healthy food in the cafeteria and vending machines, free gym memberships, no-smoking policies, etc. Or you may be more focused on the business’s relationship to the community, and advocate for better waste disposal, recycling, or pollution controls. You may be asking retailers to change where and how they display certain items, or to stop stocking some things altogether.

The ideal here is to make businesses and industries partners in your effort.  Include them in the planning team.  Give them credit and public praise at every opportunity for their civic responsibility – pictures in the paper and on TV, stories in community newsletters, acknowledgment in public presentations.  Encourage supporters of the effort to patronize those businesses that take part in it, so they’ll be willing to continue the partnership when other issues arise.  Do all you can to show them that civic responsibility is not only the right stance to take, but the most profitable one.

Offer your assistance.  If you’re trying to persuade an industrial plant, for instance, to make a major change, try to help managers come up with a plan for how to do so.  Research government programs that provide support for installing anti-pollution equipment, for instance. Connect businesses with concerned academics and scientists to find innovative ways of reducing waste and pollution...and saving money.

When dealing with business and industry, just as with agencies, it’s important to understand the structure of the operation.  For a smaller, locally-owned business, the structure may essentially consist of one person, the owner: all transactions and negotiations should be with him, because he’s the lone decision-maker.  A business or plant that’s part of a large corporation may be controlled by the local manager, or may be managed from a distance.  You should find out whom you actually have to talk to in order to initiate action, and how to get to that person or group.

Conduct a public education campaign. A public education campaign might stand on its own, if information is the only issue here, but is more likely to be part of a larger effort and to be combined with other activities listed here.  Its purpose is usually both to inform the public about an unhealthy product or practice, and to gain public support in modifying access to it.  Consumer groups were able to convince the government to require nutrition labels on food in the U.S. at least partially because citizens became concerned about what was in the food they were putting on their tables.

There is a good deal of material in the Tool Box about or related to conducting public information campaigns. An abbreviated list of guidelines for running a public education campaign might include:

• Assemble a diverse group, from all sectors of the community, to plan and sponsor the campaign.
• Make sure you fully understand the issue and all the facts relating to it.  The better your grasp of the science, politics, and other elements involved, the better you’ll be able to explain how the product or practice in question affects the community, and why people should care.  It’s also important that you have the facts of the matter correct, or your opponents will try to use your mistakes to discredit everything you say.
• Put your message in language that your target audience will understand – plain English, the languages of particular populations, etc.
• Make your message straightforward and truthful.  The information you’re passing on should speak for itself.  Trying to scare people or infuriate them often backfires – the emotional level is too high, and they’ll turn the message off entirely, unless they’re already true believers.
• Choose channels for your message that will reach your intended audience.  Depending on the nature of the community, Spanish-language or hip-hop radio stations, service clubs, supermarket and laundromat bulletin boards, houses of worship, and health and human service agencies might all be good options, in addition to the mainstream media.
• If possible, choose spokespersons the community can identify with and/or believe.  These might include people actually affected by the products or practices in question, respected community leaders, sports figures, doctors, etc.
• Hold public events of various kinds – public forums, press conferences, demonstrations – to advertise your message and your presence in the community.
• Use the media as much as possible.
• Use social networks and word-of-mouth to spread your message.
• Use e-mail and the Web.  A YouTube video is worth a thousand – or several thousand – hits. Your message can be spread incredibly quickly through the use of e-mail lists, which often are passed on from one list to another almost automatically.

Conduct a social action campaign. The best course is nearly always to accomplish your goals by persuasion and finding common ground with policy makers and/or opponents. When that’s simply not possible, you may need to mobilize the community to apply enough pressure to get movement on modifying access.

The first step in any social action campaign is organizing the community.  You can’t do anything unless you have strong community backing, and that means establishing a strong and wide community political base, as well as a communication network, large numbers of people willing to take action, and people willing and able to coordinate and monitor actions and events.  Community organizing takes time and patience – it doesn’t happen overnight – and requires a huge amount of personal contact.  It can help if there’s an issue of mutual concern to mobilize around, but organizing still may involve reconciling competing or opposing factions within the community, and putting aside disagreements over other matters to focus on the one in question.

The trick here is to try to get action with the least pressure possible. The less confrontation you engage in, the fewer enemies you’ll make, and the more likely policy makers will be to deal respectfully with you the next time – and there’s almost always a next time.  Always start at the most reasonable level possible. If you’ve already been put off more than once, that might be simply renewing your efforts, and making it clear that you have strong backing from the community. If you meet with disrespect, continued resistance, and/or outright hostility, be prepared to go to the next level, which may be a media campaign, or may be showing your public support through a barrage of phone calls to officials or corporate headquarters.

If that level of action fails to get a response, then direct action may be called for.  That can involve anything from demonstrations to lawsuits, depending on the situation and the need.  Save your strongest actions for last.  If you start with your best weapons, then you have nothing left if they don't work, and you may label your group as extremist.  Try to maintain the moral high ground, only going to direct action when it’s clear to the public that you’ve tried everything else.

Keep at it. Regardless of what kind of modification you’re seeking, and of how you go about it, one thing is sure: whether or not you get what you’re aiming for, your work isn’t over.  If you’re successful, you’ll need to maintain your success, and not let your gains slide. If you don’t succeed, you’ll need to try a different strategy, and to keep up the pressure either until modifications are in place, or until it becomes clear the community doesn’t want what you’re asking for.

This last is an important point.  You might simply be on the wrong side of the issue, trying to limit something that a vast majority of the public wants, and is willing to take risks in order to have.  On the other hand, you may simply be early in the process.

In the late 1950’s, when the first scientific reports of the dangers of smoking began to surface, most people paid no attention, and a smoking ban of any kind would have been inconceivable.  In the U.S. today, only about a quarter of the population smokes (as opposed to more than half of the population 50 years ago), and smoking bans in public buildings, restaurants, and bars are common and largely accepted.  Early crusaders for limits on smoking because it was unhealthy for everyone, however, were doomed to frustration.  It was only because they and others who followed didn’t give up that the Surgeon General’s office began placing warnings on cigarette packs, and Americans finally realized the real dangers of tobacco. Many smoking ordinances have been created in communities because concerned people at the grassroots level brought the issue to their legislators.

There may be a moral component here as well. Some elements of a healthy community are simply right, and need to be fought for. The majority of segregated communities in the American South didn’t want integration.  The leaders of the Civil Rights Movement and their allies were right to keep pushing until they got results, no matter how long it took.  It’s important, however, to understand when there’s a legitimate disagreement about points of view, and your effort is merely an attempt to force your opinion on others, rather than a true road to a healthier community.

Once changes in access are made, you’ll have to work to maintain them.  If your ultimate goal is a healthy community, you can’t stop working toward it.

In Summary

Among the tools for building a healthy community is the option of discouraging people from using unhealthy products and engaging in unhealthy practices.  In a free society, the government or some other entity can’t treat everyone as a child and simply forbid the use of anything that might be harmful.  In some situations – where a product or practice is immediately and severely harmful, or where it threatens others who aren’t using it – a ban may be legitimate.   In others, however – where reasonable use of a product causes no ill effects, and it’s only overuse or improper use that’s harmful – a ban may not only be inappropriate, but may itself be harmful physically as well as politically.  (Most important medications are dangerous if taken in large quantities, for example, but banning them would put health and lives at risk.)

In addition to legally restricting unhealthy products and practices where that makes sense, there are a number of other ways to modify people’s access to them.  Some are physical – less, and less visible, shelf space for unhealthy snacks; keeping cigarettes behind the counter – some are informational – media stories about the dangers of particular products, limits on advertising – and some involve policy changes on the part of government, businesses and industries, or institutions.  The goals in all cases are to make sure that people understand their choices to the best of their capacity (children may not be able to project the consequences of their choices into the future as well as adults can), and are encouraged to make the healthiest choices possible.

What do we mean by unhealthy products and practices?

___Unhealthy products and practices are products and practices that can be harmful, in either the long term or the short term, to those who use or engage in them, and/or to others as well.

___Unhealthy products are often unhealthy only when they’re used to excess or inappropriately.

___Some unhealthy practices are linked to products, others are not.

___Unhealthy products and practices are not always directly related to physical health, but may also be related to the social, psychological, economic, and/or political health of individuals and the community.

Why modify access to unhealthy products and practices?

___To encourage healthy lifestyles and improve health and life expectancy for individuals.

___To prevent or alleviate social expense.

___To improve the quality of life for everyone in the community.

___To improve the chances of healthy child development. 

___To send the right messages to youth.

___To create and sustain a healthy community.

When should you support efforts to modify access to unhealthy products and practices?

___When new facilities are opening.

___When there’s a change in local administration.

___When a community health problem that can be prevented or reduced by modifying access – obesity, smoking, substance use, etc. – is in the news. 

___When a particular community health issue reaches a critical level.

___When there’s a community health-related campaign already under way.

___Before something becomes a problem.

Who should support efforts to modify access to unhealthy products and practices?

___Policy makers in both public and private sectors.

___Health and other professionals.

___People affected by the product or practice, or who will be affected by a change in access.

___Any other interested stakeholders or groups.

How do you support efforts to modify access to unhealthy products and practices?

Modify access to unhealthy products and practices through:

___Laws and ordinances.                                             

___Regulations established by government agencies or business and industry.

___Taxes or other economic measures.

___Voluntary actions taken by retailers or other businesses and industries because of community pressure or because of corporate civic responsibility. 

___Physical barriers. 

___Enforcement of existing laws and regulations.

___Public education. 

Support existing efforts to modify access through:

___Advocacy.  

___Research. 

___Support and logistics.

Mount your own initiative:

___Assemble a diverse group, with representatives of all concerned stakeholders, to plan and spearhead the effort.

___Determine the readiness of the population and community to change behavior. 

___Decide what kind of modification you’re going to work for.

___Advocate, Advocate, Advocate!

___Target local lawmakers to pass laws and ordinances. 

___Approach agencies to institute or change policies or regulations.                               

___Negotiate with business or industry for changes in their internal or external policies or practices.

___Conduct a public education campaign.

___Conduct a social action campaign. 

___Keep at it.

Example #1: H.E.A.T. Report: Place and Health - Wyandotte County, Kansas

Video: Place & Health - Geopgrahy and the Social Determinants of Health (Liquorlining and the lack of healthy choices).

 

Example #2: Another Soda Tax Success Story: Sugary Beverage Consumption Drops in San Francisco

San Francisco’s sugar sweetened beverage (SSB) tax is working as intended, according to a new study published in PLOS Global Public Health by the Public Health Institute’s Prevention Policy Group. Consumption of SSBs declined markedly (34%) in San Francisco in the first two years after implementation of a soda tax on January 1st, 2018, in the areas studied.

SSB taxes have been gaining momentum worldwide as policies to address the negative health effects of sugary drinks by creating financial incentives to help consumers make healthier choices, promote healthier reformulation by industry, and raise revenue for building healthy communities.

Read more.

 

Example #3: Linking Alcohol Outlet Density to Violence in Baltimore

Recent research highlights the troubling connection between alcohol outlet density and gun violence, particularly in Baltimore, Maryland. Dr. Pamela Trangenstein of the Public Health Institute (PHI) discusses how neighborhoods with a higher concentration of liquor stores often experience elevated levels of violence. These findings align with broader research indicating that alcohol availability contributes to community-level harms, including gun violence, domestic abuse, and assaults.

The Baltimore Context

In Baltimore, the clustering of liquor stores in disadvantaged neighborhoods amplifies systemic inequities. Many of these outlets operate in areas already burdened by poverty, under-resourced public services, and high crime rates, creating a dangerous cycle of harm. Residents often express concerns about the role these businesses play in fueling violence, while policymakers grapple with how to regulate alcohol sales without harming small business owners.

Research and Policy Implications

Dr. Trangenstein emphasizes that reducing alcohol outlet density is a proven public health strategy to decrease violence. Local governments can implement zoning regulations, limit the number of new liquor licenses, or incentivize businesses to diversify their offerings. These policy changes, paired with community advocacy, can help disrupt the link between alcohol sales and violence while fostering safer environments.

Broader Lessons

Baltimore’s example underscores the importance of addressing the root causes of violence through comprehensive public health approaches. Tackling alcohol outlet density is not just about regulating businesses; it is about investing in community resilience, reducing disparities, and creating equitable opportunities for health and safety.

For more details, read Dr. Trangenstein’s insights via the PHI press release and explore the full investigative story by The Trace on Baltimore's gun violence and liquor stores.

A PowerPoint presentation summarizing the major points in the section.

• What do we mean by "policies?"

• Why should you try to change policies?

• How do you change policies to increase funding for initiatives?

• How much lobbying can you do?

 

 

Trying to raise the money needed to run a not-for-profit organization is hard work. Writing grant proposals, making deadlines, completing the paper work necessary to qualify for a grant -- all of these can be a terrific headache for anyone on the best of days, and that's the good news. Because of course, the punch line is, you only get the privilege of these late night frustrations if there is funding available and if you qualify for it.

What happens when that money just isn't there? That is, what do you do when your organization goes to look for resources, and finds that there aren't grants available for your cause, or, for whatever reason, you don't qualify for them? Or maybe you 've been working with a specific funding agency that suits your group’s needs and mission perfectly -- but they don't give renewal grants. Or maybe you have found that money is available in your community, but for such small amounts an organization would need to receive 50 of them to continue running for the next year.

The bad news is that all of those are realistic situations for almost any organization trying to continue its work over a long period of time. The good news is that an effective organization -- no matter how small -- does have options to help maintain that funding. In fact, such an organization has a lot of options. Some organizations charge dues; others look for individual donors from the community; still others stage fundraisers that cover the range of possibilities from raffles to golf tournaments to expensive dinners. All of these topics are discussed extensively in other portions of the Tool Box.

While all of these possibilities are worthwhile and useful for most organizations, with the exception of dues, they are all one-time events. You earn the money -- and then, if you need more money next year, you have to go through the whole process again. Wouldn't it be ideal to have a relatively sure funding source you can count on, year in and year out?

One way to obtain this regular funding is to have resources for your organization written into the budgets of other organizations, so that you get a set amount every year. To get this money, your organization will need to change the policies of organizations (public and private) that could support you. Your organization might want to change the policies of an organization to do one of two things:

• Convince an organization to change its policies to help fund your organization. For example, an organization working to stop teen drinking might try to convince the school board that the organization should receive some of the local education monies.
• Convince an organization to change its funding policies in general. Often times, this is a task undertaken by an older, more 'mature' organization with a good deal of experience. For example, you might convince the Board of Directors of a private foundation to offer grants to cover the operating expenses -- the nitty-gritty, every day pencil and paper expenses that just aren't "sexy" enough for Boards to want to fund. (Typically, it's easier to get money for "flashier" projects.) Or you might want to convince an organization that only gives short, one-time-only grants to fund organizations for longer periods of time.

In the next few pages, we'll first explain a little more about what we mean by policies. Next, we'll offer a few more reasons that your organization might want to try to change the policies of potential funders, in case you aren't already sold on the idea. Finally, we'll go step-by-step through the work of changing policies, from your original research to the long-term "keepin' on" that will be a necessary part of your work.

It's important to note that in this section, we are talking specifically about advocating to change policies to standardize and increase funding and other resources for your organization. This funding might come from any source -- the local government, public or private foundations, even a local business. A similar topic which might be of interest to your organization is public advocacy -- that is, the art of furthering your organization's cause with governmental bodies such as legislatures.

What do we mean by "policies?"

In this section, we are talking about changing both public and private funding policies that affect nonprofit groups.

Public policies are laws or regulations that are enacted at the local, state, or federal level. Trying to change these policies is generally known as advocating for your cause, or in some cases, lobbying. Examples of attempts to change public policies include:

• Federal changes. In the 1999-2000 legislative session, the U.S. Congress considered legislation that would let individuals and families who claim the standard deduction (most people) deduct half of their annual charitable contributions over $500 each year. This legislation would be a great way to encourage people to give more -- one study found that charitable giving would increase by more than three billion dollars each year if this bill became law.
• State-wide changes. A state legislature votes to partially fund a new state-wide program to train volunteers as legal advocates for children who have been abused.
• Local changes. A School Board votes to underwrite the cost of a staff member to work with students to reduce the number of teen pregnancies in the community.

Policies governing private giving include donation guidelines developed by private foundations, corporations, or other organizations that might influence your organization. Trying to influence private giving might include things such as:

• Convincing a local corporation to match dollar for dollar the amount its employees give to the United Way.
• Convincing a foundation that currently focuses on child welfare to expand their focus to include adult education.
• Persuading a local foundation to change some or all of its grants from two years to four years, giving new organizations more time to get their feet on the ground.

While there are many differences between trying to change public laws or regulations and changing the course of a private foundation, there are many similarities as well. This is particularly true when you are trying to make changes on a local level, and is the reason we're tackling both of these subjects in this section.

Why should you try to change policies?

If the idea of a steady, reliable flow of dollars into your organization hasn't convinced you that trying to change policies is a good idea, consider the following additional advantages:

• To offer decision-makers the expertise they need. People who hold any power, whether they are legislators or serve in a private capacity, simply can't be experts in every field. There is a pretty good chance that they aren't completely knowledgeable on the topic that interests your organization. They rely on people like you who do know all of the facts to give them the information they need. If you don't provide it, it's very likely that their interests (and their dollars!) will go where other people tell them to take them.
• To be an active participant in our democracy. This is especially true when you are trying to change governmental policies, from those of the local school Board to that of the federal government.
• To gain respect for your organization. If you can convince some agency -- a corporation, a foundation, or a legislative body -- that your organization is worthy of regular funding year in and year out, that gives your group more credibility in the eyes of other people. People might think, for example, that an organization being partially (but regularly!) funded by a major corporation has surely already proved their worth, or they wouldn't get that funding. That type of respectability may even get you additional funding from other sources in the long run.

How do you change policies to increase funding for initiatives?

The steps involved in changing policies can be broken down into four categories:

1. Research
2. Preparation
3. Execution
4. Maintenance

In a moment, we'll look at each of these one by one. However, it's important to realize that the progression won't always be linear. That is, this is not a case in which you will first research, then prepare, then execute, and so on. Instead, many of the steps below will go on concurrently; some, such as many of the steps involved in research, will need to be done over and over again. Members of your group will need to sit down and come up with your own timeline -- a plan that works well for your organization and its needs.

Ready? Let's go!

Phase 1: Do your research.

There is no substitute for being well prepared!! This part -- the "grunt work" -- is probably the most important step in effectively changing any policy. There is a lot you will need to know. The earlier you begin, and the more thoroughly you do your research, the better your chances are of getting the support you need.

Learn who might support your organization. What are the organizations that could fund you, if they so choose; and who makes the funding decisions for those organizations? Major categories of potential funding agencies include:

• Major corporations
• Public agencies
• Legislative bodies (congresses, city councils)
• Public foundations
• Private foundations
• Local businesses
• School Boards
• Other not-for-profit organizations

You might begin by making a master list of organizations that could fund you. During this early brainstorming phase, it makes sense to be as broad and inclusive as possible. Ask other not-for-profit groups where their funding comes from, and if they have additional suggestions. Even if you think an organization probably won't fund you, go ahead and write them down anyway. Later in your deliberations, you might realize you have an "in" with that organization that wasn't immediately apparent.

Next, beside each of those organizations' names, write down who has the ability to make decisions on whether or not to support you. Some examples of people who often have the power to make decisions about whether and how to fund your organization include:

• Owners/CEOs/Company presidents/Agency Directors
• Elected officials
• Non-elected government officials
• Boards of Directors

Learn who these people are, and also what makes them tick. Create a master list of people at all levels (e.g. local, state, national) with their names, positions, contact information, voting record (in the case of elected officials), personal history, and interests. For many public officials and heads of large corporations, their office provides biographical information. You also may want to ask their staff members about each individual's charitable and philanthropic interests.

Finally, in a third column, write down the people who have the ability to influence the decision-makers that you just listed. (For example, if the people you wish to influence are legislators, are there particular constituencies or donors who are particularly important to them?)

Others who might influence these decision-makers include:

• Property owners
• Lobbyists
• Lawyers
• Constituents
• Members of the press

See Tool #1: Chart of Potential Funders in the Tools portion of this Tool Box section for a blank chart that you can fill out with all of this information. If you are doing this as a large group, you might want to brainstorm fast and furiously, using poster paper and markers so that everyone can see the ideas that were already suggested and "piggyback" their ideas onto your own.

Decide which corporations, policies, and individuals your organization will target. Depending on the needs of your organization and the local possibilities, your targets will vary tremendously. Members of your organization should draw up a "short list" of whom you wish to target to do what. Rank potential targets in order of those whose giving policies to your organization will likely be easiest to change to those who will be most difficult. Factors such as individual relationships, the magnitude of the change desired, and whether or not the organization is local and has a positive history of giving will all come into play in deciding how easily change might occur.

Then, rank all of the organizations a second time in terms of which organizations offer the most significant potential gains. Looking at these two factors together, your organization should be able to develop a short list -- possibly about 5 to 10 organizations you would like to target, based on how easy you expect change to be, along with how helpful that change is.

How many organizations' policies you want to work to change will also be based on how much time and effort your organization can put into changing policies. If your organization has enough manpower, you might decide to target two or three organizations simultaneously. For example, a literacy group might decide to:

• Request that the state legislature include it when assigning continuing education funds
• Lobby a foundation that offered it a start-up grant to begin offering renewal grants
• Ask a local bus company to offer free passage to teachers and students in its program, thus taking care of a major portion of its transportation budget

These three possibilities represent different levels of difficulty, but all represent a change in policies to help ensure the sustainability of your organization.

Understand how the policies of the organization you are targeting are changed. If you want to convince a private family foundation to modify its policies, for example, speaking to the Board might do little good if funding policies are actually decided by an individual family member. Many foundations and corporations have giving policies that outline this information.

If you wish to receive public funding, you will need to acquaint yourself with a general understanding of the process by which a bill becomes a law.

Review the relationship between your organization and the organization you wish to support you. If no formal relationship exists, this step might be as easy as, "We are both based in the city of Raleigh." On the other end of the spectrum, if the organization whose policies you wish to change is a government body that already supports you, you might have a much more complex relationship.

One way to thoroughly explore this relationship is to have a small group of your members (including, at a minimum, your executive director and Board chair) work together to develop a comprehensive list of the ways government, at all levels, affects your organization's ability to provide services. For example, your group will want to answer questions such as:

• How do various laws and regulations affect the way we provide services to the community?
• What are the rules associated with grants and contracts?
• How do these rules affect our ability to educate and provide information to government agency staff and elected officials?
• What do we stand to lose from our lobbying if things go awry?

Get to know the staff of the person(s) you wish to influence. Without a doubt, one of the best ways to get someone to change her mind is to get to know her, have a good working or personal relationship, and be able to clearly and convincingly lay out your case. However, don't let that fact blind you to other modes of influence. Oftentimes, a member of a legislator's or Board member's staff is the most knowledgeable person in that person's office about your issues. She may also have much more time to get to know you and understand your ideas.

In the case of a government official, find out which staff person works on your issue and get to know him. In many cases, a state legislator will have one staff member or none at all, while members of Congress have many. Send them your information packet, and meet with them as appropriate.

Find allies in your cause. Remember: there is always strength in numbers. Many times, coalitions earn respect where smaller organizations have failed. Having allies gives you a potent combination of quality and quantity: A hundred or a thousand voices asking for something is certainly more convincing than ten or twenty. What's more, the more allies you have, the greater the chance that someone (or many people) among them will have a certain personal connection with the person or organization you are trying to further.

There are many different ways you might go about trying to find allies with whom to work. Some things you might do include:

• Contact your state association of nonprofits or an umbrella organization that represents your cause to gather recent information about your issues and ways you might get involved. Visit the National Council of Nonprofits to locate your state association. Visit Independent Sector: Our Members to identify a national organization with related public policy goals.
• Make a list of other charities in your region that provide similar services. Contact them to find out if they are interested in working with you to change polices that will affect your organizations. You might also find out if they are involved in any coalitions and how you can get information about joining.

Key point: Changing major policies is not a solo activity. People and organizations must work together to gather enough public support for changes to be made.

Phase 2: Prepare your organization.

Gear up for your advocacy work. For most of your policy changing work, you'll want to make sure you have available for your work, at a minimum:

• A telephone
• Internet and email capability

For very small or local goals (for example, working with a small business for regular in-kind donations) you might get by with just a phone. However, all three will definitely be expected of your organization when you are working on any larger undertaking.

Take stock of your human resources. Make a list of key people who work for, volunteer for, or are served by your organization. Out of all of these people, draw up a shorter list of people you believe would be willing to help in your efforts.

As with almost anything else in life, it will be helpful if the people you have listed represent a very diverse group of individuals. In particular, encourage people who are served by your organization to tell their stories of how your organization has helped them. Multiple perspectives will strengthen your case, and help to lead to the outcome you are hoping for.

Make sure everyone understands your work. If you are trying to change the policies of the government, a funder, or anyone else, don't do it behind closed doors. Make sure everyone in your organization knows what is going on. For example, you might want to make it a topic at a Board meeting or write an article about it in your organization's newsletter.

When explaining your work to members of your organization, be sure that all of the members of your organization understand how the policies you are trying to change are currently affecting your mission. For example, if you are trying to convince a foundation to lengthen the time period of the grant it gives, you might explain that, "Currently, the Jones Foundation, which has generously provided a large share of our budget for the past six years, asks grantees to reapply annually for its monies. However, because developing the renewal grants is such detailed work -- taking about 150 hours a year -- it takes time away from our mission of providing free health care for the impoverished members of our community. If we can convince the Jones Foundation to offer some grants with a renewal period only every four years, we will have more time to provide the health and education desperately needed in our community."

If you are trying to bring about new policies, make sure their benefits are well understood by members. For example, an organization working to prevent youth from smoking might explain to its members that, "Currently, our organization is on the fringes of the school system here in town. Many people in town, especially parents, don't even know we exist yet. Asking the school board to provide support for our initiative by providing us with office space in the local high school, along with a small stipend, could bring us many advantages. Certainly, the financial assistance will help us remain sustainable. But what's more, by allying ourselves with the school system, we have the chance to be better known in the community, especially among the members who need to know about us. Also, being perceived as linked to the school offers us more legitimacy than we have on our own."

Develop a clear, agreed-upon definition for your organization. "That's silly," you might think, "we know who we are." But it's important that everyone in the organization sees your work in exactly the same light, so you will be consistent in your explanation of who you are and what you stand for. If you haven't done so already, now is probably a good time to develop a mission statement -- a mission statement that clearly defines who you are, what you do, why you do it, and what your unique niche in the community is. What's more, it should do so clearly and succinctly, so that your message is understandable for both advocates and those with whom they 're advocating. That way, no matter who asks about (or tells about) your organization, everyone will hear the same thing.

Develop useful data. You will want to gather information on two things: the scope of the problem and how great a job your organization is doing -- or could be doing with the proper support. In both cases, a combination of quantitative and qualitative information is your best bet to be able to demonstrate the "whole picture" to decision makers and also the general community.

Collecting qualitative information might mean writing about a local success story that demonstrates the good work of your organization; or by telling the story of someone in your community who needs your help. If your program has been helped in the past by the organization whose funding policies you wish to change, talk about that, too. Showing appreciation and goodwill -- not to mention giving that organization positive press coverage -- are important tools in reaching your goal.

The quantitative portion might include facts on how many people are affected by the problem your organization works on, and how many people your organization helps. For example, you might write, "There are approximately 2,000 homeless people in our community. Each night, 450 of them sleep at our shelter." If your organization has undergone a formal evaluation of its efforts, be sure to include that information as well.

You might want to use this information in articles right away (see the next point), but even if you have no immediate use for the information, it is still likely to be useful in the near future. Have it on hand and ready to go as needed.

Increase your visibility. If policymakers and others know who you are without your having to tell them, it's a step towards credibility and respect before you even start your work. Being active and visible in the community will help your organization gain the respect it needs. Be out and about -- have booths at local fairs, write editorials in the local paper -- in short, do everything you can to make sure that people know who you are. Many other suggestions of ways to increase public knowledge of your presence are suggested in Chapter 6: Communications to Promote Interest.

Phase 3: Get to work.

With the background work suggested above well underway, it's time to get at the heart of your advocacy work. The Center for Lobbying in the Public Interest suggests the following overview to keep in mind when you are working with public officials. It can probably be generalized to use when trying to change the policies of any organization, public or private.

• Be brief
• Be clear
• Be accurate
• Be persuasive
• Be timely
• Be persistent
• Be grateful

Try to keep all of these suggestions in mind as you go through the steps of your work.

Develop an action plan with measurable goals and objectives. Just having a long -term goal (For example, "We want the foundation to begin offering grants to fund the day-to-day workings of our office.") probably isn't enough. Instead, you will need to break down your work into short-term objectives as well. Short-term goals and objectives can help keep energy high with small wins -- the longer your project continues on, the more important these will be. Also, your organization will need to develop strategies to achieve your goals and a timeline to carry them out. All of this will help you move along in a logical progression towards the ends you are working for.

Build relationships with the people you wish to influence. Above, we talked about the importance of building relationships with the staffs of those people you want to influence. That's a necessary first step, and one of the reasons for doing so is that it can pave the way in getting to know those people themselves. However, it is not meant to be a replacement for getting to know those people as well. Instead, the two points work together hand in hand. Some ideas to keep in mind while building your relationships with the people with the power to help your organization include:

• Get to know these people before you need them. Introduce yourself, let them know a little about your organization -- but if possible (without wasting their time), try not to make your first meeting with such a person a request.
• Meet with one of your elected officials or a key staff person to inform them of the policies your organization supports and to learn how your organization may work cooperatively with them to achieve your goals. You might want to ask one of your board members to attend the meeting with you as well, to lend greater credibility to your organization..

Become a source of reliable information. Create a packet of information about your organization including its mission and services and your agenda along with letters to all of the key decision makers whose decisions impact your cause and their staffs. Send the packets with a note that you will follow up to schedule an informational meeting to discuss their position with regard to your public policy priorities. Your packet will serve as a helpful informational tool for many audiences. Be careful, however, not to overwhelm policymakers with information. Outline the key facts for them, maybe in a one-page fact sheet. If you are sending a lot of information, point them towards the key pages in the packet (for example, you might write, "For a summary of the issues we’re concerned about, please see page XX.")

If you are working to influence legislators, build a public policy presence.

There are many ways to do so, including:

• Attend a coalition meeting of other charities working on similar public policy issues. Your presence will send a strong signal that your organization cares about the issues.
• Meet face to face. Meet with your state legislators or Members of Congress at their local offices to advocate on behalf of, or in opposition to, legislation that would affect your cause. There is no form of communication as powerful as meeting in person.
• Use the telephone. Make telephone calls to your elected officials about pending legislation, regulations, or other priority public policy matters, or to describe how a change in law would affect your programs and constituents. Urge your members and volunteers to do the same.
• Write a letter. Recent surveys show that a well-written letter from a constituent is one of the most influential ways of communicating with a legislator. Be sure to include how your members, community and those you serve would be affected by a proposed change in the law. Send a copy to the legislator's staff and to the chair of your public policy committee.

• Testify. Your organization has expertise that is needed by legislators before they make decisions about the budget, regulations over programs, or new laws. Find out when the appropriate committees in your state legislature are holding hearings on subjects related to your mission and ask for permission to provide testimony in -- person.
• Provide a tour of your programs for one of your elected officials or for any policymaker you wish to influence. Be sure to have a Board member on site to show their support.

Initiate grassroots support. Send an action alert via e-mail to your volunteers, donors, members, and constituents urging them to contact their elected representatives about your cause; write an article in your local paper or newsletter; or hold a press conference, ideally on-site, involving members of the target population, and with good visuals to attract TV crews.

Give credit when credit is due. Finally, when your efforts have been successful, don't ever forget to be appreciative. At a minimum, write a letter of congratulations to anyone when they act in a helpful way to further your cause. For larger changes, you might consider going so far as holding a press conference. Failing to thank properly those who have changed policies in a way that will help your group is an excellent way to set up failure for your next efforts.

Also, be sure to remember to thank all those who volunteered time and money to help your public policy efforts.

Phase 4: Maintain and increase your advocacy efforts.

Finally, your organization needs to be ready to continue your efforts -- not just for a month or two, but forever. Lobbying to change policies takes time; and once policies have changed, they can always be changed back. Be ready to make this a regular part of your work, and to continue with it throughout the lifetime of your organization. For example, "Charity Lobbying in the Public Interest" suggests that your organization dedicate three hours a week to advocacy work with public officials alone.

How much lobbying can you do?

When you get into the topic of advocating for changes with elected officials, you are plunging into the treacherous waters of lobbying. Here, the laws get a little "hairy" as to what you can and cannot do. What follows is meant to be an overview to give the reader a broad understanding of how much lobbying is legal. We strongly suggest you consult with legal counsel when considering the specifics of your own situation.

What do we mean by lobbying?

Lobbying, as defined as related to the use of federal funds, is:

• Any attempt to influence the introduction, enactment, or modification of federal or state legislation either directly or through grassroots communications.
• "Legislative liaison" activities, such as attending hearings and analyzing the effects of legislation, when done in support of or in "knowing preparation" for a lobbying activity.
• Any attempt to influence elections, referenda, initiatives or similar procedures as well as contributions to influence the outcome of elections.

Nonprofits may not receive grants from private organizations specifically for lobbying; however, general grant money can be used for lobbying. Community foundations' money for lobbying is also okay.

How much lobbying can you legally do?

If you are an informal organization with no legal status:

The bottom line is -- a lot. Since lobbying limits are on money, if you are an informal organization without any money, that does not have certain tax-exempt status, you can essentially do as much as you want. That is, if you have no tax-exempt or other special status that involves public money or sponsorship, you ought to be able to do whatever you want as long as it's legal. If you're paying a lobbyist (even if you are doing so as a private citizen), he has to register as such, for instance, and you obviously can't bribe anyone.

If you are a 501(c)(3) organization:

Since being a designated 501(c)(3) organization gives you special tax status (and thus, special governmental status), lobbying must be "insubstantial." Now, what this means is not perfectly clear; courts have had varying opinions on just what "insubstantial " means in the past. However, limiting lobbying to about 5 percent of your organization's annual budget is usually said to be safe.

There is a loophole, however. As a 501(c)(3) organization, you can "elect" to spend more money on lobbying activity. An organization "elects" by having your Board vote to do so, and then completing and mailing IRS Form 5768. Specifically this allows your organization to spend:

• 20 percent of your first $500,000
• 15 percent of second $500,000
• And so on; you may spend up to a total of one million dollars on your lobbying activities
• However, only 25 percent of this may be spent on "grassroots" lobbying.

If you are a 501(c)(4) organization:

Restrictions are much more lenient. Janne Gallagher writes on the OMBWatch website that "nonprofits exempt under section 501(c)(4)...can engage in some electoral activities, so long as they obey federal and state election laws and electioneering is not their primary activity."

However, contributions to the organization aren't tax-deductible. It's possible to set up a linked organization, through which your 501(c)(3) organization may safely lobby indirectly. For more information on the specifics of 501(c)(4) organizations, you will probably want to consult with legal counsel.

In Summary

Learning to change policies to offer long term, continuous funding for your organization is hard work. It's not a quick fix or a magic pill. However, over the long run, working with policy makers to get them to see your organization as "necessary" is the best way to secure the long-term sustainability of your organization. Ideally, you are working to make your organization be seen as people see the fire department -- you are funded because not doing so would be unthinkable.

___You understand what public policies are

___You understand policies governing private giving

Changing policies

1. Research

___You know who supports your organization

___You have decided target corporations, policies and individuals

___You understand how to change the target organization's policies

___You know the staff of the persons you wish to influence

___You have found allies in your cause

2. Preparation

___You prepared your advocacy work

___You developed a clear, agreed-upon definition for your organization.

___You developed useful data

___You have increased your visibility

3. Execution

___You developed an action plan with measurable goals and objectives.

___You have built relationships with the people you wish to influence.

___You have built a public policy presence.

___You have initiated grassroots support.

4. Maintenance

___You have maintained and increased your advocacy efforts

___You know how much lobbying your organization can do

Tool # 1: Chart of Potential Funders

What follows is a chart your organization can use while brainstorming to look at all of the organizations your group might look to change their policies, and who has the power to change policies in each group. Then, in the third column you might list who has influence over those powerbrokers. In this group especially, look for people who have connections to your organization.

Organization Name	People at that organization with the ability to help your group	People who have influence over the people with power

A PowerPoint presentation summarizing the major points in the section.

This video illustrates how community partners worked with local businesses to improve access to healthy, affordable foods.

 

Consider two businesses, Company A and Company B:

Company A buys a tract of forest and meadow next to a wildlife protection area, cuts down all the trees, and covers most of the land with parking lots. It builds - with tax breaks given by the community to encourage it to settle there - a large factory that belches smoke into the sky and flushes chemicals into the river that flows through the protected land next door.

Many local people apply for the high-paying jobs the factory offers, but few are hired; Company A has brought most of its former workforce with it, driving up local housing prices and flooding the schools with new students. Suddenly taxes and prices rise, and new houses are going up on much of the open land that has made the community a pleasant place to live.

As if that weren't enough, the company refuses to join the local United Way, explaining that its parent company contributes to charity through its own foundation. When local organizations inquire about funding from the foundation, Company A representatives tell them that it only gives money to large, established charities.

Company B buys a similar, but larger, tract of land...and immediately sets aside half of it as a conservation area, which it invites the community to use. Rather than building a new plant, it has decided that the old factory on the edge of its new land is just what it needs, and hires local contractors to make over the building. At the company's direction, they install solar panels, double-paned windows that will reduce lighting costs and provide solar heat in winter, low-flow faucets, a water-recirculation system, and other "green" features. The plant, when it is finished, will be highly energy-efficient, and will, according to the company, put nothing into the environment that's harmful to people, wildlife, plants, or water quality.

Company B announces that it plans to hire at least 75% of its workforce from the local community, and to set up a training facility so that local people can learn the skills they need to work at the plant. It will also feature an on-site day care center for employees, as well as a generous medical and dental plan. Its executives volunteer for various organizations and boards. It funds half the cost of the construction of a new science center at the high school. It joins United Way and becomes active in its fundraising. And it explains that all of this is the policy of Company B's parent corporation, which believes in giving back to communities where it earns its money.

Which business's policies are more community-friendly? These examples are both extremes, of course. There are companies as callous as Company A, but not a huge number, and there are probably even fewer as community-spirited as Company B and its parent corporation. The contrast, however, serves to illustrate the difference between community-friendly and non-community-friendly business policies.

This section is about the social, health, economic, and environmental policies that business and government can adopt to improve community life, foster community development, and create healthy communities...and how community builders can persuade them to do so.

What do we mean by community-friendly policies?

Community-friendly policies benefit either the community as a whole or its citizens as individuals and groups. They work to strengthen the bonds that hold the community together and stimulate it to develop and grow in positive ways. In some communities, community-friendly policies may also be those that help the community keep its character and historic structures and traditions, rather than forcing it into a different mold. In others, community-friendly policies may help the community change or adapt to change. They are, in the final analysis, policies that make the community healthier and benefit its quality of life.

Community-friendly policies have some specific characteristics:

• They regard each community individually, taking into account the realities and uniqueness of its situation and its real needs.
• They pay attention to the cultural and social norms of the community, and to patterns of relationships and settlement.
• They support diversity and its expression, with the understanding that people can only feel like members of a community if they feel trusted and respected for who they are.
• They don't allow the building of highways that cut close-knit neighborhoods in half, or that eliminate neighborhoods entirely, as happened in many cities in the Urban Renewal era of the 1950's to mid-'70's.
• They don't favor one group at the expense of another, or make racial or cultural distinctions.
• They respect the natural environment and the history of the community enough to try to preserve and take care of them.
• They safeguard and promote the health and security of the community and its members, and lead to regulations that are fair to everyone.

The attention paid to community-friendly policies should make the community a better place to live, and improve the lives and situations of everyone in the community over time.

In the ideal, community-friendliness would be a normal consideration in any policy decision. In order for that to happen, businesses and government have to see community not only as a place where people live, but as a shared experience as well, one to which every member contributes, and from which every member benefits. The Institute for Public Policy Research, for instance, a progressive think tank based in England, seeks to use community as the context for all thinking about social and economic policy, and thus to make all policy community-friendly. This thinking fits nicely with the World Health Organization's use of community as the context for thinking about health. Community-friendly policy ultimately leads to a healthy community.

Community-friendly policies come in many forms. We've already suggested that they may be social, health-related, economic, or environmental, and this isn't really the whole story. We could include "political" and "cultural" under "social" as well, for example. As the title of this section implies, these policies can be the products of either business or government or both. They may be aimed directly at community-friendly goals, or they may be unintentional by-products of self-interest. Often, they are a combination of the two, in that instituting such policies may benefit a business, a government branch or agency, or an official, as well as the community.

What are some examples of community-friendly policies?

Community-friendly social policies.

Social policies affect the ways in which individuals and groups interact with and relate to one another in a community or a society, as well as their responsibilities and obligations to one another and their rights. Both governments and businesses can institute social policies - governments for communities, states, or countries as a whole; businesses for their own employees, or, sometimes, through a trade association or agreement, for all workers in a particular group or industry.

Community-friendly social policies are those that encourage or support social norms that make the community as a whole more livable, or that improve the lives of large numbers of individuals or groups without detracting from anyone else's.

Examples of community-friendly social policies:

• Rent subsidies for low-income residents, coupled with tax incentives for landlords to fix up and offer subsidized, as well as market-rate, units. These policies make it possible for everyone to have a decent place to live, encourage mixed-income housing (and thereby diversity), and increase the supply of affordable housing.
• The development or encouragement of the development of pedestrian spaces in the community through subsidies, negotiations with developers, tax incentives, etc.

• Policies prohibiting discriminatory practices, such as racial profiling, discrimination in housing and hiring, etc.
• A government commitment to public transportation. Public transportation provides mobility to those who have no access to cars, conserves resources, and reduces traffic congestion.
• Language policies. Translation in public meetings (as well as signing for the hearing-impaired) and other government activities sends a message that all are welcome to participate, and that everyone's participation is valued.
• Financial and other encouragement for fixing up existing buildings and using former industrial and other abandoned spaces for housing and other development. This type of policy can help historic preservation - an important element of community identity - and prevent sprawl, which wastes energy and other resources and eats open space.
• Family-friendly policies. Parental leave, on-site day care, flexible schedules, and similar benefits make lives better for working families and allow them more time to participate in community life.
• Workplace education, particularly in basic skills and English as a Second or Other Language (ESOL). Education benefits the workers involved, the employer - because its workers are better prepared and can be more easily trained - and the community, by enabling workers to take part more fully in community life.
• Employers encouraging - and, in many cases, paying for - employees to spend time volunteering on organizational and community boards and committees, and in health, human service, and cultural organizations.
• Support for community arts and culture. By sponsoring performances, displaying art in business spaces open to the public (as many banks do), and otherwise supporting the arts and culture, businesses can add greatly to the quality of community life.
• Support for recreation. Many businesses sponsor youth sports teams, charity golf tournaments, and community sports leagues.
• Transportation. Community-friendly transportation policy could be considered social, economic, health-related, or environmental, depending on the lens through which you view it. Public transportation and business-financed or -sponsored van pools and shuttles allow for inexpensive and convenient transportation to work, school, and shopping; provide transportation for those who otherwise wouldn't have it (seniors, people with disabilities, the poor); encourage the mixing of people from different community sectors and cultures; make businesses - particularly downtown businesses - more accessible; encourage walking (to and from stops, on errands in between rides); reduce traffic congestion and pollution; and save energy.

Community-friendly economic policies.

Economic policy covers a vast area, touching on anything that involves the ways in which people and communities meet their basic needs - food, clothing, and shelter for individuals; government, education, and infrastructure (roads, utilities, etc.) for communities - and, for those fortunate enough to have that opportunity, pay for luxuries and leisure activities. Most of the policies of both government and business are either directly focused on economics, or are driven by economic concerns.

Community-friendly economic policies are those that help assure that all community members have their basic needs met; improve the economic situation of low-, moderate-, and middle-income individuals and families, allowing them greater economic freedom and more choices; or improve the economic situation of the community as a whole, providing taxes, employment, and opportunity, as well as access to goods and services.

Examples of community-friendly economic policies:

• Enterprise zones and Business Improvement Districts. Enterprise zones are low-income districts in both urban and rural areas that receive funding from the federal or state government to revitalize themselves. Business Improvement Districts are areas where local businesses make voluntary contributions to support the economic and other development of their district.
• Hiring practices. Local governments often try to engage in fair hiring practices, so that the racial, ethnic, gender, and cultural mix of city employees reflects the general population. City governments also can, and often do, require that any city employees - teachers, firefighters, police, etc. - live within the city. This both works to keep the city a community of families, and ensures decent jobs for a large number of residents.

• Tax incentives. Governments at all levels can offer tax breaks to businesses in return for such practices as setting up shop in distressed or disadvantaged areas, adopting environmentally-friendly procedures and equipment, and hiring members of disadvantaged groups (welfare recipients, people with disabilities).
• Education. State governments may subsidize the building of new schools, for instance. State university systems in the U.S. provide inexpensive education to students whose families might not otherwise be able to afford college, and universities in some countries are free to all who are eligible to enroll.
• Community Development Block Grants. These federal grants are funneled through the states to communities, specifically for the improvement of infrastructure and public services in low-to-moderate income areas.
• Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). In 1977, the U.S. Congress passed a law requiring banks to develop community-friendly lending and investment policies in the communities in which they do business. Over the years, the CRA has made it possible for many low- and moderate-income families to become homeowners, and has supported community development efforts in thousands of communities.

• Hiring and personnel practices. Like government, a business or industry may give hiring preference to local applicants or disadvantaged groups, and may even, like Company B in our example, set up training programs to prepare those people to be hired. They may also promote from within, so that someone starting out as a janitor or laborer has the opportunity to end his working life as a foreman or manager.

• Employee buy-in. Many companies offer employees the chance to buy shares in the business, making them part-owners. This can be risky - many employees of Enron who invested heavily in the company lost their life savings when it went under - but it also means that workers have a say in how the company is run, and a stake in making it successful.
• Support for other local businesses. A business that's willing to try to find materials and supplies locally, even if it means paying slightly more, is carrying out a community-friendly policy. Restaurants often try to support local agriculture and buy directly from farmers in their area, for instance.
• Small loans to individuals. In some areas of the developing world, a few banks have found that making small loans to villagers can be a good investment. Especially in places where a non-governmental organization (NGO) or individual has organized borrowers into an organization, as small a loan as $25.00 can pull a whole family - and sometimes a whole village - out of poverty.

Community-friendly health policies.

In a sense, all community-friendly policies are health-related. The World Health Organization (WHO) sees health as a community issue, and finds nine prerequisites for health and a healthy community: peace, shelter, education, food, income, a stable ecosystem, sustainable resources, social justice, and equity. These include all the areas that community-friendly policy is likely to touch on. There are, however, policies that aim specifically at the physical health of citizens.

Examples of community-friendly health policies:

• The establishment of greenways, bike lanes, urban and rural walking and bike trails, etc. These car-free paths encourage people to exercise, granting them not only pleasure, but the health benefits of regular physical activity, and may reduce pollution as well.
• No-smoking laws. While many smokers would perhaps not regard these laws as community-friendly, there is no longer any question that smoking is a health hazard, and that second-hand smoke - smoke breathed by non-smokers in the presence of people smoking - is nearly as harmful as smoking itself. Anti-smoking ordinances protect the health of non-smokers, and may help to change smokers' behavior.
• The construction of public sports facilities. Building sports facilities - skate parks, tennis courts, soccer fields, pools - for community use encourages exercise, particularly for children and youth. There is a good deal of evidence that habits of physical activity gained in childhood stay with you for the rest of your life, and help to prevent heart disease, strokes, and other ailments that were once considered the inevitable companions of aging.
• Health care and health insurance. In most of the developed world, with the notable exception of the U.S., governments use tax money to provide health care for everyone, either by employing medical professionals directly or by acting as insurer.

• Encouragement of exercise. Many businesses maintain an on-site exercise facility, (gym, workout room, outdoor jogging track, etc.), sponsor walking or jogging clubs or lunchtime sports, or subsidize health club memberships for employees.
• Healthy food in company cafeterias and restaurants. Businesses can choose to serve only healthy food in on-site cafeterias. Healthy food can help employees manage weight and avoid heart disease, many cancers, and diabetes, among other conditions.

• Managing emissions into the air and water. By "scrubbing" or otherwise treating whatever comes out of their factory chimneys and waste pipes, businesses can maintain or improve the community's air and water quality, thus reducing the risk of respiratory illness, certain cancers, and other conditions.
• Employee assistance programs. Mental health counseling, substance use treatment, stress management, and other health-related services are offered, either on- or off-site, by many businesses as part of their employee benefit package.
• Preventive health screenings. Some employers conduct annual or semiannual screenings for high blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes, and other easily-detectable conditions at no cost to employees.

Community-friendly environmental policies.

The environment of a community can be divided into the natural environment - the areas of land, air, and water that haven't been shaped by human interference, and the plants and animals that flourish there - and the built environment - the buildings, streets and roads, bridges, and other constructions that people make in order to mold their environment to their comfort and convenience. Falling somewhere between are the "natural" areas that aren't really natural - parks, farms, and other man-made landscapes, as well as the areas that were once used by people, but have been intentionally or unintentionally left to go "back to nature."

The ultimate goals of community-friendly environmental policies are to create as comfortable and people-friendly a built environment as possible, preserving open space and other features of the natural environment, conserving natural resources, and maintaining healthy air and water quality. In government and business alike, these ends demand attention to both the built and natural environments.

Examples of community-friendly environmental policies:

• Establishment of wildlife refuges, urban wilderness, and other protected areas. Most national, state or provincial, and many local governments set aside areas of natural beauty or particular interest to be protected from development.
• Environmental requirements for development. Following on the landmark U.S. National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, many countries, as well as individual states and provinces, have instituted laws requiring assessments of the environmental impact of any government or government-funded project. This makes it possible to minimize the environmental consequences of such a project to the community, and to protect natural areas and resources.
• Environmental laws and regulations. In the U.S. and many other countries, laws regulating air and water quality, mandating environmental clean-up, and setting vehicle emissions standards protect both the community and the environment.
• Conservation easements and farmland protection policies. Conservation easements and the Farmland Protection Program make it possible to sell the development rights to land at a fair market rate (or to donate the rights and take a tax credit) to the government or a land trust, while keeping ownership. This protects the land from development, while allowing owners who may have few other assets to realize its value.
• Recycling. Many communities establish recycling centers where paper, plastic, glass, metal, and other materials are sold to recyclers and reused. While there is occasional debate about whether this actually saves energy (recycling materials, by some measures, uses as much energy as manufacturing new materials), it obviously saves bulk. Glass and plastic, in particular, don't break down in landfills - they'll still be there in a thousand years - so the more times they can be recycled, the better for the community environment.
• Building or refitting buildings to conserve energy. Businesses can use renewable-energy heating, water recirculation, and other energy-conservation schemes.

• Adopt-a-highway programs. Here, a business takes responsibility for keeping a mile or two of local roadway clear of trash and debris by sending out a crew of employees on a regular basis to clean up the roadside.
• Tree-planting and other similar activities. Many businesses engage in beautification efforts - planting trees and flowers, cleaning up their lots, etc. - that have environmental benefits as well. Trees, for instance, provide shade in summer and windbreaks in winter, and absorb carbon dioxide while giving off oxygen.
• Voluntarily developing or buying technology to make operations cleaner. "Scrubbers" for chimney emissions, improved water filters, computerized meters for use of water and chemicals - these are only a tiny fraction of the devices available that can improve or protect environmental quality and conserve energy.

The range of community-friendly policies is limited only by the creativity of people in government, business, and the community.

Why promote community-friendly policies?

The value of community-friendly policies may seem obvious, but if it were, there would be no need for policy change. It's important to think about what the advantages of real community-friendly policies are, and to champion them at every opportunity.

• Community-friendly policies can help everyone in the community. They make the community a more pleasant place to live, and improve its overall quality of life. Many policies - a commitment to excellent schools, for instance - not only attract new residents and businesses (thereby providing tax revenue and jobs), but can change the future for the next generation.
• Community-friendly policies can promote equity. Such policies ease the burdens of those on the bottom of the economic ladder by providing them with the possibility of decent jobs and housing, and the tools to find and keep them.
• Community-friendly policies can promote diversity. By respecting cultural and other differences, they make possible a community in which everyone feels valued.
• Community-friendly policies can be good for business. By helping to make the community an attractive place to live, firms increase their ability to recruit the best employees, and also increase their local support. Furthermore, many community-friendly policies - pedestrian spaces, for instance - specifically promote business and increase commercial activity.
• Community-friendly policies can help politicians get elected or reelected. All good politicians know this, but many have to be reminded about what's actually community-friendly, as opposed to merely self-serving.
• Community-friendly policies promote community health, environmental quality, financial stability, and social justice. That's their purpose.

When would you promote community-friendly policies?

The obvious - and correct - answer here is all the time, but there are some crucial points when the opportunity for promoting community-friendly policies is greatest.

• When policy is specifically being debated. Whether there's a crisis, or whether a particular area of policy has simply come up for a regularly-scheduled review, this is an excellent time to describe community-friendly policies, and to point out their advantages.
• When there's an election. Politicians can be more easily convinced to take community-friendly positions when they know that those positions will gain them votes. If you can bring enough people together to convince candidates that there's support for community-friendly policy, they'll probably be willing to support it as well.
• When something new - a development, a construction project, a highway, a park, an initiative of some sort - is about to be started. Getting in on the ground floor will give the community negotiating power. It may be possible to convince a developer to add "green" elements to buildings or landscape (energy conserving systems, low-water sprinklers, elimination of toxic fertilizers and pesticides), or to persuade the city's anti-drug initiative to add substance-abuse treatment to the stricter enforcement it's planning.
• When there's a crisis in the making. If a historic building that could be turned to other uses is about to be destroyed, or still more subsidies for affordable housing are about to be cut, it's time to intervene and explain why the proposed policy isn't community-friendly, and why community-friendly policy would better serve everyone.
• When there's a public groundswell for community-friendly policy in a specific area. Whether because of an event, a widely-publicized study or article, or simply a growing public perception of a need, community members sometimes come together to demand solutions in the form of community-friendly policy. There's no better time to approach policy makers than when you have the weight of public opinion on your side.
• When the community is invited to the table. When you're asked to be part of a planning or policy-making process, it's up to you to make the most of the opportunity, and to make clear what makes the most sense for the community both from its own current perspective, and from looking at the long term.

Who should promote community-friendly policies?

Perhaps the real question here is "Who decides what are community-friendly policies?" The ideal answer is that it's a collaborative decision among all sectors of the community, policy makers, and perhaps researchers (who may also be community members) as well. That ideal, however, is seldom met, and even when it is, it may involve a great deal of patience and negotiation on all sides.

If a participatory, collaborative process isn't possible - because of lack of time, lack of structure, lack of interest, or the nature of the divisions within the community - among those who might be involved are:

• Stakeholders (i.e. those most directly affected by the policy).
• Community activists.
• Particular populations or groups who may have an interest (language minorities, public housing tenants, parents of children in the schools, the business community, low-income workers, etc.)
• Public officials, both elected and appointed.
• Public employees (who may be asked to carry out or administer policy).
• Community-based organizations and community coalitions.
• Educational institutions.

How do you promote community-friendly policies?

This last part of the section may look familiar if you've read Section 11 of this chapter. It's adapted from that section, Promoting Family-Friendly Policies in Business and Government. The two issues are in fact quite similar, and there's a great deal of overlap.

In many cases, for either business or government, the adoption of community-friendly policies is more than a simple decision to do things one way as opposed to another. It involves a change in perception about the nature of a community, and about what's important for businesses and society. For that reason, promoting community-friendly policies may take time and careful thought. The following series of steps takes that into account.

Decide where to start.

Your success may depend on the issue you choose to address first. You're not going to change a community overnight, and you're not going to persuade it to change everything at once. What's a good first step toward a totally community-friendly set of policies?

One possibility is to poll community members to see what's most important to them. You might find different preferences for different folks: business people may be largely concerned with economic issues, while parents may be focused on education. Still others may be most interested in the environment or in social issues. You should aim for fairness in what you propose: what's the greatest benefit for everyone?

The ideal is to start with something that will have a real impact, but that isn't so ambitious that it's impossible - or too impossibly expensive - to achieve. It's unlikely, for instance, that a community will, at your urging, decide to revamp its whole public transportation system, but it might be persuaded to put in a new bus route. That's a start, and it may mean a great deal to the people it serves.

Do your homework.

Especially if there is to be a public debate about the issue of community-friendly policies, you need to have not only facts, but also ideas at the tip of your tongue. Some of the areas you should research:

• Businesses or communities, especially nearby ones, where community-friendly policies have been adopted.
• Policies that have been implemented elsewhere, and their results.
• Best practices, as determined by research and/or results.
• Particular needs in your community.
• Alternatives to what you're initially proposing.
• Potential costs, and ways to defray them.
• Potential benefits for everyone involved.

Your research might include searching libraries and the Internet, talking to people who've had direct experience with the issue - local officials, business leaders, community activists, environmentalists, consumer advocates, etc. - conferring with researchers or other experts, and talking with health and human service organizations that have worked with businesses or communities as partners in implementing community-friendly policies.

Your effort is far more likely to be successful if you know what you're talking about, and have answers to the objections of opponents or skeptics. The more information and ideas you have, the more people will take your arguments seriously.

Offer to help find solutions that work.

As explained above, part of your research should be aimed at generating some alternative community-friendly scenarios. These can be used as starting points in a discussion of what kinds of community-friendly practices or policies might work in your community or business. Alternatively, you can offer to participate in a coalition or on a committee set up to look at possible community-friendly innovations. Some ways to make community-friendly policies work:

• Public-private cost sharing. Workplace education programs themselves are often paid for by public funds (taxes), while employers encourage workers to take advantage of them by providing paid release time for education.
• Volunteerism. Once a skate park is established and built by the community, it could be maintained by the "Friends of the Skate Park," many of whom are likely to be drawn from among its users.
• Pilot programs. You can test a small, inexpensive version of a possible program or initiative, in order to examine its effectiveness, and to adjust and improve it before committing to a large-scale effort.
• Incentives. Businesses that conserve water, for instance, might pay lower meter rates in addition to saving by using less.
• Fees. Government-supported community-friendly facilities can charge an admission fee to help cover costs, or might be supported by higher taxes.
• Recognition. A "Community-Friendly" designation might be granted by local government, the Chamber of Commerce, or some other body to businesses that have implemented community-friendly policies.

Frame the debate as a win-win situation.

Try to avoid assuming an adversary position here. Emphasize the fact that community-friendly policies are good for everyone involved - employers, government, the society as a whole. No one loses, and everyone benefits. Use the available research to make the case that community-friendly policies improve the business climate and the quality of life in a community.
It's hard to argue against a change that confers universal benefits.

Point to and reward those businesses and government agencies who support and engage in community-friendly practices.

A "community hero" or "best business" award, with lots of publicity, could both raise the profile of community-friendliness and identify it as something that others might aspire to.

Communicate, communicate, communicate.

Get your message out to policy makers in business and government, to activists, and to the public. The best arguments in the world are worthless if no one hears them. Use all the channels available to you, particularly:

• The media
• Labor unions.
• Chambers of Commerce and other business associations.
• Community activists.
• Professional associations.
• Direct contact with policy makers.
• Direct contact with the appropriate people in businesses. These might be CEO's, Human Service Directors, owners of small businesses, or influential employees.

Marshal support.

Put together a coalition, if you can, or work for the support of a large number of influential people. It would be great if your support could come from all segments of the community, but some particularly important groups and individuals include:

• Unions and other trade associations.
• Working families.
• Community activists.
• Community organizations and institutions (fraternal organizations, churches, hospitals, universities, etc.)
• Businesses and business associations.
• Policy makers.
• Influential individuals, particularly in business and government.

Advocate for community-friendly policies in whatever ways are appropriate to the situation.

You'll have to decide what "appropriate" means for you here. The more confrontational you choose to be, the harder it is to restore good will afterwards. You'd probably only use direct action, for instance, in a situation that's patently unfair and not likely to improve in any other way. Your goal, after all, is one that's typified by policy makers in business and government being genuinely concerned about people, and feeling, at the same time, that any community-friendly changes they make will benefit them as well - hardly an adversary situation.

Some possible ways you might advocate for community-friendly policies:

• Direct advocacy with businesses. If you have powerful arguments to make, making them face to face can sometimes be your best strategy.
• Union negotiations.
• Persuading business, professional, or trade associations (the Chamber of Commerce, for example) to issue policy statements supporting community-friendly practices and policies.
• Legislative advocacy. This might entail personal contact with legislators and aides, a full-scale legislative campaign, or both.
• Electoral campaigns and ballot initiatives. A candidate who adopts your ideas can bring them enormous publicity (and can help turn them into policy if she's elected). Alternatively, in many states you can, by gathering enough voters' signatures, put a policy change on the ballot as a referendum question to be decided by the voters. If they approve, the community-friendly policy you proposed becomes law.
• A media campaign.
• Direct action. Again, this would probably be a last resort, and could range, in increasing order of seriousness from filing a grievance or complaint, to holding a public demonstration, to calling a strike or boycott, to a lawsuit.

Continue promoting community-friendly policies in business and government indefinitely.

The long-term goal here is a different view of community, and the consideration of what's community-friendly whenever policy is formulated. In order to reach that goal, you have to keep working at it indefinitely. Each gain is a step in that direction...but if you stop walking, you'll find yourself not standing still, but going backward. As with almost any other activity described in the Community Tool Box, you have to keep moving forward to reach your goal.

In Summary

Community-friendly policies are those social, economic, health, and environmental policies that improve life for particular groups or the community as a whole, while harming or detracting from no one, respecting cultural and other differences, fostering environmental responsibility, encouraging diversity, and making the community a better place to live. In a perfect world, community would always be the context for any discussion of policy, and the uniqueness of each community would be considered when policy was made. Since the world is not yet perfect, it is the responsibility of community builders and activists - and anyone who's affected by or interested in policy decisions - to promote that view, and to advocate or plan for community-friendly policy.

The best-case scenario is to get seats for all sectors of the community at the policy-making table, so that policy decisions are collaborative and take differing and sometimes conflicting needs into account. When, as is usually the case, that's not possible, persuasion - or, when all else has failed, confrontation - may be needed to convince the powers that be of the necessity of community-friendly decisions.

Whatever the case, the long term goal here is to make the consideration of community-friendliness a given in any policy discussion, and to create a view of community that encompasses everyone and makes every policy decision community-friendly.

What do we mean by community-friendly policies?

___Community-friendly policies are those social, economic, health, and environmental policies that make the community healthier and improve its quality of life.

___Community-friendly policies respect cultural and other diversity, community history, and environmental integrity.

___Community-friendly policies regard each community as unique, and take its characteristics into account.

___Community-friendly policies use the community as the context for policy-making.

Why promote community-friendly policies?

___Community-friendly policies help everyone in the community.

___Community-friendly policies promote equity.

___Community-friendly policies promote diversity.

___Community-friendly policies are good for business.

___Community-friendly policies help politicians get reelected.

___Community-friendly policies promote community health, environmental quality, financial stability, and social justice.

When would you promote community-friendly policies?

___When policy is specifically being debated. 

___When something new is about to be started. 

___When there's an election.

___When there's a crisis in the making.

___When there's a public groundswell for community-friendly policy in a specific area.

___When the community is invited to the table.

Who should promote community-friendly policies?

___Everyone.

___Stakeholders (i.e. those most directly affected by the policy).

___Community activists.

___Particular populations or groups who may have an interest (language minorities, public housing tenants, parents of children in the schools, the business community, low-income workers, etc.)

___Public officials, both elected and appointed.

___Public employees (who may be asked to carry out or administer policy).

___Community-based organizations and community coalitions.

___Educational institutions.

A PowerPoint presentation summarizing the major points in the section.

• What do we mean by changing policies in schools?

• Why should you work to change policies in schools?

• When should you try to change policies in schools?

• Who should be involved in changing policies in schools?

• How do you change policies in schools?

When the Watsons came to Perryville High School for their eldest son’s first scheduled parent conference of ninth grade, they found something that neither ever saw in a school when they were students. In the hallways on every floor, as well as in the cafeteria, there were vending machines offering soda.

Rita Watson was a hospital nutritionist, and her husband, Mel, was an athletic trainer who worked with the football and baseball teams at the local university. They had always provided a healthy diet for themselves and their two sons, and had taught their children good eating habits. Both of them were well aware of the rise in childhood obesity – it was more and more visible on the streets of Perryville these days – and they knew that soda was a major contributor to that rise. They felt that the high school – which, after all, offered health classes that taught students about good nutrition – should not be offering kids drinks that could be bad for them.

They returned from the conference with a glowing report of their son’s progress, and the beginnings of a plan. As they researched the issue of soda and snack machines in high schools, they found that their presence was all too common. They also found that schools made a lot of money from contracts with soft drink companies – money that paid for extracurricular activities, supplies, and equipment. While the Watsons were supportive of these activities – both of their sons were athletes – they felt strongly that the school should be safeguarding students’ health, not encouraging unhealthy habits.

The couple set out to change the school policy on vending machines. They wanted them either removed from the school, or to offer only foods and drinks that contributed to, rather than harmed, children’s health. Aware that they had an uphill battle on their hands – Perryville High made over $50,000 in contracts and soda sales every year – they enlisted their friends and determined to keep at it until they were successful.

Sometimes school policies, like those that allow vending machines that sell unhealthy foods, can be harmful to students’ health or education. Sometimes, schools or school systems lack policies that would benefit students in particular ways. Sometimes their policies, formal or informal, are discriminatory or abusive of students’ rights. Parents, students, or concerned citizens often find themselves wanting to change school or school system policies…and many do. This section looks at what kinds of issues school policies might cover, and what it takes to change policies in a school system.

What do we mean by changing policies in schools?

In the U.S., the variation among school systems – from state to state, from community to community, even from school to school – is enormous. There are obvious differences in size – many rural schools have fewer than 10 students a class, while some urban and suburban schools in large cities have thousands of students – but the variation doesn’t stop there. Looking at public schools alone, there are comprehensive and specialized high schools; charter schools; technical and trade high schools; magnet schools; alternative schools for students who can’t function in a standard classroom setting; and community-run schools, to mention only a few.

The ways in which these schools are organized and run vary as much as their purposes. Some are relatively independent: what goes on in the school is largely determined by the principal and teaching staff. Some involve parents as partners in planning and implementing both curriculum and school management. Some, unfortunately, have to be concerned with student violence, and feature metal detectors and police patrols. Some have strict dress codes – sometimes to the point of requiring uniforms – others have none. Some are devoted to academics, and to sending as many students as possible to top-ranked colleges; others seem much more concerned with sports or other extracurricular activities. By and large, schools mirror the educational philosophy and attitudes of the people in their districts.

All of these schools have policies regarding everything from academic and curriculum requirements to the scheduling of lunches. System-wide policies are generally decided upon by the local school committee, while policies unique to a particular school are often set and implemented by the school staff.

Most school systems and schools are hierarchical – they have a clear (at least to themselves) chain of command, and you have to follow that chain in order to communicate with the system. In the U.S., the links in that chain are usually (from the top down):

• School Committee
• Superintendent of Schools
• Assistant Superintendents
• Other system-wide administrators (coordinators of curriculum, athletics, special education, business, physical plant)
• Principals
• Teachers and other professional employees (nurses, guidance counselors and school psychologists, coaches)
• Support and custodial staff

Each of these levels is one you might have to deal with in attempting to change school policy. (See Tool #1 for a more detailed description of “the players.”)

In addition to whatever difficulties the system hierarchy might offer, there is the fact that most public school teachers and other non-administrative employees are unionized, a circumstance that can complicate (or, occasionally, make easier) a change initiative. The change you’re seeking might – or might appear to – conflict with the union contract, for instance, or might require a union member’s job description to change (a circumstance that would require union negotiations). Given the two factors of the management hierarchy and the union, advocates are often faced with the possibility of having to move the whole of a large and resistant bureaucracy in order to affect change.

There are alternatives. Some schools are relatively independent, and can make decisions without having to go through several layers of school system. Some unions are willing to make compromises in the service of better outcomes for students. Often, if the policy change in question relates only to a particular school, and if it’s not momentous, the principal or faculty can make the change quietly, without fanfare or bureaucratic hassle.

In general, however, the School Committee is responsible for setting policy, and the Superintendent for carrying it out. Although the two advise and consult with each other, system-wide policy changes usually have to be approved by the School Committee, but that usually means that they must have the approval of the Superintendent as well, since most Committees value the Superintendent’s advice. If you can convince the Superintendent that change is necessary, it will probably happen, though perhaps not always as quickly as you’d like.

That doesn’t always mean that administrators and teachers will go along. In Philadelphia in the 1960’s, a Superintendent was hired to shake things up in a less-than-stellar school system. He instituted, with the support of the School Committee, a number of reforms that actually spoke to improving education in the district...but the teachers essentially ignored them. By a combination of foot-dragging and outright defiance, they were able to frustrate most of the Superintendent’s plans, and he was gone within a fairly short time. If he had involved the teachers in planning, the situation might have been different, but the reality is that policy change was instituted, and nothing happened anyway.

The Watsons wanted to eliminate vending machines or change their contents. What kinds of school policies might you want to change? The list is almost endless – and there is often someone who wants a change exactly opposite from the one you want. A short list of possibilities:

• Institute a no-smoking policy in the school system (for teachers and administrators as well as students).
• Serve healthy food in the cafeteria, and eliminate food that is only empty calories or actively bad for kids’ physical and mental development.
• Change the discipline system (to be more rigorous, less rigorous, student-generated, to involve parents, etc.).
• Address school prayer (eliminate it; institute a moment of silence; reinstitute school prayer – philosophies vary).
• Institute or revamp a health or sex education curriculum.
• Change the dress code.
• Beef up or change the academic content for students at various levels.
• Add ESL (English as a Second or Other Language) or bilingual programs for a growing immigrant population.
• Change sexual harassment policies to better protect students and staff.
• Change policies on student use of school computers.
• Change policies toward Channel 1 and other advertising during the school day.
• Tighten or loosen the requirements for participation in extracurricular activities.
• Change the limits of students’ freedom of speech in school newspapers.

Why might you want to change policies in schools?

There are seven overarching reasons to change school policies: to improve students’ health; to improve education; to meet the needs of particular groups; to improve classroom and school climate and culture; to protect students (and staff) from harm; to safeguard students’ rights; and to respond to a perceived community need.

To improve students’ (and others’) health.

Schools often teach health courses, but they don’t always practice, or encourage students to practice, what they preach. Some policies that actually might improve student health:

• Smoke- and tobacco-free schools
• School breakfast as well as lunch, with healthy food for both
• Elimination of soda and snack vending machines
• A physical education or exercise period every day
• A good K-12 sex education curriculum (age-appropriate at each grade level), as part of a good K-12 health education curriculum

To improve education.

Changes in curriculum, in educational content, in expectations for students, in teaching methods, in class size, in teacher independence – all these and many other factors can lead to a better educational experience for students. Some other possible changes involve:

• Class content.
• Textbooks and other instructional materials.
• Foreign language requirements.
• Interdisciplinary approaches.
• Advanced placement.
• Expectations for all students.
• The academic schedule.
• Student assessment (i.e. grades).
• Graduation requirements.

In 2004, a Dover, PA school board voted to include the teaching of “intelligent design” – the assumption that the world and the diversity of species are too complex to have evolved in the way Darwin described, and that there must, therefore, be a guiding hand – in the ninth grade biology curriculum. Religious beliefs notwithstanding, this assumption is not grounded in science and is more appropriate for a theology class. When a federal judge in 2005 struck down the vote as an unconstitutional attempt to teach religion in the guise of science, he dramatically brought about a change in the content of the curriculum.

• The academic schedule.

Many high schools have in the past several years adopted block scheduling, which changes the standard class period from 40 or 50 minutes to twice that long, on the assumption that fewer, more intense classes give teachers better teaching opportunities, and create better learning experiences for students. Others have extended the academic year or the academic day. A few have attempted to schedule classes to match adolescents’ internal clocks, which are actually on a different schedule from those of adults and younger children.

To meet the needs of particular groups.

Some groups of students may need services in addition to those offered to the general school population, and it may take a policy change to obtain them. These groups include:

• Students with physical disabilities, including speech, hearing, and vision impairments.
• Students with emotional difficulties or mental illness.
• Students with developmental disabilities.
• Students with learning disabilities.
• Immigrants or other students who are not proficient in English.
• Teenage parents.

To improve classroom and school climate and culture.

“Classroom climate” is a term that refers to what a classroom feels like – student and teacher attitudes, the level of tension, whether the purpose of the classroom seems to be work or otherwise, etc.. The culture of a school can be considered in much the same way as the culture of a society – the customs, norms, standards, and behaviors that the majority of students, teachers, and other school personnel define as appropriate and approve of, as well as those that are disapproved by the majority.

The type of policy change needed in a given situation hangs on the character of the school. If the general atmosphere is too chaotic, it needs to be calmed; if it’s too rigid, it needs to be loosened up. Some of the potential targets of policy change that follow could be changed in either direction, depending upon what’s needed.

• Dress codes. These might be instituted, stiffened, eliminated, etc..
• Disciplinary systems. Discipline could be tightened to reduce in-school violence, changed to involve students in generating classroom rules and sanctions, loosened to allow particular activities, etc..
• Advising. A change might institute advising groups, change the focus of such groups, train teachers and/or counselors to be better advisors, etc..
• Counseling.
• Issues of tolerance. Promoting an atmosphere of acceptance and mutual respect among students of different races, ethnic backgrounds, language groups, sexual preferences, etc..
• Peer mediation and conflict resolution programs.
• Student-teacher and student-staff relationships.
• Democracy, both in the classroom and among teachers, administrators, and other school employees.

To protect students (and staff) from harm.

In some schools, particularly in gang- plagued urban neighborhoods – where a culture of violence may be entrenched among teens – this may mean protecting everyone from gang-related or random physical violence by students or outsiders. But, in any school system, it may also mean protecting students from physical or psychological bullying (by teachers as well as other students), from safety hazards, and from health hazards.

Some changes that might help provide protection:

• Metal detectors and police patrols. These may not improve the learning experience, but they may be necessary to prevent bodily harm.
• Anti-bullying policies. As mentioned, these can only work by changing the school culture. If teachers and other staff don’t see bullying as a problem, it will continue.
• Repair of building safety hazards. Falling plaster, broken windows, unshielded heaters, etc..
• Elimination of the use of dangerous or toxic chemical solvents, cleaners, and pesticides.
• Halting corporal (physical) punishment. There are still many school systems that use corporal punishment to discipline students, and many more where it is permissible, but rarely, if ever, used.
• Careful oversight of athletics. Guarding against overtraining, inadequate protective equipment, heatstroke, potentially injurious training or punishment exercises, etc..

To safeguard students’ rights.

Children have rights, just as adults do, although those rights are tempered by children’s need for structure and protection. Nonetheless, when those rights are violated unnecessarily, policy change to safeguard them is in order. Some of the constitutional rights that should be attended to:

• Separation of church and state. All children have a right to practice their chosen religion or lack of religion, and to be free in school of any attempt to impose someone else’s beliefs on them. (This doesn’t mean religion shouldn’t be discussed or studied, but rather that neither a particular religion nor religion in general should be presented as “the truth,” nor made part of any required school activities.)
• Free speech and expression. Federal law, dating back at least to a 1969 Supreme Court decision that states that students “do not shed their Constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate,” protects students’ rights in this area to a point. The law makes exceptions particularly in the case of speech or expression that is obscene; slanderous or libelous; or that would disrupt the orderly functioning of the school (hate speech, for instance, or a call for a student strike).
• Civil rights. In a school context, these might include, among others, the right to question disciplinary proceedings; the right to a hearing; the right to equal treatment regardless of race, ethnic background, gender, religion, sexual preference, etc.; and the right to freedom from bodily harm.

To respond to a perceived community need.

This may have to do with the establishment of a particular course or program (a multilingual program as a response to an influx of immigrants, for instance, or a tolerance course to address recent hate crimes), safety or security concerns (traffic patterns, procedures for school visitors), or the timing of the school day or school year (in Aroostook County, Maine, for instance, students get a three-week break in September and October to help with the potato harvest).

When should you try to change policies in schools?

Changes should obviously be attempted whenever it’s necessary, but there are some times that present especially good opportunities.

• Before the beginning of a new school year. Once school is in session, it’s difficult to convince a School Committee, administrators, or staff to change what they’re doing or to generate new policy. It’s much easier to effect change if you start well before you want the change to take place.
• When there’s an obvious need. When classes are overflowing with students who don’t speak English well, or when very few students are passing the state math exam, it’s easier to convince schools to examine the situation and change policies to address it.
• When a situation comes to light that makes a need obvious. When a sexual harassment case in the schools breaks, it may bring other students forward and highlight a problem that school officials have either been unaware of or have been successfully ignoring. The community – and, in the ideal, the schools as well – might well see this as an opportunity to change policy to protect students.
• When the School Committee or staff members do something that seems the opposite of good educational policy. Examples might be an ill-advised academic decision (eliminating foreign language study in the high school, for instance), misuse of funds, obvious racial discrimination, gross misconduct, or covering up or glossing over that misconduct.
• When there’s a clear threat to students’ or staff members’ health, safety, etc. This might be the time to bring up no-smoking policies, or metal detectors.
• When students’, parents’, or teachers’ basic rights are threatened. School policies may be contrary to existing law, or there may be no policies that govern the present situation. If students’ freedom of speech is being squelched, if teachers are being demoted or fired for voicing unpopular or critical opinions, if the wishes of a majority of parents for their children are systematically being ignored, there is probably support for policy change.

Who should be involved in changing school policies?

The more stakeholders – those affected by, or having to implement, the policy in question – that can be involved, the more likely it is both that the policy change will take place, and that it will be maintained once it’s made. Stakeholders include:

• Students
• Parents
• The School Committee
• The Superintendent
• Other school administrators
• Teachers
• Particular groups affected by the proposed change (Hispanics, for a bilingual Spanish program, for instance)
• Groups interested in the issue addressed by the proposed change (e.g., police, for a violence prevention program; health professionals for a healthy school food initiative)
• Concerned citizens

How do you change policies in schools?

School policy change, at least officially, has to happen from the inside. The School Committee (or at least the principal, if the change concerns only a single school) has to approve and institute the change. Furthermore, as we mentioned earlier, the school staff involved in implementing it have to actually do so, rather than just go through the motions, if the change is going to mean anything.

At the same time, policy change often originates from outside the system, and that’s where you come in. Schools, as we discussed, are hierarchical, and like many hierarchical organizations, they can be resistant to change of any kind. They are often particularly resistant to change that implies that what they’ve been doing is wrong, incompetent, or harmful. It may take a good deal of pressure from parents, students, community members, and/or officials to get them to respond.

Marshal your support and begin to strategize.

Make contact with the allies you’ve identified. As you start to put a group together, people will bring others in. You don’t have to be secretive, but at this point, you might not want to publicize your effort. You may decide that the best approach is to see if you can accomplish what you want without going through the School Committee, in which case, the less publicity, the better.

It is often crucial to find allies within the school system, at as many levels as possible. Teachers, administrators, the Superintendent, sympathetic School Committee members – anyone who’s supportive of what you’re doing should be involved to the extent possible. It’s important not to place anyone in a compromising position, but the more allies you can get inside the system, the better your chances of success.

Once you assemble at least a core group, drawing from as many sectors of the community as possible (the more sectors, the more support you can muster), you need to consider how you’re going to approach the situation. There are many possibilities: going around the School Committee entirely, a simple request, taking time to build support on the Committee, threatening a lawsuit, creating massive publicity through the media, using the steamroller of angry parents and community members (if you have one, and it’s appropriate)--every approach will work in some situation, and no approach will work in every situation. That’s why planning is important, and why it’s important to involve others in your planning. You may need only a bare-bones idea of whom to approach, or you may need a full-blown strategic plan; either way, you have to do some planning to decide on your course of action.

The other important tasks here are to work out systems of coordination and communication. If a particular organization takes the lead in a policy change effort, then that organization will usually act as the central point. If the effort is driven by an unorganized group of concerned parents, students, and others, they’ll need to establish some way to make sure that everyone knows what everyone else is doing, and to get the word out when action is needed. You don’t necessarily have to create a formal organization to accomplish these tasks, but it is important to set up a structure to make sure that they’re taken care of.

Do your homework.

The more you know about current policy, the school system, the issue your proposed changes relate to, and the individuals involved, the better your chances of success will be. The homework you need to do:

• Learn about current policy. Find out exactly what the current policy on the issue is. If it’s written down, be sure you have a copy. It’s possible that it already covers the situation, and that all you need to do is insist that it be followed. It’s also possible that it somehow conflicts with federal or state law, something that more homework and/or a lawyer can tell you. (It’s also possible that there’s no policy relating to your issue at all, which can often work to your advantage, since that may provide the opportunity for you to create one.)
• Know the issue inside out. Make sure you understand the issue well enough that you can answer any questions put to you, and anticipate and counter opponents’ arguments. Know your opponents’ arguments as well as your own, and make sure they can’t come up with anything you haven’t thought of.

• Research the alternatives. If the current policy is unacceptable or isn’t working – or if there is no current policy – what should be proposed in its place? It would do no good to adopt a policy that, in its own way, is just as harmful or ineffective as the one it replaced. Look for best practices, or at least policies that have worked elsewhere, to achieve the results you want.
• Prepare a solid rationale for the proposed change. Be prepared to:
  • Explain exactly why the change is necessary. If it’s to remedy a problem, you should be able to define and cite examples of the issue, demonstrate why it is a problem, and describe what the hoped-for results of policy change would look like. If the change is meant to fill a gap or add a needed program, you should be able to show convincingly how the change will benefit students (or the school, or the community), and how its consequences will be an improvement over the consequences of the current policy, or lack of one.
  • Show how whatever costs are involved in the change are outweighed by its benefits.
  • Refer to research that backs up your arguments. Studies that show improvements in various kinds of student outcomes – reading scores, attendance and graduation rates, etc. – as a result of the kind of change you’re seeking can help to convince the appropriate people to take action.
  • Defend your proposal against attacks and counterarguments. This gets back to knowing opponents and their arguments.

• Consult with or recruit experts in the field to add credibility to your arguments. This may be easier if your community houses, or is close to, a college or university.

• Learn everything you can about the structure of the school system and the personalities of those within it. You can’t deal with a school system without understanding how it operates. Once again, most systems are hierarchies, and hierarchies have protocols – rules – about whom to contact first, who makes decisions about various issues, etc.. If you don’t know the protocol, you can easily make a mistake that might offend or threaten someone whose support you need. An ally or sympathetic advisor within the system may be able to help you understand what your best approach might be.

Take the time to find out the structure of the chain of command in the system. Is it rigid or flexible? Who reports to whom? Where do you start if you have a complaint or want to discuss an incident or issue? At the lowest level? At the highest? Whom will you offend if you don’t follow protocol?

As important as the protocol are the personalities of the people involved. Who are the members of the School Committee? Which members are potential allies in a policy change effort, which are potential opponents, and which are the neutrals you’ll have to convince? What positions have they taken on the issue in the past? What’s important to them? Who are their friends and constituencies? Who is up for reelection or reappointment?

Attend School Committee meetings to understand how the Committee functions. Who are the powerful voices on the Committee? Whose opinions are respected, and whose are ignored? Who influences whom? Who responds to what kinds of arguments? Does the Committee function well as a body, or is it racked with disagreement and distrust?

How are decisions made within the system? The superintendent may be almost totally independent, or may only act on the direction of the School Committee. The standard is usually somewhere in between, with the superintendent free to develop programs and initiatives on his own and/or with staff, but having to get approval from the Committee to carry them out. The superintendent’s opinion carries a good deal of weight with most Committees. What’s his educational philosophy (or does he have one)? What’s his management style? Is he concerned with educational quality, or simply with keeping his job?

Other people to be acquainted with, at least at a distance, include other administrators, teachers, and staff, particularly union leaders and activists. Who is influential in the system, and whom do they influence? What are their priorities and concerns? What do they want and need (it’s often handy to know what you might be able to use as a bargaining chip)?

• Identify your allies and your opponents, both in the system and in the community. There may be groups that are obvious allies on a particular issue. More flexibility in the dress code would probably have strong student support; healthier cafeteria meals might garner support from parents, coaches, and health professionals.

Allies and opponents don’t always break down neatly into identifiable groups. Sometimes, where a policy doesn’t particularly benefit or harm a particular group, it’s simply a diverse collection of individuals on each side of the issue, disagreeing about the right way to do things. In that case, you have to identify allies and opponents one by one.

• Decide whether policy change is really what’s needed. Sometimes, a change in policy won’t solve the problem, or isn’t necessary. Depending on the situation, there may be a range of alternatives.
  • Change of personnel. The problem may not be policy, but simply the way an individual or group chooses to do things. Changing the people may solve the problem. We’ve already mentioned defeating School Committee members in an election. Another possibility is advocating for the firing of a superintendent or other school employee.

• Reframing the current policy. The School Committee may be willing to redefine the policy in a way that addresses the issue, without actually instituting a change.
• Compromise. A compromise may not give you everything you want, but may satisfy the basic need that prompted the effort for change.
• Passage of a law. You may be able to get a bill passed that settles the issue once and for all – banning smoking in all public buildings in the state, for instance, or making corporal punishment illegal.
• A lawsuit. This should be a last resort, because it’s expensive, hugely time-consuming, and there’s no guarantee of the outcome. The chances are that by the time the suit is settled one way or the other, the students who were affected by the policy you wanted changed will have kids of their own. It’s important to know that the option for a lawsuit is there, however, if there’s no other alternative.

Work to get your proposal for policy change implemented.

Now that you’ve laid the groundwork for policy change, it’s time to start taking action. You should almost always start by following established procedure. (You might make an exception when there’s already a huge controversy over the issue in the schools and/or the community, and you know you have a fight on your hands.) That procedure varies from system to system (and sometimes even from school to school within a system), but if you’ve done your homework, you’ll know what it is. If following procedure doesn’t work – your proposal is rejected out of hand, no one will even give you a hearing, you’re blocked by bureaucratic stalling – it’s time for community action. We’ll look at both possibilities.

Draft the policy you want

It’s absolutely necessary to be crystal clear about what you want the policy change to accomplish. The best way to clarify is to draft the ideal policy, so that you know it speaks to exactly what you’re looking for. Then review your draft with both your core group of supporters and your allies inside the system, to filter out potential snags with community members and the institution. If you’re careful and thoughtful in this process, you’ll find and correct any flaws in your original ideas as well. Some areas to pay close attention to as you work on your draft:

• Beware of unintended consequences. Try to envision all the ways in which your new policy could play out, not just the “obvious” positive ones. You might be surprised at some of the possible negative results. Better to be surprised now, and to revise your policy to guard against negative possibilities, than to be much more unpleasantly surprised later.
• Possible misinterpretation, either by the community or by those who will carry out the policy. Make sure your draft means exactly what you think it means, and that its intent is unmistakable. If people don’t understand it, it could get twisted, either in the implementation, or in the way the community views it.
• Possible misuse, intentional or unintentional. Again, if you’re not clear, school personnel who misunderstand it, or with a philosophy different from yours, could, in the future, use your policy to do the opposite of what you worked for.
• Cultural offensiveness. Make sure that there are no aspects of the policy that are culturally offensive to particular groups, unless you’re trying to correct an attempt to impose cultural or religious values on the majority, as seen in the evolution example earlier in this section.

Make your policy change effort as collaborative as possible. When you can, suggest setting up a committee of parents, students, teachers, administrators, School Committee members, and/or other interested citizens to consider alternatives, language, etc. to present to the School Committee.

In general, start your discussions at the lowest responsible level in the hierarchy.

This is both a matter of courtesy and a good strategic choice. Unless you already have an adversary relationship (and sometimes especially if you have an adversary relationship), it’s usually a bad idea to spring something on a school administrator with no advance warning. Suddenly appearing in a principal’s office with a group of angry parents, for instance, without first discussing with her the situation they’re angry about is more likely to make her defensive and entrenched in her position than to open her up to considering policy changes.

Furthermore, it is very much in your interest to gain the support of the person(s) who will have to carry out the proposed policy. If you have to go farther up the chain, that support will help at each level.

For a system-wide issue, protocol usually requires that you start with the superintendent, who will, if he views it favorably, work with you to present a proposal for policy change to the School Committee. Even if he doesn’t lend support, he won’t be surprised by your eventual approach to the School Committee. (If you’re seeking to change a School Committee-generated policy, start with the Committee.)

An advantage to starting at a low level is that sometimes, an issue can be handled at that level without going further. In many systems, a school principal can institute policy in his school (assuming it doesn’t have system-wide implications) without having to get permission from the superintendent or the School Committee. A teacher may be able to institute classroom policy to correct a problem, or may be able to change course content without any fanfare.

If your issue can be resolved at a lower level, you may be able to save yourself a lot of trouble. If, however, you want to see broader changes, it still makes sense to start with the people who’ll have to implement the policy – especially if you can enlist their support. At the very least, they won’t be furious at you for sneaking up on them with something new. If you’re successful at this lower level, many of the steps below won’t be necessary. If you’re put off or denied, simply go up to the next step on the ladder, until you get to the School Committee.

Get your group on the School Committee agenda.

If the Superintendent and some Committee members are involved, they can make sure that you get enough time for a proper presentation.

Present the proposed policy change at a School Committee meeting.

For real results, you have to do more than simply show up. Here’s where your prior organizing will pay off.

• Pack the meeting with supporters from as many sectors of the community as possible. Students, parents, teachers, interested community members, groups that are concerned with the issue the policy addresses (health professionals if it concerns smoking, for instance, or police if it concerns violence) – the more representation you can produce, the more obvious it is that there’s broad-based enthusiasm for your proposal.
• Do all you can to gain media coverage. Call your media contacts, send out press releases, etc., to assure that the media will be there, or at least report on the issue.

• Choose spokespeople carefully. If several members of your group are allowed to speak, use the opportunity to showcase people who are articulate (but not apparently too different from most of the community), represent a range of stakeholders (parents, students, particular groups affected), can present themselves respectfully but firmly, and have compelling stories to tell or arguments to make. Personal stories, particularly, can make a powerful impression, especially if those who tell them are familiar to the audience, or are people with whom they can identify.
• Make sure your message is clear and consistent, no matter who is delivering it. What your group has to say should be straightforward, informative, and non-confrontational (this isn’t always possible, but do your best). It should be backed up with facts, statistics, study results, the experience of other school systems, and/or educational (or psychological or scientific) theory. Most importantly, it should emphasize how this will benefit students, education, and/or the community. (If it won’t, why are you advocating for it?)
• Be prepared for opposing arguments. Make sure you can counter them with hard facts and other substantiation. If your group is asked a non-trivial question you can’t answer (no matter how much homework you do, you can’t cover everything), offer to find out the answer and bring it to the next meeting. Even if the question is trivial, treat it with respect unless it’s obviously meant to ridicule or humiliate you. If it is meant as ridicule, answer it with humor, not anger.
• Respect the Committee’s time limits, but don’t allow yourself to be pushed aside without making your point.
• Respect the Committee’s decision-making procedures. Some School Committee bylaws may mandate a one-or two-meeting delay on policy decisions. Often, even in the absence of such a bylaw, major policy decisions are not made the first time a policy change is brought up. Rather, time is allowed at one or more future meetings for more discussion before the change is brought to a vote. If this is the case, just be sure that you continue to produce a large, diverse, and vocal group of supporters at School Committee meetings leading up to the vote, and that your message remains consistent.

If your proposed policy change is rejected, regroup and strategize again.

There are a number of reasons your proposed change might have been rejected.

• The Committee honestly felt that it simply wasn’t in the best interests of the students. If you continue to believe they’re wrong, you should continue to push for change. Put together an even more impressive array of facts and figures to support your arguments, continue to build community support in order to exert pressure on the Committee, invite Committee members to be part of a group to study the issue, work for the support of teachers, etc.. Over time, if your proposed change really does make sense and will benefit students, it’s reasonable to expect that you’ll bring enough Committee members around to get the policy change approved.
• The Committee rejected the proposal because the change wouldn’t fit into the way things are done in the system. If a change is educationally beneficial for students, it should happen unless it actually isn’t affordable (Everyone knows that very small classes are better for students, but most systems can’t raise enough taxes to make them possible) or it would impose an unfair workload on teachers and administrators. If the reason is simply that it’s too much trouble, or that “we don’t do things that way,” that’s a failure of the Committee’s and the system’s duty to students. Your efforts should be aimed toward pointing this out, and, again, continuing to build support and substantiation.

In a sense, this may be even harder to deal with than the actual issue at hand. Most schools are, in fact, organized around the needs of the adults involved, rather than those of the children. “The way we’ve always done it” is often the path of least resistance, and steering people off that path can be extremely difficult.

• The Committee rejected the proposal for reasons that are irrelevant to education, mistaken, irrational, or simply unacceptable (lack of belief in evolution, unwillingness to confront the fact that a large percentage of teens are sexually active, racial prejudice, etc.). In this situation, you may have to convince the community either that the Committee is dead wrong, or that their reasons conflict with sound educational practice, logic, and/or common decency (not to mention the Constitution). That often calls for community action – organizing your support, using the media, and engaging in various kinds of direct action.

The reality is that a social action approach may be necessary in any of these three situations, if the School Committee proves immovable and you believe the proposed change is necessary for the educational, physical, or psychological welfare of students. Some social action tactics that might prove helpful:

• Organize to defeat oppositional School Committee members at the next election. This may take some patience. Some communities elect a whole School Committee at once for a set period (usually 2 or 3 years). Others stagger three- or four-year terms, so that only a third or a quarter of the School Committee is up for reelection in any given year. That means that you may have to wait two or three years to actually gain a favorable majority on the Committee, even if all your candidates win.
• Use the media. You can get your message out widely and quickly through careful use of the media. That involves, among other activities, establishing relationships with (sympathetic) reporters, editors, station managers, etc.; holding press conferences, orchestrating letters to the Editor, and making sure you get coverage for events and actions you stage; and contacting state- and nation-wide media, to broaden your support and put even greater pressure on the School Committee.
• Maintain a vocal presence at School Committee meetings. If it’s appropriate, continue to pack meetings with supporters, and call for the policy change at every opportunity. Media coverage of meetings will help spread the word. The worse you’re treated by the School Committee the worse they’ll look and the more sympathetic the community will be to your cause, as long as you remain reasonable and respectful at meetings.
• Take direct action. Stage public meetings, rallies, demonstrations, petition drives, picketing, and other events meant to draw attention to and explain the need for policy change. Such events will also demonstrate the extent of your support, and put pressure on the School Committee, as an elected body, to respond to public opinion.
• Recall the School Committee (or the members of the Committee blocking your proposal). This takes less time than the election process, but is dependent on there being a recall clause in the community’s (or the School Committee’s) bylaws. If there is, obtaining a certain number of signatures can force a recall election. Before you take this route, you should be sure that there’s at least a reasonable chance that the recall will succeed, and that the people who take the places of recalled School Committee members will be sympathetic to the policy change you want. Recall elections tend to create community divisions and animosities that can take years – even lifetimes – to heal, and shouldn’t be entered into lightly.
• Work to pass legislation that will make your policy change into law statewide. If you already have a legislative champion, or a relationship with one or more legislators, this may be a good direction to take. If you’re starting from scratch, it could still be worthwhile, but it will take much longer, and involve a major organizing effort. The advantage is, of course, that you won’t have to fight the battle over policy change again, and you’ll be benefiting far more students than those in your own community.
• File a lawsuit. As explained earlier,this is usually a last resort because of its expense and the length of time it’s likely to take. On the other hand, the threat or actual filing of a suit may be enough to move the School Committee to change its mind. A sympathetic attorney (there may be one among your supporters) can be helpful in developing strategy here.

Once you gain the policy change you’re seeking, reorganize and tackle the next issue.

Whether this effort was easy or difficult, you’ve put together a group that has worked together to effect a policy change . . . but your work’s not done. As with so much else described in the Tool Box, you need to maintain the gains you’ve made – make sure that the policy change is not only carried out, but carried out in the way that’s most beneficial to students, and continued for the foreseeable future. Furthermore, it’s unlikely that this is the only change necessary, either in the school system or in the community. Take some time to savor your victory, to celebrate, to congratulate yourselves . . . and then get back to the job of making the school system and the community the best it can be.

In Summary

Sometimes, it’s necessary to seek policy change in schools or school systems, in order to enhance or protect the educational benefits to students, the physical and psychological health and safety of students and school staff, or the management and integrity of the system. Because schools and school systems tend to be hierarchical and difficult to move, this can lead to conflict or impasse, leaving students to suffer the effects of inferior learning opportunities, deteriorating or dangerous schools, or unfair or abusive treatment by school personnel or other students.

It’s most effective to work collaboratively with the School Committee, the teachers’ union, and parents, students, and interested community members to arrive at the best solution to the problem and change and oversee policy accordingly. When there’s resistance to that course – because of a sincere difference of opinion, because of resistance to change of any sort, or because of unacceptable assumptions or ideas on the part of the policy makers (racism, for example), conflict of some sort may be inevitable. By putting together a strong and diverse community group of supporters of change, and

by using the leverage that group commands – public pressure, media attention, research into best practices, etc. – you can achieve the change you’re aiming for. The less nasty and the more collaborative you can make the process, the better the chances will be that the next change effort – and there will be a next change effort; there always is – will be easier.

What do we mean by changing policies in schools?

___Changing policy generally means convincing the School Committee, which is usually in charge of setting policy, to change or eliminate an existing policy or to institute a new policy in order to benefit students and/or the community.

Why should you work to change policies in schools?

___To improve students’ (and others’) health.

___To improve education.

___To meet the needs of particular groups.

___To improve classroom and school climate and culture.

___To protect students and staff from harm.

___To safeguard students’ rights.

___To respond to a perceived community need.

When should you try to change policies in schools?

___Before the beginning of a new school year.

___When there’s an obvious need.

___When a situation comes to light that makes a need obvious.

___When the School Committee or staff members do something that seems to contradict good educational policy.

___When there’s a clear threat to students’ or staff members’ health, safety, etc..

___When students’, parents’, or teachers’ basic rights are threatened.

Who should be involved in changing policies in schools?

___Students

___Parents

___The School Committee

___The superintendent

___Other school administrators

___Teachers

___Particular groups affected by the proposed change

___Groups interested in the issue addressed by the proposed change

___Concerned citizens

How do you change policies in schools?

___Identify and marshal your support.

___Develop a strategy through a participatory process.

___Learn about current policy.

___Know the issue inside out.

___Research the alternatives.

___Prepare a solid rationale for policy change.

___Learn about the structure of the school system and the personalities of those within it.

___Identify your allies and opponents, both inside and outside the school system.

___Decide whether policy change is what’s really needed.

___Draft the policy you want.

___Start your discussions at the lowest responsible level in the school hierarchy.

___Get your group on the School Committee agenda.

___Present the proposed policy change at a School Committee meeting.

If the change is rejected, you can:

___Regroup and try again, or continue discussion with the School Committee.

___Conduct a social action campaign to defeat or recall current School Committee members, or to convince them to change their minds on policy.

___Once the change is accepted, use your organization to maintain it, and to tackle the next issue.

Tool # 1: The players

The School Committee

In charge of most school systems in the U.S. is the local School Committee – usually elected, but in some cases appointed. (Virtually all school systems in the U.S. are run locally, although subject to state and federal laws.) If the system were a corporation, the School Committee would be the Board of Directors. Its job is generally to set and oversee policy for the system, to be responsible for its overall functioning and finances, and to hire, fire, and supervise the Superintendent (and sometimes other staff). Like a Board of Directors, it bears legal responsibility for the operations and finances of the system.

While this is arguably how a School Committee should function in a well-managed district, in practice, many School Committees or individual members take on much more active roles in managing schools and education, sometimes to the point of micro-management. Whether an expanded role for the Committee is a positive or negative depends on the character of the Committee and the district, but, in general (assuming the Superintendent is competent), it’s not a good thing. It undercuts the Superintendent in his job (managing the educational operation), makes personnel decisions subject to favoritism, and can corrupt the educational program with the prejudices and often-mistaken assumptions of individual School Committee members.

The Superintendent of Schools

If the School Committee is the Board, the Superintendent is the system’s CEO. She’s the executive who carries out policy, hired by and responsible to the School Committee. In a well-managed system, however, she runs the show, hiring, firing, and supervising principals and other administrators (usually with the approval of the School Committee), providing educational and philosophical direction, and managing the day-to-day educational, logistical, and financial operation of the school system.

Other system-wide administrators

The number of these people varies, depending on the size and structure of the system. A large city system may have tens, or even hundreds; a small school district may have only one or two.

To continue the corporate analogy, these administrators are the Vice-Presidents in charge of various areas of the system’s functioning. In large systems, each might have several people under his supervision. The most common of these positions include:

• Assistant Superintendent. There may be only one in a system, or a large system might have several. They work with the Superintendent, taking on part of the oversight role of the system, and operating, with her, as its management team.

In some systems, most of the following roles are, in fact, assigned to Assistant Superintendents, so that some of these job categories are called “Assistant Superintendent for...” That generally happens only in large systems.

• Curriculum Director. The Curriculum Director develops or oversees the development of curriculum for the system. His responsibility would generally include keeping abreast of the latest research, seeking out best practices, networking with colleagues in other systems, and supervising curriculum developers and teachers in the design and implementation of new curriculum. The position also often involves providing for the professional development of teachers and curriculum staff.
• Athletic Director. The Athletic Director oversees the athletic program (and often the Physical Education program as well), working with coaches. She schedules team seasons, hires and supervises coaches, and is in charge of the athletic budget, ordering equipment and other supplies as appropriate. She also helps to determine what sports will be offered, student eligibility for them, what the budget will be for each, etc..
• Special Education (SPED) Director. The SPED Director manages programs for students with learning, physical, developmental, or emotional difficulties or disabilities. His responsibilities include making sure that each student receives the appropriate services, contracting with services outside the system when particular in-system services are not available. He supervises SPED programs and teachers throughout the system, monitoring outcomes and quality.
• Business Manager. This position exercises oversight of the system’s finances. While the Superintendent and School Committee prepare a budget, the Business Manager controls the day-to-day management of the money, alerts the Superintendent of potential problems, makes sure that bills and salaries are paid, and keeps track of the budget down to the penny. The Business Manager also monitors contract and grant spending, to assure that money is spent in the ways it’s supposed to be, and consults regularly with the Superintendent on the state of the budget.

Any or all of these positions might also entail writing grant proposals, either for specific programs or for broader, system-wide initiatives. Larger systems might have one or more grantwriters on staff, but in smaller ones, everyone does multiple duties. Grantwriting is a common responsibility of system-wide administrators.

• Physical plant manager. Many systems employ a person to manage the physical functioning of the buildings they own. This person is often an engineer who understands construction, electricity, heating and cooling, and other areas necessary to maintaining and repairing buildings and to using maintenance budgets wisely. If she’s good, she can save the system the cost of her salary many times over every year.

Principals

The principal is in charge of his school. In many systems, principals can hire and fire teachers and other school employees, and can determine how the budgets for their schools are spent. They also deal with problems, and are responsible for communication with parents and the community in difficult situations relating to their specific schools. They supervise teachers, and oversee curriculum and discipline (often through an Assistant Principal, who doubles as Dean of Discipline), as well as presenting the face of the school to the public. They also function as part of the administrative team that consults with the Superintendent on running the system.

How much power and flexibility school principals have depends on the system and the Superintendent. In a really large system – cities of half a million or more, say – schools may be organized into clusters within the larger school system. That might mean that principals are part of the administrative team in their cluster, but not within the larger system. The principal of a high school with several thousand students may have more clout than one whose charge is an elementary school with only a few hundred students. Principals with strong community support may wield more power than those who have little connection with the community.

The personalities of the principal and the superintendent also enter into the equation. A superintendent who is protective of his power and unwilling to share it will keep principals as weak and dependent as possible. A principal who is ambitious and unafraid to reach for and use power can become a force within the system. It’s useful for anyone seeking to change policies to understand the relationships among administrators, and to know who’s able to get his way and who’s not.

Teachers and other school employees

We all know what teachers do – they run classrooms and teach subject matter. Depending on the grade level, they can also be surrogate parents, disciplinarians, motivational coaches, psychologists and counselors, nutritionists, and practical health practitioners, in addition to the hours of preparing for class, grading homework and tests, developing curriculum, conferring with parents, and engaging in professional development that come with the job. Many people think that teaching is an easy job, because it looks like teachers work only a 6- or 7-hour day, and get summers off. Most good teachers actually work something closer to a 12-hour day and spend summers taking courses (often at their own expense) to improve or broaden their competence.

Other school employees, depending on the size of the school (in a small system, some or all of these may be system-wide, and only be present in a particular school for a few hours a week), include:

• Guidance counselors. Guidance counselors – again, depending on the size and resources of the system – may function as anything from psychotherapists to college application advisors. Generally, the smaller the system, the less flexibility counselors have, and they can find themselves doing little more than filling out forms and warning students when they have too few credits to graduate. In the ideal, counselors run groups on such topics as tolerance and conflict resolution, act as therapists for a few students with serious problems, are in charge of college and career counseling programs, and help students negotiate the educational system.

School psychologists – who often work under contract or for the whole system, rather than for a particular school – have advanced degrees and conduct psychological and cognitive testing to determine whether students who are having difficulties need special services. They may also engage in some psychotherapy with particular students – their responsibilities vary from system to system.

• School nurses. In addition to ministering to students who fall ill or are injured in the course of the school day, the nurse may also teach health classes, or teach about health topics in other contexts.
• Coaches. The coaches of athletic teams may be part-time school employees with jobs outside the system, physical education teachers, or regular teachers who take on coaching responsibilities for the love of the sport and/or a little extra pay (the pay is usually not enough to justify the hours that go into coaching). They train and coach students in specific sports, and often find themselves in counseling and parental roles as well. Good coaches – those who care more about kids than winning – often loom large in students’ lives, and act as influences for many years after the students’ athletic careers are over.
• Support staff. This includes secretaries, administrative assistants, office managers, cafeteria staff, maintenance workers, etc.. These folks, particularly secretaries and administrative assistants, can be important allies or opponents. They often have the ear of the Superintendent, or can schedule – or not schedule – meetings and appointments. It’s a standing joke that secretaries often run schools, but the joke is so common because there’s some truth to it. Furthermore, they usually know where everything is, what’s going on, and where everyone stands on issues, making them valuable sources of information

A PowerPoint presentation summarizing the major points in the section.

• What do we mean by modifying policies to enhance the quality of services?

• Why modify policies to enhance the quality of services?

• Who should work to modify policies to enhance the quality of services?

• When should you try to modify policies to enhance the quality of services?

• How do you modify policies to enhance the quality of services?

Not so long ago, there were no quality standards that all nursing homes had to follow. The federal law that regulates nursing homes and their services dates only to 1987. Before that, in at least some states, there were no requirements for the training of staff, or for medical care for residents.

While many facilities provided a warm and supportive environment, and carefully tended to the needs of residents, others were reminiscent of the horrible images from Dickens novels, where abuse and neglect were common. Relatives and friends of the residents of these latter homes, when they realized what was happening, began to push states and the federal government to change the policies that governed nursing homes. Ultimately, laws were passed that ensured at least a minimum level of respect and care for all residents.

Most services are regulated, in some way, by official or unofficial policies. Sometimes, it is necessary to change those policies to make sure that programs and services are accomplishing what they are supposed to. In this section, we'll discuss some different ways in which policies might be changed, why you'd want to make those changes (and why not, in some cases), who should be involved, when changes might best be proposed, and how to go about making that happen.

What do we mean by modifying policies to enhance the quality of services?

The delivery of services, whether to the public at large or to a target population, are controlled by policies at some level. The makers and users of those polices may be legislators ( in the form of laws and official regulations), federal or state agencies, public or private funders, or the service delivery organizations themselves. How do those policies relate to quality, and what kinds of changes can you make in them to affect the quality of services?

The kinds of policies that we're concerned with here are those that will ensure, to the extent possible, that services are as good as they can be. That means that services accomplish their purposes in meeting the needs of the target population and community, can be used by all who need them, and are cost-effective. Some basic guidelines that will go a long way toward promoting good services include:

• The people offering the services are competent.

• Facilities offering services, or where services are provided, meet basic physical and practice standards.

• Individuals, programs, and facilities follow the ethical rules of their professions, or, if none exist, they employ high ethical standards in their work and in their relationships with other organizations, funders, and the community.

• Programs are aware of and use the best appropriate practices available in delivering services.

• Services are available and accessible those who need them.

• Individuals and programs set and apply appropriate quality standards that both benefit and safeguard those who are affected by the services provided.

• Services are evaluated regularly and modified, when necessary, according to evaluation results in order to best meet the needs of participants and the community.

There are particular ways in which you might want to modify existing policy (or structure new policy) to assure that each of these guidelines is followed. We'll look at each of them individually.

The people offering the services are competent. There is no absolute guarantee that someone will be competent at what she does. That's largely a matter of individual effort, personality, talent for and interest in the work, training, and a number of other factors. What you can do is to control for as many of those factors as possible. If you're doing the actual hiring for a service program or intervention, you may be able to exercise some of that control. Another common way to achieve that control is through requiring professional licensure or certification.

The terms licensure and certification are often used to mean the same thing - an official recognition that the licensed or certified person has met certain requirements that qualify him for work in his chosen field. Where both terms exist in the same profession, licensure is usually the higher level, and means that a licensed individual has more training and experience than one who is certified. For convenience, we'll use "certification" here to refer to both certification and licensure.

Professional certification may be granted by the state, or by a professional association. In some cases, the state develops its own certification standards. In others, the state accepts association certification as its own standard. Lawyers, for instance, in order to practice officially, have to pass a bar exam which is administered not by a government body, but by the state Bar Association.

Some professionals - nurses, electricians, public school teachers, and insurance investigators, for example - must be certified in order to engage in their trade or profession. In other instances - psychotherapy, for one - a professional may be able to practice, but not to call herself by a particular title (psychologist, e.g.), or to gain access to some of the advantages of the certified person (the ability to be paid by a client's insurance). Please see "Examples" for a list of commonly licensed or certified professions.

Many professions and trades offer several different levels of certification and licensure, depending upon the person's education, training in the field, supervision, and experience, and, in some cases, passing an exam. Certificates usually have to be renewed at regular intervals.

Despite all the requirements, a certificate doesn't guarantee competence. It does guarantee, however, that the person who holds it has had a certain amount of education, has been exposed to at least some of the important ideas of the field, and - in most cases - has had some supervised experience. Thus, changing policies in order to make certification standards higher, to require certification for practice in a particular field, or to require that those hired to work in a particular intervention or type of intervention be certified, can help to enhance the quality of services.

Facilities offering services, or where services are provided, meet basic physical and practice standards. If a hospital or school is dirty, if it doesn't store food properly, if it doesn't have the proper furniture or equipment to do its job, if its staff treats patients or students with contempt or neglect, or if its finances are poorly managed, it is not only showing a lack of respect for those it's supposed to serve and for its profession, but it also isn't delivering high quality services. People in some circumstances can carefully choose the facility they go to, but others - because of limitations on health insurance, for instance, or the fact that a rural area may have only one hospital that serves a large area - may not have that choice. Once again, licensure or certification (sometimes called accreditation when it applies to facilities or programs) is a way to ensure that a facility - whether a residential one, or one that houses a day care center or outpatient mental health program - meets the minimum standards to be effective at what it's meant to do.

As you might expect, certification for a facility is quite different from that for an individual. It is more often conferred by a state or federal bureau, which usually means that the certification regulations are established by law. In addition, certification often covers several aspects of the functioning of the facility.

• Physical plant. The building or space has to be appropriate for the purpose of the service provided, to be clean and in decent repair, and to follow ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) regulations. It must have properly functioning heating, cooling, electrical, and other systems, and may also have to provide certain equipment (adjustable hospital beds, child-size toilets, etc.) and/or materials, or be located in a particular area.
• Staffing. The facility may be obligated to hire only certified staff for certain positions, or for all positions. It may have to maintain a minimum staff-to-participant ratio, and to have staff members with particular skills or credentials (R.N., MSW, etc.) available or on call some or all of the time. It may also be required to pay staff members at mandated levels and/or provide stipulated benefits, and to afford or make possible an annual number of paid staff development hours or opportunities for some or all staff.
• Treatment of participants, and attention to their physical, social, and psychological needs. This means providing not only reasonable physical comfort (opportunities for personal cleanliness, freedom from extremes of temperature, etc.), but privacy to the extent possible (depending upon the purpose of the facility and the nature of the program), respectful treatment, positive human contact, productive activity, and access to counseling or psychotherapy if needed.

• Practices and procedures. The organization that runs the facility is expected to use standard and ethical financial and other management practices, and to be audited regularly. It is generally required to have tested emergency and safety procedures, and, in a residential facility, to follow a routine housekeeping and maintenance schedule. It may have to demonstrate that it operates in the best interest of participants, and that it displays openness to requests for information and services from participants and/or those responsible for them. In addition, the organization or facility may have to show that it adheres to professional standards of ethics (see below), and that it has procedures in place to protect confidential information and to prevent ethical abuses.

Modifying policies to establish or change required certification for facilities or for facility staff, or to limit the opportunities of uncertified facilities are ways in which you might improve the quality of services.

Individuals, programs, and facilities follow the ethical rules of their professions, or, if none exist, they employ high ethical standards in their work and in their relationships with other organizations, funders, and the community.

Professional ethical standards cover areas such as confidentiality, abuse of power, and participants' rights. Many professional associations also prescribe ethical standards for facilities - hospitals, nursing homes, schools, pharmacies, homeless shelters, etc. Many organizations develop and follow their own set of ethical standards, either where no professional standards exist, or in addition to those standards.

It is difficult to legislate ethical behavior, but you can advocate for developing new professional ethical standards where none exist, or for adopting or changing those currently accepted. Maintenance of those standards can then be used as a criterion for certification, and violation of them can be used as a criterion for denial of certification or of the right to practice.

Programs are aware of and use the best appropriate practices available in delivering services.

Best practices is, in some ways, a relative term. The best practices for one community may not always be the best practices for another, and sometimes successful approaches are difficult to explain or to duplicate. When a particular method or intervention seems consistently to work better than other approaches to the same issue, however, it may make sense to try to make sure that it becomes at least a part of any program meant to address that issue. You may be able to modify policies to include that criterion among the requirements for any new program, or even to include knowledge of best practices among certification requirements.

Services are available and accessible to those who need them.

This means that the people who need services are eligible to use them; that services are both physically and logistically accessible (handicapped accessibility, near public transportation and/or the majority of the target population, in neighborhoods or areas in which participants feel safe and comfortable, etc.); and that services are affordable to the target population (free or sliding-scale). Some of these criteria - service eligibility, ADA compliance - can be legislated, and others - location, for example - probably cannot. All are subject to funders' policies, however, and to the policies of service delivery organizations themselves.

Individuals and programs set and apply appropriate quality standards that both benefit and safeguard those who are affected by the services provided.

Quality standards, as the term is used here, could refer to air and water quality as applied to the acceptable environmental impact of particular activities or practices. They could refer to the standards acceptable for affordable housing (functional plumbing, no peeling paint, clean and safe apartment hallways, etc.) or school lunches (nutritious, well-balanced, encouraging good eating habits, no "ketchup as a vegetable" substitutions) or medical treatment (most effective treatment available, e.g.).

Quality standards could be built into laws or local bylaws, into agency regulations, into funding requirements, or into the internal policies of agencies and organizations. You might affect any of these by aiming policy change efforts at the appropriate target.

Services are evaluated regularly and modified, when necessary, according to evaluation results in order to best meet the needs of participants and the community.

Many funders require an evaluation component in any proposal, and many service providers conduct an external or internal evaluation of their operations every year. If there's no provision for evaluation and modification in the services you're concerned with, you might work with funders or the organization to chnage policies accordingly.

Why modify policies to enhance the quality of services?

Why should you try to change policies so that only certified people can deliver a particular service, or so that best practices are adopted? We've already said that certification is no guarantee of competence, and that best practices aren't necessarily best in all circumstances.

In fact, there are some very good reasons to try to modify policies...as well as some reasons not to. What's best for you and your community depends upon the circumstances. If services are distinctly unprofessional, certification may not be a cure-all, but it will almost undoubtedly improve the situation. If an intervention simply isn't working, modifying policy in one of the ways described above may not improve the situation, because the problem may lie in assumptions, rather than in training or competency. It's important to understand what modifying these policies can do, and what it can't.

Advantages to modifying policy to enhance the quality of services

It increases the possibility of a minimum level of quality.

While certification doesn't guarantee someone's competence, for instance, it does make it somewhat more probable. It does guarantee that she has had a certain amount of relevant education, training, and experience, and that she can be expected to understand some basic elements of the issue and of the population. Certification of a facility at least guarantees that it conforms to the law, or can be prosecuted and/or forced to if it doesn't. Such minimum guarantees of standards make it less likely that participants will suffer abuse, neglect, or flagrant disrespect, and more likely that services will be effective.

By the same token, adherence to professional ethical standards removes doubt about such issues as confidentiality and sexual relationships between professionals and participants. The use of agreed-upon best practices offers some promise that the approach used can have some effect if it's properly applied. Quality standards ensure that what is being offered is at least not harmful.

It shows seriousness of purpose, and establishes the issue as one that should be treated seriously.

Policy that demands standards of competency and practice makes the statement that the issue is important, and should be addressed by trained and skilled practitioners. If most people wouldn't dream of letting an unlicensed physician perform open heart surgery on their children, they should be equally reluctant to take those children to an untrained day care provider or to allow mental health services to be provided by counselors with no credentials.

It demonstrates respect for the target population.

Again, it makes the statement that the target population is important enough to deserve professional services.

It gives the community confidence that the issue is being handled appropriately.

Most citizens have more trust in an operation they see as professional and capable.

It lends credibility to both the effort and to the organization(s) providing services.

It can increase the chances that an intervention or service will be effective.

By leaving less to chance - removing the need to count solely on intuition to make the right hiring decision, for instance, or instituting criteria by which to judge an organization's methods - modifying policy in this area can remove at least some of the guesswork from health and human service provision.

It addresses what's actually behind most local service delivery.

Almost all service delivery is based on policy, whether formal or informal. By understanding and working to modify that policy, you're often taking the only route that will really improve the quality of services.

You have a moral obligation to the target population, the community, and yourself to try to assure the best possible quality of services to those who need them.

Cautions in modifying policy to enhance the quality of services

• It can assure, at best, only a minimum level of quality. Because establishing such things as certification requirements and quality standards is generally the result of compromise, they often represent a lowest common denominator of what's acceptable. Consequently, people and organizations that meet the standards may be no more than adequate at best.
• It may filter out imaginative solutions and people with valuable talents and skills. If minimum requirements for an intervention involve best practices or certification, they may make it impossible for organizations with truly creative ideas and programs or for gifted - but untrained - people to participate. You may lose more than you gain.
• An emphasis on professionalism may alienate the target population or the community. If there have been bad experiences in the past with "professional" interventions, or if the target population or community feels that it's being looked down upon, your service or intervention may start with two strikes against it. It may be viewed as just one more instance of professionals from outside the community thinking they know what community members need or should want better than they themselves do.
• Bureaucratic requirements may present barriers to talented individuals and organizations. Fulfilling the requirements for certification or the need to demonstrate adherence to best practices or quality standards can be made so difficult or expensive by bureaucratic procedures that it's simply not worth the trouble to many people and organizations. They may be lost not only to services in your community, but to health and community development by their inability or unwillingness to negotiate what may be an unnecessary bureaucratic maze.
• Changing policy may not address the problem. As mentioned above, if an intervention simply isn't working, it may have nothing to do with professional or quality standards. Instituting those standards won't solve the problem, whereas further analysis of the issue and the community, or more participation by members of the target population and the community in strategic planning might. A cynical or dishonest organization will find ways to appear to meet standards, and still continue to be cynical and dishonest. It's important to understand the situation before you act. Advocating for changes in policy about standards and requirements is not always the best way to accomplish your goals.

Who should work to modify policies to enhance the quality of services?

The drive to modify policies often starts with an individual or organization close to the issue. That individual or organization may have the knowledge and perspective to see the need for quality asurance, and the experience and expertise to know what kind of quality assurance is called for. In general, however, it's often best if an individual or organization doesn't work alone at changing policies, but finds a varied group of allies.

As has been discussed elsewhere in this chapter, the best answer to any question about who should work for policy change is often a broad-based coalition. If such a body exists, or if you can start one, it can be the ideal group to work on this issue, for several reasons:

• Coalitions represent a broad cross-section of the community, including all those affected by the issues in question, thereby demonstrating broad support for modifying policies.
• The broad representation leads to a variety of perspectives, which can generate a plan that makes sense, rather than one which may have unintended consequences.
• Coalitions have credibility, because they represent all points of view, and include leaders and spokespersons of all segments of the community.
• Coalitions, because they involve all segments of the community, generate plans that everyone can buy into and feel ownership of. In this situation in particular, by including both policy makers and those likely to be subject to policy, you may be able to eliminate defensiveness about either establishing or adhering to standards.

If a coalition isn't possible, alternatives to spearhead the drive to modify policies include:

• An advocacy organization
• Community based organizations that work with the target population and the issue
• A local initiative including members of the target population
• A local branch of a professional association.

When should you try to modify policies to enhance the quality of services?

As with most efforts at policy change, there are times when modifying policies to include standards may be particularly appropriate, and likely to meet with success.

• Before services begin, to ensure best practices and best quality. If you can set appropriate requirements or standards beforehand, you may never have to deal with trying to modify policies later.
• At the beginning of a new service period or funding cycle. A funder, organization, or the field itself can institute new requirements or standards as a new cycle starts, just as they might at the very beginning of a new service.
• When services prove unsatisfactory. When it's clear that services are inadequate, or not achieving their purposes, it's easier to persuade policy makers that change is needed.
• When regular assessment and reporting shows little or no progress on a particular issue. If the community is already involved in regular assessment and reporting as part of meeting the goals of a strategic plan, a no-progress report may act as a red flag that policies need modification.
• When new possibilities or information become available. Some factors that might influence the modification of policies:
  • New studies identify previously unrecognized best practices.
  • New certification procedures or requirements are issued by a professional association, or by the state or federal government.
  • New standards for air or water quality or other areas are released, or new scientific information sheds further light on current standards.
  • The field agrees on a new canon of ethics.
  • New laws or regulations are put in place.
• When public opinion demands it. In the case of nursing homes, for instance, publicized abuses often lead to a public outcry that results in changes in regulations. Policy makers are usually extremely sensitive to strongly-held public opinion.

How do you modify policies to enhance the quality of services?

Make sure you understand all existing policy, both formal and unspoken.

You can't change policy until you know what it is, and what its consequences are. Becoming familiar with current policy is therefore the first step.

Decide whether modifying policy is the appropriate course of action.

The next step in the process is to make sure, by examining its advantages and disadvantages, that modifying policy in this way is the route you want to take. If people in the field are at odds over whether certification is necessary, for instance, make sure you've heard both sides before deciding to pursue a policy change. If there are technical issues involved, consult with experts - researchers, service providers, service participants, policy experts. If services are simply not serving their purpose, more may be gained by examining and trying to change the attitudes and methods of providers through education and training than by mandating particular practices or requirements.

Some questions to ask yourself:

• What should the ideal results of service be?
• How will what you're proposing help to bring about those results?
• What are the likely long-term consequences of modifying policy?
• What are the possible unintended consequences of modifying policy?
• What are the likely consequences of not modifying policy?
• What are alternatives to modifying policy?
• How do the possible consequences of those alternatives compare to the consequences of modifying policy?

While good-faith efforts to modify policy in this way generally result in improvements in service, they sometimes generate unforeseen or unintended consequences as well. It's important, to make sure you anticipate - as much as you can - the possible results of your effort before you embark on it.

Determine what kind of policy modification needs to take place.

Once you've made the decision that policies need to be modified, there are three approaches you might take to that end, depending upon where you're starting from, what's already available, and what the services in question are.

• Policy formation. You might start from scratch. That means advocating for policy that will develop and apply certification requirements or a canon of ethics, determine best practices, or define minimum quality standards for the first time, where none have existed before.
• Policy adherence. You might try to change policy to demand adherence to existing certification requirements, ethical or quality standards, or best practices. Perfectly acceptable standards may already exist, but policy may need to be changed to state that they must be met or applied.
• Policy change. You might try to modify policy to change existing certification requirements, ethical or quality standards, or ideas about best practices, if they've proven inadequate or ineffective. Are there existing certification requirements, ethical or quality standards, or best practices that could be adopted to serve the needs of the current situation?

Develop new or revised requirements or standards, if necessary.

Whether you're asking for the development of a whole new set of requirements or standards from scratch, or for the revision of existing ones, there is nothing to be gained simply by working for modifying policies. If you want to be satisfied with the results, you also have to work on modifying policies. Some considerations in developing new or revised requirements or standards:

• Involve the people who are most closely affected: practitioners and anyone else who will be subject to requirements or standards, target populations, those responsible for members of the target population (parents, relatives responsible for elders in nursing homes), and those who will enforce adherence to requirements or standards.

• Establish new requirements and standards that reflect the realities of the current situation, but also look to the future. If they're too narrow or rigid, they may not respond to unforeseen needs and circumstances. If they're too broad, they may have no effect.
• Examine new requirements and standards to make sure that they actually address the problems they're aimed at, and don't create their own problems. Facility certification that results in micromanagement by a state agency, for instance, may generate more problems than it solves. Certification that makes clear the requirements of and restrictions on operation, but allows the facility to work out its own methods of compliance, leaves much more room for adjustment to individual circumstances and needs, and therefore more room for success.
• Create practical and reasonable standards. Individual certification requirements, for instance, can allow for a certain amount of experience to take the place of a certain amount of training or education, or for a variety of combinations of the three, so that the largest number of competent people can be certified. Rather than demanding the immediate removal of toxic materials - asbestos, e.g. - from a facility, a timeline can be instituted, so that whole facilities don't have to shut down for months in order to comply.
• Make sure that the standards include some mechanism for continuation. As with any other change, new certification requirements or quality standards are only useful as long as they make a difference. The need to recertify every year or two - with actual requirements for each recertification (courses, professional development, update of facilities, etc.) - the annual reexamination of quality standards, or the annual reassessment of best practices could serve to ensure that the positive consequences of policy modification will carry forward.

Advocate for your proposed modifications.

No amount of work on developing requirements and standards will help if you can't get those requirements or standards adopted. That means convincing policy makers, and often the public as well, that doing what you propose is a good idea.

• Explain why new standards are needed, or why existing standards should become policy. Use research, fact sheets , statistics, testimony from recipients of services, etc., to present compelling reasons for change to policy makers and the public.
• Keep the issue before the public, using the media and key communicators in the community. The more people are informed and concerned about the issue, the more likely policy makers are to act.
• Mobilize your support. Use your contacts with policy makers, members of the media, key community members , and supporters among affected and concerned professionals to keep up pressure for change.

• Offer to help. Present your plan, and offer to convene or participate in a coalition or committee to work on the issue, with your plan as a starting point.

Even after policies are changed, continue to monitor and evaluate the situation indefinitely.

As with any health and community development work, policy modification demands maintenance. When a reform becomes routine, people can forget that there's a reason to pay attention to it, and it can cease to be effective. You have to continue to pay attention, so that if enforcement becomes lax, or the requirements start to slip, someone will notice and remind everyone of why those requirements were changed in the first place. You have to continue to evaluate the new or changed policies for effectiveness, and to make sure they take the changing needs of the community into account. Once you start the process of policy change, you have to stay with it for the long haul.

In Summary

To ensure the quality of services, you have to ensure that the individuals, organizations, and facilities delivering the services are competent and appropriate to the task; offer a certain level of comfort, dignity, and humane treatment to participants; behave ethically toward participants, funders, one another, and the community; are aware of and use best practices where appropriate; and apply quality standards that benefit and safeguard service participants and the community.

Although there is no absolute guarantee of individual competency, for instance, or that a best practice for a particular community will be the best practice for others, there are some policies that can control, to the extent possible, for some factors that influence the quality of services:

• Required licensure or certification for individuals and/or facilities.
• Mandated adherence to a professional canon of ethics, or to a general set of ethical standards.
• An obligation on the part of individuals, facilities, and organizations to be aware of current thinking about best practices in the field, and to employ those practices when appropriate.
• The availability and accessibility of services to those who need them.
• The inclusion of quality standards in local laws or bylaws, agency regulations, funders' considerations, etc.
• The evaluation and modification of policies as needed to meet the needs of the target population and the community.

Some advantages to modifying policies in these directions include assuring a minimum level of quality; showing seriousness of purpose, and establishing the issue as one that should be treated seriously; demonstrating respect for the target population; giving the community confidence that the issue is being handled appropriately; lending credibility to both the effort and to the organization(s) providing services; increasing the chances that an intervention or service will be effective; and addressing the underlying foundation of service quality - the policies that control it.

Among the objections to this type of policy modification are that it may assure at best only a minimum level of quality; it may filter out imaginative solutions and people with valuable talents and skills; an emphasis on professionalism may alienate the target population or the community; bureaucratic requirements may present barriers to talented individuals and organizations; and changing policy may not actually address the problem. Modifying policies to reflect these possibilities is not always the best course of action. It's important to understand and analyze your situation to determine what's right for your community, and to build in flexibility if you do modify policies.

In general, a broad-based coalition is the ideal group to originate and advocate for policy modification. If the formation of such a group is impossible, reasonable alternatives are an advocacy organization, community based organizations that work with the target population and the issue, a local initiative including members of the target population, or a local branch of a professional association.

Some particularly good times to try to modify policies are before services begin; at the beginning of a new service period or funding cycle; when services prove inadequate; when a regular assessment and reporting process shows little or no progress; when new information or events create a logical opening for policy modification; or when public opinion demands change.

Actually modifying policy takes several steps:

• Learn about the existing policies, both explicit and unspoken.
• Decide whether modifying policy is the appropriate course of action for your situation.
• Determine which of the policy modification choices you're aiming for: the development of a certification requirements, or ethical or quality standards where none have previously existed; changes to current requirements or standards; or the mandated adoption of current requirements or standards.
• Develop new or revised requirements or standards as a proposal or starting point.
• Advocate for your proposal.
• Continue to monitor and evaluate the situation so that changes and effectiveness are maintained.

If you are successful in modifying policy to institute changes, you can have a profound effect on the quality of services available in your community.

What do we mean by modifying policies to enhance the quality of services?

___You ensure that the people offering the services are competent through licensure and certification or other measures.

___You ensure that the facilities offering services, or where services are provided, meet basic physical and practice standards through licensure and certification or other measures.

___You confirm that individuals, programs, and facilities follow the ethical rules of their professions, or, if none exist, they employ high ethical standards in their work and in their relationships with other organizations, funders, and the community.

___You require that programs are aware of and use the best appropriate practices available in delivering services.

___You ensure that services are available and accessible to those who need them.

___You demand that individuals and programs set or follow and apply appropriate quality standards that both benefit and safeguard those who are affected by the services provided.

___You allow for the evaluation and modification of services, when necessary, to meet the changing needs of the community

Why modify policies to enhance the quality of services?

You work to modify policy because:

___It assures, to the extent possible, a minimum level of quality.

___It shows seriousness of purpose, and establishes the issue as one that should be treated seriously.

___It demonstrates respect for the target population.

___It gives the community confidence that the issue is being handled appropriately.

___It lends credibility to both the effort and to the organization(s) providing services.

___It can increase the chances that an intervention or service will be effective.

___It addresses the foundation on which quality standards are usually based.

You are careful in modifying policy because:

___It assures only a minimum level of quality.

___It may filter out imaginative solutions and people with valuable talents and skills.

___An emphasis on professionalism may alienate the target population or the community.

___Bureaucratic requirements may present barriers to talented individuals and organizations.

___Changing policy may not address the problem.

Who should work to modify policies to enhance the quality of services?

___Where possible, you form and/or participate in a broad-based coalition to modify policies.

If a coalition isn't feasible, you work through:

___An advocacy organization.

___Community based organizations that work with the target population and the issue.

___A local initiative including members of the target population.

___A local branch of a professional association.

When should you try to modify policies to enhance the quality of services?

You try to modify policies:

___Before services begin, to ensure best practices and best quality.

___At the beginning of a new service period or funding cycle.

___When services prove unsatisfactory.

___When regular assessment and reporting shows little or no progress on a particular issue.

___When new possibilities or information become available.

___When public opinion demands it.

Example 1: Professions requiring licensure or certification

States vary in the professions and trades they regulate.

The following is a list culled from the certification boards of a number of states, including Connecticut, Massachusetts, Virginia, and others. The list could easily be more than three times as long as it is.

• Acupuncturists
• Architects
• Barbers
• Chiropractors
• Cosmetologists
• Dentists and Hygienists
• Dietitians
• Electricians
• EMT's and Paramedics
• Engineers
• Funeral Directors and Embalmers
• Hearing Instrument Specialists
• Home Inspectors
• Lawyers
• Nurses and Nurses' Aides
• Opticians
• Optometrists
• Pharmacists
• Physicians and Psychiatrists
• Plumbers and Gas Fitters
• Psychologists
• Public Accountants
• Radio/TV Technicians
• Real Estate Brokers and Salespersons
• Social Workers
• Speech Pathologists
• Teachers and School Principals

A PowerPoint presentation summarizing the major points in the section.

• What are family-friendly policies?

• Why should you promote family-friendly policies in the workplace and government?

• Who should promote family-friendly policies?

• When should you promote family-friendly policies in the workplace and government?

• How do you promote family-friendly policies in the workplace and government?

Luz was finding her life extremely difficult. Her job as a housekeeper at the hospital was hard, and that and caring for her four children always had her falling into bed exhausted at the end of the evening, only to get up at five to do it again. Even so, she always managed to get her kids to school and babysitters and herself to work on time. She did her job well and with good humor, and her boss told her he was going to recommend her for a promotion to team leader.

Now, however, she was faced with a complication. Her three-year-old had just been diagnosed with asthma, and her cousin, who took care of him, was afraid to continue. "What if he stops breathing? I don't know what to do. I don't have a car to take him to the emergency room, I have no one to call. You're right at the hospital, but you're halfway across town, and you don't have a car, either. I don't want that kind of responsibility."

Luz didn't know what to do. Her cousin had been babysitting for free, out of love and family obligation. Luz had no idea where she would get the money for child care - as it was, every penny she had went into food, rent, utilities, and clothing and other expenses for the children. She couldn't leave her son with just anyone, especially now that she knew he was asthmatic. And she couldn't take him to work with her.

In desperation, Luz persuaded her cousin to continue babysitting for a few more days, and decided to talk to her boss, the housekeeping supervisor. When she explained the situation, he looked serious. Luz was in tears now. "I may have to quit my job, but if I do, how will I feed my children? I don't know what to do."

"You're not the first person who's come to me with this kind of problem," the supervisor said. "I'll talk to the hospital director, but I don't know what she'll say." A few minutes later, the supervisor was back, smiling. "The director's been hearing about child care problems, too, from a lot of people - housekeepers, technicians, nurses, even some doctors. She went to the Board last month, and they've decided to start a day care center at the hospital for employees' children - it's already in the works. They were going to announce it next week.

"In the meantime, she suggested that we promote you immediately. That will mean a big increase in salary, and should be enough so that you can get child care until the hospital day care center opens."

In Luz's fictional case, the problem was solved, and she was able to continue working. For a lot of real people, however, situations like this are not easily resolved. The chances are that, at many hospitals or other places of business, Luz would have either had to quit, and perhaps end up on welfare, or to somehow find enough money to pay for child care. The fact that her employer had decided to institute a family-friendly solution to a problem common to many employees made all the difference.

Family-friendly workplaces and a family-friendly society are goals for a healthy community. In this section, we'll discuss what family-friendly can mean, look at why it's a benefit for everyone involved, and explore how it can be promoted as policy in business and government.

What are family-friendly policies?

There are really two definitions to the term "family-friendly" in this section. One has to do with the operation of the workplace, the other with government policies that affect that operation:

A family-friendly workplace or employer is one whose policies make it possible for employees to more easily balance family and work, and to fulfill both their family and work obligations. While this definition often applies to government, a major employer, as well, government has another function in promoting family-friendly policies.

Many of the family-friendly policies of government are those laws, regulations, and social policies that recognize the importance of families to society, and act to meet, directly or indirectly, the needs of children, parents, disabled family members, and the oldest generation.

We'll consider each of these definitions in turn.

Family-friendly workplace policies.

Family-friendly workplace policies can take many forms. The on-site day care that we talked about in the introductory example is perhaps the one that many people think of first, because it's so clearly family-friendly. What could be more directly aimed at the needs of working parents and their children than day care that is convenient and secure, allows parents to be there instantly if something is wrong, and provides a high quality experience for the child? If, as is often the case, in-house day care is free to the employee, that's frosting on the cake.

In-house day care, especially free in-house day care, is hardly the most common of family-friendly policies, however. It's almost entirely restricted to large companies or institutions (or places where day care teachers are trained), because it's expensive, and requires permits and licensed facilities and staff. There are, however, a large number of other policies, many of which can be adopted even by small, mom-and-pop businesses, that help employees to balance work and family. Some are directly aimed toward family-friendly outcomes, while others may be only incidentally family-friendly. In either case, they make a workplace a better place to work. Some possible family-friendly workplace policies:

• Flex-time. For employees with family obligations, control of their time may be the most valuable benefit an employer can give. Flex-time - a flexible work schedule - allows people to choose when they work, as long as they put in their hours every week. Depending upon the employer, that may mean complete freedom to design their own work schedule, or being able to choose from among several set options (a four-day, rather than a five-day week, for instance, or days off mid-week instead of on the weekend, or starting and ending the workday several hours earlier or later than normal.
• Job sharing. Two (or more, but that's very unusual) employees may share a single position, by each working a fraction of the necessary time. In that way, people can hold, or continue to hold, the position they want, and still have time to spend with children or aging parents, or take care of other family responsibilities.
• Temporary or permanent switch to part-time. A full-time employee might be allowed to change to a part-time position - either as part of a job share, or simply as a reduction in working hours - and still continue in the same position. A new mother, for instance, may want to switch to part-time for the first year of her baby's life, in order to bond and spend time with the child, and adjust to the demands of parenthood.
• Allowing work away from the worksite. An employee may work from home or some other remote site some or all of the time. He may communicate and discuss work issues with colleagues and supervisors by spending particular days or a set amount of time at the worksite every week, or he may "telecommute" by using telephone and e-mail. Telecommuting allows people to work at locations anywhere in the world, regardless of the location of the actual workplace.

• Maternity/paternity leave. Part of an employee benefit package may be paid or unpaid leave for the birth, adoption, or acceptance of the foster placement of a child. A combination of paid and unpaid leave is also a possibility.

• Parental leave. This is a short-term option that allows a parent to take an afternoon or a day off to pick up a sick child at school or tend to one at home, attend a school performance or athletic event, or otherwise minister to a child's needs.
• Family medical leave. An employee would use this kind of leave to take care of an aging parent or a family member with a long-term illness, or to tend to her own chronic or temporary medical problems - anything from cancer treatments to arthroscopic surgery to mental health. Once again, it might be paid or unpaid, or some combination, and is usually limited to a certain number of weeks or months. Such a leave, in most cases, is also covered by FMLA.
• Flexible emergency leave. This offers a certain number of days a year to attend to medical or other emergencies, usually with pay.
• Employee and family health benefits. These may include not only generous health and dental insurance, but on-site wellness centers, on-site fitness centers or subsidies for joining a gym, and even health-and-fitness-oriented programs for employees' children or spouses.
• Child care. On-site day care isn't the only option here. An employer might subsidize employees' child care, paying all or some part of approved arrangements. Other possibilities are to provide referrals to reliable child care, or reserve slots at particular facilities for employees' children.
• Elder care. Although very few employers, if any, actually provide elder day care or home care, many provide resources and referrals - and even subsidies - for such care.
• Family-oriented events. Many employers arrange company picnics, Christmas parties, and other events to include employees' families.
• Family-oriented environment. Some employers, particularly smaller ones, make it possible for people to bring their children to the workplace from time to time when necessary. These employers may set up a playroom, with toys and children's videos to keep children busy at those times.
• Tuition for employee education.
• College scholarships or loans for employees' children. An employer may award one or more scholarships a year, on a merit or need basis, to the children of employees, or may actually pay or lend some amount of tuition for each employee's child who attends college.
• Including family issues as part of an employee assistance program. An employer may offer seminars and workshops on parenting, keeping kids off drugs, education, and other family-oriented topics.

Family-friendly government policies.

There are really two ways that government can be family-friendly. The first is to institute family-friendly policies, like those described above for other workplaces, for its own employees. U.S. federal employees, for instance, are not included in FMLA, but the federal government provides them with a similar benefit.

The other way that government at any level can be family-friendly is to encourage - by laws or other methods - family-friendly policies in business and public life in general. Some of the ways it might accomplish this purpose include:

• Mandating that businesses institute family-friendly policies. The FMLA is one example. A local Board of Health banning smoking in places normally frequented by children and pregnant women, in order to avoid exposing them to second-hand smoke, is another.
• Mandating a health insurance plan for all families. As has been discussed for years, there are many ways to do this, including a single-payer plan (where the government or some other entity acts as the insurer for everyone), or a plan where all employers must provide health insurance as a benefit to employees.
• Using tax breaks and subsidies to encourage businesses and other entities to adopt family-friendly policies. A business might get a major tax break for maintaining an on-site child care center, for instance, or might get a subsidy for itself subsidizing employees' child care costs.
• Providing public funding for family-friendly interventions and services. Granting subsidies and funding for public education are obvious ways to achieve this, but funding such services as Parents Anonymous (support groups for formerly abusive parents), family literacy programs, WIC (the Women, Infants, and Children family nutrition program), and long-term elder care are equally valuable.
• Funding and maintaining family-oriented public facilities. In addition to medical facilities and the like, government - especially local government - may build or run skating rinks, swimming pools, community centers, public parks, and other facilities where families can gather for community activities.
• Encouraging family-and youth-friendly policy among public agencies and services. Rather than allowing - or ordering - police to arrest or disperse skateboarders, for instance, a local government could set aside areas where skateboarders could practice without being disturbed or disturbing anyone else. A local government entity could arrange for lifeguards or other safety features at a popular family bathing spot, rather than merely prohibiting swimming. It could put railings along the walkways in a local park, to make it easier for elders to use them. The real issue here is that officials should be thinking of ways to make a community more family- and youth-friendly, and to make everyone in the community feel valued, instead of setting up adversary situations (kids/cops, elders/joggers, etc.) by the policies it adopts.
• Using its influence to encourage family-friendly policies. Government-sponsored studies or commissions that point out the advantages of a family-friendly stance by businesses and other entities can have some effect on how those entities function. Individual advocacy by influential politicians can have even more effect.

Why promote family-friendly policies?

Family-friendly policies are, in general, part of a win-win situation: everyone involved benefits from them. They're good for children, parents, and elders; they are in the best interest of employers; and, in the long run, they benefit communities and the society in general. Some of the specific reasons why family-friendly policies are worth striving for:

They allow parents to spend more and better time with their children.

Having more time with their children helps parents bond with babies, strengthens family bonds in general, and aids children's learning. It leads to better parenting, because it allows parents to interact with their children without the burden of guilt (over not spending enough time with them) or the stress of time pressure (I really should be working on that report; I have to leave for a meeting).

An argument can be made that, by reducing stress around the issue of parenting, family-friendly policies make it possible for parents to see their children as a pleasure as well as a responsibility, This reduces the potential for child abuse and increases the potential for close relationships (among spouses as well as among parents and children) and positive results for children as they grow.

Family-friendly policies reduce stress not only for parents, but for anyone caring for a family member, or coping with a difficult personal medical problem.

Studies show that a certain amount of controlled stress can be productive, but too much can be a killer. Whether an employee's family responsibilities involve children, an ill spouse, a frail elder, or his own health, policies that make it easier to balance work and family will make his life more manageable. Keeping stress at a reasonable level helps maintain health and contributes to healing, and increases the amount of energy the employee can give to both work and family obligations.

They allow more choices, making it possible for employees to exercise more control over their lives.

Several studies have shown that it's control, even more than stress, that influences employees' health and their feelings about their jobs. A high-stress job is not necessarily a problem as long as the employee also has a good deal of control over what she does. Those with high stress and very little control in their jobs, however, are most at risk for stress-related illnesses, and for leaving their jobs.

Employees taking advantage of family-friendly policies are more productive.

Studies in both the U.S. and U.K. seem to show that family-friendly policies in the workplace lead to higher productivity. A 1996 article in Business Week magazine cites a number of companies where a switch to a family-friendly workplace resulted in increased productivity and profits. Knowing that family obligations are taken care of, and knowing that their work time is more limited, make it possible for employees to concentrate more fully on their work.

By creating a better work-family balance, family-friendly policies allow employees in two-income or single parent families to improve their economic status and quality of life.

The more families are able to flourish economically, the better it is for society, as well as for the families themselves.

Family-friendly policies help employers keep valuable employees.

The Business Week article cited above, as well as a number of studies demonstrate a relationship between family-friendly policies and employee retention. By keeping people for long periods, employers reduce training costs and avoid losing the knowledge and experience that walk out the door with any veteran employee.

Family-friendly employers have more to offer new job candidates, and are thus able to recruit and hire the best.

In many cases, family-friendly policies are so important to job seekers that they're willing to take less money in return for the flexibility or other benefits they offer.

Family-friendly policies generate employee loyalty.

Those who have taken advantage of a leave policy to tend to a dying parent or a chronically ill spouse, for instance, often feel they owe their employers something for being responsive to their situations.

Family-friendly policies are good for the society.

They confer a number of advantages for the community and the society at large:

• They are better for family stability and for children, thus improving the outlook for the next generation.
• They allow more people to work, and thus to contribute to the society. Many of these contributions, some of them crucially important, might be lost if not for the opportunity to balance work and family.
• Family friendly policies are fairer to employees, reflecting better than many other workplace practices the values of an egalitarian and democratic society.

Who should promote family-friendly policies?

Who is in the best position to champion family-friendly policies with employers, government, and the public? The answers are probably somewhat different for each audience, but there are groups or individuals who may be more effective than others.

Business people. Members of the business community have a number of advantages in promoting family-friendly policies.

• They know others in the business community personally.
• They have a high degree of credibility in that community, because they have to cope with the same issues as other business people - customer service, employee competence and turnover, profit-and-loss concerns, taxes and other government regulations, etc.
• They speak the same language as those they're trying to convince.
• Perhaps most important, those who are promoting family-friendly policies most probably have implemented them, and can testify to their benefits, particularly benefits to the bottom line. This type of testimony is what's most likely to convince other business people.

Politicians and other policy makers. These folks also have some built-in advantages, in some ways similar to those of business people.

• They know others in politics and policy-making personally - and often a large number of business people, civic leaders, and other influential people as well.
• They often - although by no means always - have a degree of credibility with other policy makers and the public.
• If they believe strongly enough in the issue, they may be able to call in some favors to make things happen.
• They understand how to negotiate the system to change policy.

People affected by family-friendly policies, or those affiliated with them. These may include:

• Labor unions.
• Grass roots community groups, or groups of employees from a particular company or facility.
• Professional associations.
• Community-based organizations or other health and human service agencies.
• Individuals who, like Luz at the beginning of the section, have had experience with family-friendly policies...or the lack of them. Personal testimony can be a very powerful persuader.

Key individuals in the community. Every community has a few people - or sometimes more than a few - who have a lot of influence with others. They may be some of the other people referred to here, or may be leaders in other ways - clergy, citizen activists, respected former officials or longtime pillars of the community, or simply ordinary community members whose integrity and intelligence and fairness have made them opinion leaders. More often than not, if you can get a few of these folks on your side, things will happen.

The media. It's always important to have the media on your side, but it's even better if they decide to take up the cause. If you can convince a newspaper or TV station to sponsor the idea of family-friendly policies, you can at least be certain that people will hear about it and its advantages.

A broad-based coalition. As with all policy change, a coalition that includes as many of the above groups and individuals as possible is probably the ideal promoter. If everyone's represented, there's high credibility, and the ideas are likely to penetrate all segments of the community. There's also a much better chance that what the group proposes will be accepted as their own by a majority of the community.

When should you promote family-friendly policies?

The simple answer to this question is "When they're needed," which is whenever they're not readily available to all workers and citizens. There are some times, however, when your efforts might be particularly fruitful.

• When employees and/or family members themselves raise the issue. This could range from staff members in your organization raising questions about their work situations, to people coming to your organization for help in changing their workplace or workplace policy in general.
• When you can demonstrate that families are having a tough time. When there's an economic downturn, for instance, many workers may lose their jobs, and many others may find themselves struggling. That's a good time to call attention to ways that employers and government can help families while helping themselves as well.
• When family issues are in the news and the public eye. If a book about "the crisis in the American family" is gaining publicity, if a TV network airs a special report on the family, or if a national news magazine publishes a cover story on the topic ("The Death of the Nuclear Family?" was the actual title of a Newsweek cover story several years ago), it may be a time to strike while the iron is hot. When people are thinking about families, they're apt to be willing to look at ways to benefit and strengthen them. Among the many family-oriented issues that often reach the front pages and the TV screen are youth and domestic violence, the divorce rate, the difficulties of caring for aging parents, and parent participation in schools and their children's education.
• When family issues are highlighted in a political campaign. Candidates often try to outdo one another in appearing "pro-family," especially when the campaign involves such controversial family-related issues as gay marriage or abortion. Such a campaign presents a golden opportunity to say, "You're pro-family? Put your money where your mouth is, and come out for family-friendly policies that make it easier for families to survive and to spend more time together."
• During labor negotiations. Family-friendly workplace policies can be made a negotiating point in contract negotiations. This might be a particularly good chance to address the fairness of those policies, and the issue of making them accessible to all employees, not just those in the front office.
• During an economic development campaign. A community that's trying to attract new businesses, or to help local business grow and improve, can increase its opportunities by adopting, and convincing local employers to adopt, family-friendly policies. New businesses are much more willing to locate in a community where there are options for employees with family responsibilities - good schools, quality elder and long-term care, recreational opportunities, family-friendly facilities. Existing local businesses are better able to attract the best employees available if they have something special to offer...such as a family-friendly workplace. You can make a good argument that the adoption of family-friendly policies is a basic strategy for any economic development effort.

How do you promote family-friendly policies in the workplace and government?

In many cases, for either employers or government, the adoption of family-friendly policies is more than a simple decision to do things one way as opposed to another. It involves a change in perception about the nature of a workplace or community, and about what's important for businesses, other employers, and society. For that reason, promoting family-friendly policies may take time and careful thought. The following series of steps takes that into account.

Decide where to start.

Your success may depend on the issue you choose to address first, and the setting and scale in which you address it (a single workplace? a whole industry? the community?). You're not going to change a workplace or a community overnight, and you're not going to persuade either one to change everything at once. What's a good first step toward a totally family-friendly environment?

One possibility is to poll workers and/or community members to see what's most important to them. You might find different preferences for different folks: white collar workers might value flex-time, while blue collar workers might want child care. You should aim for fairness in what you propose: what's the greatest benefit for everyone?

Based on your research, you should try to come up with a clear, well-defined goal. What do you want to have happen where, and by when? The ideal is to start with something that will have a real impact, but that isn't so ambitious that it's impossible - or impossibly expensive - to achieve. If child care seems to be the major need, for instance, you may want to start with a small employer subsidy for child care costs, or an arrangement whereby people could bring their kids to work when circumstances dictate. Starting out by demanding free child care for all may doom your effort at the start.

Do your homework.

Especially if there is to be a public debate about the issue of family-friendly policies, you need to have not only ideas, but facts at the tip of your tongue. Some of the areas you should research:

• Particular needs in your community.
• Policies that have been implemented elsewhere, and their results.
• Employers or communities where family-friendly policies have been adopted.
• Potential benefits for everyone involved.
• Potential costs, and ways to defray them.
• Potential objections you might face, and how to counter them.
• Alternatives to what you're initially proposing.

Your research might include searching libraries and the Internet, talking to people who've had direct experience with the issue - local officials, human resource directors, union activists, employees, etc. - conferring with researchers or other experts, and talking with health and human service organizations who've established their own family-friendly policies, and/or who've worked with businesses or communities as partners in implementing family-friendly policies. Gathering examples of family-friendly policies that have worked elsewhere can help you in several ways. As examples, they'll establish that such policies exist; they'll answer arguments that such policies cost too much or don't work; and they'll give you ideas for creating your own family-friendly policies or programs.

Your effort is far more likely to be successful if you know what you're talking about, and have answers to the objections of opponents or skeptics. The more ideas and information you have, the more people will take your arguments seriously.

Offer to help find solutions that work.

As explained above, part of your research should be aimed at generating some alternative family-friendly scenarios. These can be used as starting points in a discussion of what kinds of family-friendly practices or policies might work in your community or workplace. Alternatively, you can offer to participate in a coalition or on a committee set up to look at possible family-friendly innovations. Some ways to make family-friendly policies work:

• In-house day care may sound impossible, but it doesn't have to be wholly funded by the employer. Employees could pay, either a set fee or on a scale keyed to salary, to help offset the costs of the service.
• Employees who work from home could pay their own Internet service provider and phone charges, rather than those costs being borne by the employer. The employee could write off the expense on her taxes, and save commuting costs (gas or public transportation costs, wear and tear on a vehicle, time) as well. The employer could get the work done for the same cost as if the employee worked on-site. Both would thus benefit.
• Employees might have money withheld from paychecks to contribute toward pay during leaves. (If no leaves are taken, the employee could eventually get the money back.) Conversely, an employer might agree to pay reduced salary over several weeks so that an employee could continue to receive at least a small regular paycheck during an unpaid leave.

• Government-supported family-friendly facilities can charge an admission fee to help cover costs, or might be supported by higher taxes.
• A "Family-Friendly" designation might be granted by local government, the Chamber of Commerce, or some other body to employers that have implemented family-friendly policies.
• Government might fund or subsidize (with sliding-scale payment by employees making up most or all of the rest of the cost) workplace seminars on family-related topics, or on-site marriage and family therapy, just as it subsidizes workplace education.

Point to and reward those workplaces and government agencies who support and engage in family-friendly practices.

A "community hero" or "best business" award, with lots of publicity, could both raise the profile of the issue and identify it as something that others might aspire to.

Frame the debate as a win-win situation.

Try to avoid assuming an adversary position here. Emphasize the fact that family-friendly policies are good for everyone involved - employees, employers, government, the society as a whole. No one loses, and everyone benefits. Use the available research - and there's plenty; see the Internet Resources part of this section for several examples - to make the case that family-friendly policies go along with improvements in employee recruitment and retention, loyalty, productivity, and morale, and that they also positively affect child development, employee stress levels and health, and the quality of life in a community.
It's hard to argue against a change that confers universal benefits.

Marshal support.

Put together a coalition, if you can, or work for the support of a large number of influential people. It would be great if your support could come from all segments of the community, but some particularly important groups and individuals include:

• Unions and other trade associations.
• Working families.
• Businesses and business associations.
• Policy makers.
• Influential individuals, particularly in business, the non-profit world, and government.

Communicate, communicate, communicate.

Get your message out to policy makers in business, the non-profit sector, and government, to workers, and to the public. The best arguments in the world are worthless if no one hears them. Use all the channels available to you, particularly:

• The media.
• Labor unions.
• Chambers of Commerce and other business associations.
• Professional associations.
• Direct contact with policy makers.
• Direct contact with the appropriate people in workplaces. These might be CEO's, Human Service Directors, directors of non-profits, owners of small businesses, or influential employees.

Advocate for family-friendly policies in whatever ways are appropriate to the situation.

You'll have to decide what "appropriate" means for you here. The more confrontational you choose to be, the harder it is to restore good will afterwards. You'd probably only use direct action, for instance, in a situation that's patently unfair and not likely to improve in any other way. Your goal, after all, is one that's typified by policy makers in business and government being genuinely concerned about people, and feeling, at the same time, that any family-friendly changes they make will benefit them as well - hardly an adversary situation.

Some possible ways you might advocate for family-friendly policies:

• Union negotiations.
• Persuading business, professional, or trade associations (the Chamber of Commerce, for example) to issue policy statements supporting family-friendly practices and policies.
• Employing as spokespersons employers who have implemented family-friendly programs that have benefited both them and employees.
• Legislative advocacy. This might entail personal contact with legislators and aides, a full-scale legislative campaign, or both. The goal could be a law - such as FMLA - that mandates family-friendly policy, or simply government support and backing for family-friendly policies.
• A media campaign.
• Direct action. Again, this would probably be a last resort, and could range, in increasing order of seriousness, from filing a grievance or complaint, to holding a public demonstration, to calling a strike or boycott, to a lawsuit.

Urge the continued evaluation and adaptation of family-friendly policies to make sure they're working for employers, employees, government, and the society.

The whole concept of family-friendly policies and programs is still relatively new. By carefully evaluating new and ongoing policies and programs, and changing them to respond better to the needs they're meant to meet, employers and government can help them evolve for the better.

Continue promoting family-friendly policies in the workplace and government indefinitely.

As with any policy issue, if you don't keep at it, your gains will disappear because everyone will assume that "that's been taken care of." The goal here, if family-friendly policies are to have the maximum effect, is really a family-friendly society. If that's ever to be achieved, you'll have to continue to promote and support those policies over the long term.

In Summary

A family-friendly workplace or employer (and government as an employer may be included here) is one whose policies make it possible for employees to more easily balance family and work, and to fulfill both their family and work obligations. In addition to its employer role, government may encourage a family-friendly society by adopting laws, regulations, and social policies that recognize the importance of families to society, and act to meet, directly or indirectly, the needs of children, parents, and the oldest generation.

Thus, an employer might offer flexible work schedules and locations, child care, support for elder care, family leave options, and other family-friendly benefits to employees. A government entity, in addition to offering similar options to its employees might also - as the U.S. Congress and many other federal governments have done - pass laws requiring the granting of maternity/paternity leave, fund family-friendly health and social programs, construct family-friendly facilities, and support family-friendly policies in general.

Family-friendly policies benefit employers, families, and society. Research shows that employers gain in employee recruitment, retention, loyalty, and productivity, all of which contribute to the bottom line. Families gain in the ability to balance work and family obligations, reduced stress, and better quality of family life and life in general. The society gains because family-friendly policies lead to more stable families with time to contribute to their communities, and better outcomes for children.

The best promoters of family-friendly policies are those who have both the knowledge and credibility to make the argument for them. These include business people who have adopted such policies themselves and had good results; politicians and other policy makers who've examined the issue; working families and those affiliated with them (labor unions, e.g.); interested influential citizens; the media; or a broad-based coalition including most or all of these groups as members.

The best times to promote family-friendly policies are when people are thinking about families and the problems that often beset them. When workers and families themselves broach the issue, when many families are clearly in difficult circumstances (as in a recession), when family-related issues such as domestic violence or child hunger are in the news, or when family becomes an issue in a political campaign, the time may be ripe to push for the adoption of family-friendly policies. Other good opportunities may arise during any political campaign; in the course of labor negotiations; or as part of a community development effort.

There are a number of steps to take in order to gain the acceptance of family-friendly policies in business and government:

1. Decide where to start. Choose a goal that's reachable, that reflects the needs of families in your community, and that has widespread support.
2. Do your homework. Do your research, so you have all the facts, as well as ideas about what might work in your situation.
3. Offer to help find solutions that work. Generate and present alternatives that take into account the priorities of all groups involved, and make family-friendly policies more feasible and palatable to everyone.
4. Point to and reward those businesses and government agencies who support and engage in family-friendly practices.
5. Frame the debate as a win-win situation. Emphasize the fact that family-friendly policies benefit everyone.
6. Marshal support. Form a coalition if you can, and/or enlist already-existing groups to bolster your effort.
7. Communicate, communicate, communicate. Get your message out through every channel and by every method available to you.
8. Advocate for family-friendly policies in whatever ways are appropriate to the situation. Use whatever advocacy techniques work for the situation, from a media blitz to labor negotiations to direct action.
9. Evaluate and adapt family-friendly policies and programs, so they'll serve everyone better.
10. Continue promoting family-friendly policies in business and government indefinitely.

If you can follow these steps successfully, your campaign should be successful as well, and family-friendly business and government policies will bring rewards to everyone in your community.

What are family-friendly policies?

___Employer or workplace policies, in both business and government, that make it possible for employees to more easily balance family and work, and to fulfill both their family and work obligations.

___Government laws, regulations, and social policies that recognize the importance of families to society, and act to meet, directly or indirectly, the needs of children, parents, and the oldest generation.

Why should you promote family-friendly policies in business and government?

You promote family-friendly policies because:

___They allow parents to spend more and better time with their children.

___Family-friendly policies reduce stress not only for parents, but for anyone caring for a family member, or coping with a difficult personal medical problem.

___They allow more choices, making it possible for employees to exercise more control over their lives.

___Employees taking advantage of family-friendly policies are more productive.

___By creating a better work-family balance, family-friendly policies allow employees in two-income or single parent families to improve their economic status and quality of life.

___Family-friendly policies help employers keep valuable employees.

___Family-friendly employers have more to offer new job candidates, and are thus able to recruit and hire the best.

___Family-friendly policies generate employee loyalty.

___Family-friendly policies are better for family stability and for children, thus improving the outlook for the next generation.

___They allow more people to work, and thus to contribute to the society.

___Family friendly policies are fairer to employees, reflecting, better than many other business practices the values of an egalitarian and democratic society.

Who should promote family-friendly policies?

To promote family-friendly policies, you enlist:

___Business people, especially those who have instituted family-friendly policies in their own businesses.

___Politicians and other policy makers.

___People affected by family-friendly policies, or those affiliated with them, such as unions.

___Key individuals.

___The media.

___A broad-based coalition, including most or all of the above, as well as community members.

When should you promote family-friendly policies in business and government?

You promote family-friendly policies:

___When employees and families broach the topic themselves.

___When you can demonstrate that families are having a difficult time.

___When family issues are in the news.

___When family becomes an issue in a political campaign.

___During labor negotiations.

___During a community development campaign.

How do you promote family-friendly policies in business and government?

 

Example #1: Advancing gender pay equity through family-friendly workplaces

The Gender Pay Equity work group, made up of members from organizations such as the Kansas Children’s Services League, United Community Services of Johnson County, Johnson County Department of Health and Environment, and others, worked to promote family-friendly workplace practices to help close the gender pay gap. They partnered with the Kansas Children’s Services League and the Power of the Positive initiative to help local employers gather employee feedback through surveys and provide free technical assistance for adopting family-friendly policies. To engage employers and share ideas, the group organized a Family Friendly Workplace Summit. The presentation and discussions generated valuable ideas and strategies for making workplaces more supportive of families. The central message emphasized that family-friendly practices benefit businesses, help retain workers, and support the well-being of children in Kansas.

For more information: Family-Friendly Workplaces by the Kansas Children's Service League

 

A PowerPoint presentation summarizing the major points in the section.