In nearly all the previous sections of this long chapter on direct action, we've mentioned the need for maintaining an advocacy effort over the long term. Any action or policy, even one that's embedded in a law or government regulation, can be changed, diluted, or eliminated in the future because of inattention or a determined opponent's action. Although the need to address your issue may have been accepted as one that is as important as the need for public safety or public education, public opinion could shift, and support could weaken. Public attention and policy priorities can shift as new issues emerge and election cycles change. Supportive policy makers may retire or leave office, and their successors may be unfamiliar with your community's priorities. Maintaining relationships, sharing community knowledge, and engaging new decision makers can help sustain support through these transitions. Sustained advocacy helps keep your issue visible and helps policy makers, funders, and the public understand what is needed and why. Long-term advocacy shares features with advocacy for an immediate purpose, but it also requires planning, shared leadership, and an understanding that your approach will need to change as circumstances and community priorities evolve. In this section, we'll depart from our familiar what?-why?-who?-when?-how? format to discuss long-term advocacy - how to look at it, plan for it, prepare yourself to engage in it, and commit to it. Looking at the long term Let's say that you've engaged in a successful advocacy effort to gain recognition and funding to address homelessness in your community. Local and state officials have pledged to open a 15-bed family shelter and to hire an outreach worker to connect people experiencing homelessness with housing options and support they choose. Does that mean your advocacy work is over? Not necessarily. Fifteen beds may not meet the needs of all families experiencing homelessness in the community. People experiencing homelessness as individuals may also need housing and support, whether or not they have family or other personal connections. What is the plan for preventing homelessness and expanding access to stable, affordable housing? Does it include accessible, voluntary services for people experiencing homelessness who have mental health conditions, along with efforts to address barriers such as unaffordable rents, discrimination, and limited income? People with lived experience should help shape these decisions. And if funding decreases, how will the community sustain the shelter and outreach services? Your successful campaign has started an important part of the process of addressing homelessness. Maintaining those gains and taking the next steps will require time and a sustained, coordinated effort. As an advocate, you have to take the long view - but what, exactly, does that entail? Vision: seeing the whole. Looking at the long term means having an ultimate goal and a series of intermediate goals along the way, each of which brings you closer to your destination. The process of reaching that goal matters too. The long view takes in the whole journey - its length, its changes in direction, and the steps needed to move forward. Your vision, for instance, might be a community where everyone has access to safe, stable, affordable housing. Reaching that goal takes sustained investment and collaboration. The shelter and outreach worker are meaningful gains, and people with lived experience, community organizations, and public agencies can help identify what should come next. For example, your next step might be a specific one: adding another outreach worker or expanding shelter capacity while working toward permanent housing options. Other steps might include increasing the supply of affordable housing, supporting peer-led networks, and making services easier to access. Each step should contribute to the ultimate goal while providing a meaningful benefit along the way. Flexibility: understanding that circumstances and community priorities will change over time, and that your advocacy may need to change in response. You've already helped establish a family shelter and an outreach program. As a result, homelessness may receive more public attention, and additional funding may become available. At the same time, the number of people experiencing homelessness could still increase, or new barriers to housing and services could emerge. Any of these circumstances may require you to adapt. Taking the long view means remaining flexible, learning from community members and new information, and being willing to change direction when appropriate. Constant vigilance: maintaining your gains. Changes can threaten earlier gains. Policy makers may shift their attention to other priorities or assume that an issue has been resolved. Whatever the reason, maintaining progress may require renewed advocacy, clear information, and continued community involvement. As an advocate, watch for changes that could affect the people and communities involved in your effort. Sometimes you'll need to respond to something that has already happened, such as a funding cut or a harmful policy change. Regular monitoring, strong relationships, and community feedback can also help you identify emerging challenges and prepare a response before they become more difficult to address. Patience Allowing time for change. Many changes happen incrementally and take longer than expected. Advocacy can still have value when progress is not immediately visible. Public understanding, relationships, and policy priorities may develop over time. Continue to assess your approach, recognize smaller gains, and adjust when needed. Perseverance Sustaining the effort. Long-term advocacy depends on consistent engagement and shared responsibility. Regular contact with policy makers and the media can keep community priorities visible, especially when you share useful information and community perspectives. The same principle applies to holding an employer accountable for mistreating migrant workers or maintaining unsafe working conditions. Build a team that can sustain this work through changing circumstances, with clear roles, leadership transitions, and time for rest. Lasting commitment should not require any one person to be available every day indefinitely. A comprehensive view of advocacy as a long and complex process is important both to managing that process and to sustaining participation over time. Recognizing progress, learning from setbacks, and sharing responsibility can help people maintain their commitment without overlooking the challenges they face. Even reaching a major goal does not necessarily end the need for advocacy. New priorities may emerge, and earlier gains may require continued funding, community involvement, and monitoring. For example, a community that has reduced violence may still need to sustain prevention activities and supportive services. Treat progress as a reason to examine what is working and how to maintain it, while adapting to new community needs. Planning for the long term So how does all this translate into a long-term advocacy effort? Start with a plan to guide your work. The plan should remain flexible while providing both general direction and specific steps toward your shared goals. A long-term plan starts, as implied above, with a vision. And a vision starts not with one person, but with many. The long-term vision for your effort may not be obvious, or people involved in or affected by the issue may have different views about what it should be. Take time to involve community members and partner groups, especially people most affected by the issue, in working out your vision. A shared vision can help sustain commitment to an effort that may continue for many years. A participatory process - one in which everyone who might be involved in or affected by the effort participates as an equal partner - is an important element in creating a shared vision. Working through differences and agreeing on goals takes time. Support meaningful participation through accessible meeting formats, language access, transportation or childcare support where needed, and compensation for community expertise when possible. Share decision-making authority so participation can influence the direction of the effort. Your vision will help you identify long-term goals. Those goals, in turn, will suggest shorter-term objectives that move the effort forward. Understanding how these steps connect can help you maintain direction, assess progress, and adjust your approach as circumstances change. Here are some important elements in developing a vision and strategies for carrying it out: Consider the issue in context. How does the issue affect the community? How do broader social, economic, and political conditions influence it? Given that context, what changes would help you reach the outcome you envision? To return to homelessness, for instance, some of the questions you might examine are: What is its history in the community? What efforts have been made to address it, and what have community members learned from them? How have public attitudes influenced those efforts? What factors contribute to homelessness, such as housing costs, wages, discrimination, or gaps in services? Which can you address locally, and where could regional or national partnerships help? How do community members understand the issue? What do people with lived experience identify as priorities, and what concerns or misconceptions need to be addressed? What community strengths, relationships, knowledge, and resources could support efforts to prevent and address homelessness? The answers to these and similar questions will help you plan for both the short and long term. They can clarify what is possible now, what additional resources or partnerships are needed, and what broader changes would support your vision. Anticipate trends and attitudes. Looking at your issue in its historical context can help you understand how public attitudes and responses have developed. Using homelessness as an example, some questions you might ask include: How are attitudes and approaches to homelessness changing among community members and policy makers at the local, state, and national levels? What are funders prioritizing, and how are those priorities changing? Services for people experiencing homelessness who have mental health conditions? Emergency shelter? Affordable housing? Homelessness prevention? How can your group use community knowledge and available evidence to help shape these trends? How can people with lived experience help guide funding priorities, policy decisions, and public understanding? What changes does your community want to see? Remember that your advocacy can help shape future priorities rather than only respond to existing trends. Anticipating trends and attitudes will help you decide where to focus your advocacy. For example, if funding emphasizes individual behavior or job training while community members identify affordable housing and barriers to services as urgent priorities, you may need to work with funders and policy makers to broaden their approach. Education, employment support, and voluntary services can be useful, but they should be considered alongside housing access, income stability, and the policies and conditions that shape people's options. Combine community knowledge with available evidence to guide your next steps. This is an ongoing process. Regularly review community feedback, news coverage, social media discussions, policy makers' statements, and funders' requests for proposals (RFPs). This can help you identify emerging challenges, potential partners, and practical next steps. Develop short- and long-term objectives and strategies. Considering context and anticipating trends help you understand the issue and the conditions surrounding it. Setting objectives and developing strategies bring that understanding together with your goals. Your plan should identify the steps needed to make progress and how you will know those steps are making a difference. It would be unrealistic to assume that a new advocacy effort could quickly resolve every factor contributing to homelessness. Instead, develop a long-term strategy with specific short-term objectives that respond to immediate needs while supporting lasting improvements. Your route may change along the way. A new source of funding, a policy change, an unexpected challenge, or community feedback may suggest a different approach. Review those opportunities and challenges together while keeping your shared vision in focus. Some suggestions for developing objectives and strategies: Choose short-term objectives that can reasonably be reached within a clear timeframe. A series of meaningful gains can help people see progress, learn from the work, and remain involved through setbacks. For each objective, develop an action plan that includes a timeline. Identify responsibilities, needed resources, and ways to assess progress. Review the plan with participants and make adjustments as necessary. Connect your long-term goal to practical strategies and partnerships. Some conditions extend beyond local control, but communities can still take meaningful action. Identify what your group can influence directly, where broader coalitions are needed, and how you will assess progress. Some goals may be worth pursuing even when they extend beyond a single campaign or generation. Efforts to prevent war, end discrimination, or achieve lasting environmental protection may involve many stages of work. In these situations, define meaningful intermediate goals and document what is learned so future participants can build on earlier contributions. Efforts like these can be difficult to sustain, but each generation can build on earlier work. In the U.S., movements led by people from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups and by women have challenged exclusion and expanded rights, although inequities remain. International efforts to prevent conflict also show that long-term goals may require ongoing cooperation across generations. Progress is not automatic; it depends on continued participation, accountability, and learning. Be proactive. Work with community members to identify priorities and develop solutions, rather than waiting only to respond to someone else's proposals. Make your own proposals at each stage of your long-term effort. Preparing for the long term You've considered the long-term possibilities for your issue and developed a strategic plan. Now you need to prepare to carry it out. This means organizing your work, helping participants understand and shape the long-term effort, and communicating with the public and policy makers through appropriate channels. Prepare yourself by getting organized Getting organized can mean different things in different situations. If you're already part of an organization, you may want to review and refine its structure. If you're part of a loosely organized grassroots group, consider what coordination, shared responsibilities, or organizational structure would help sustain your effort. If you're an individual or part of a small group, you may want to form a larger coalition as a base for long-term advocacy. If you're embarking on a long-term advocacy campaign, you will need a clear structure for making decisions, sharing responsibilities, managing resources, and remaining accountable to the community. Depending on your goals, that might be a formal organization, a coalition, a fiscally sponsored project, or a coordinated grassroots network. Choose a structure that fits your capacity and preserves meaningful community leadership. Review it as the effort grows or changes. Whatever your circumstances, organization is essential. You need ways to track responsibilities, respond to messages, complete work on time, alert participants when action is needed, and manage finances. The structure should be clear enough to support coordination and flexible enough to fit the people doing the work. Some of the areas to pay attention to: Overall coordination. A person or small team can help coordinate the effort, clarify shared messages, organize the timing of activities, and make sure everyone knows what they have agreed to do and when. Coordination should support shared decisions and make information available to the people who need it. Communication. Agree on reliable ways to share information, make decisions, and approve public statements. A coordinator or small team can maintain contact lists, check information, and help people respond when action is needed. Clear responsibilities should support open communication and shared leadership. Use accessible formats and communication channels that work for participants, and make sure community members can raise concerns and receive responses. Day-to-day management. Even when materials and labor are donated, someone needs to coordinate supplies, schedules, and responsibilities. Volunteers need clear roles and support. Paid staff need appropriate supervision, resources, and timely pay. Bills must be paid, and money received or spent must be recorded accurately. Whether you're a large organization, a small grassroots group, or an individual coordinating occasional help, these practical arrangements support the work. Prepare and motivate allies and other supporters. To sustain advocacy over the long term, everyone involved needs an opportunity to understand and shape the effort. Participatory planning helps people see how their contributions connect to the larger vision, what the intermediate steps are, and how long the work may take. Sharing decisions and responsibilities also strengthens collective ownership. Some other ways to keep your allies and supporters motivated: Expect setbacks, and create opportunities for progress. You won't reach every milestone or persuade every decision maker. Choosing priorities carefully, learning from setbacks, and setting achievable objectives can help people see how their contributions support the shared goal. Support realistic optimism. Recognize progress and possibilities while making room for frustration, uncertainty, and disagreement. People should be able to discuss difficulties honestly and help decide how to respond. Recognize contributions. Let people know how their work matters. Acknowledge individual and collective efforts, including less visible support tasks, and ask participants how they prefer to be recognized. Celebrating progress can strengthen relationships and help people reconnect with the purpose of the work. A gathering or other recognition can mark a milestone or simply acknowledge sustained effort. Also address workloads, provide practical support, and make room for rest and changing responsibilities to reduce the risk of burnout. Prepare the public and policy makers. A strategic plan can help you explain how each achievement connects to a larger goal. Statements such as "We are committed to making safe, stable housing available to everyone in this community" remind the public and policy makers of the shared vision. The opening of a shelter or program can be celebrated while making clear what further work is needed. Your strategic plan can help the community understand the next step. For example: "The new shelter offers immediate support for people experiencing homelessness. We also need affordable housing and prevention strategies that help people stay housed." Share accurate information, invite discussion, and explain how immediate services and long-term solutions work together. Build support through transparency, evidence, and community participation. Regular communication with policy makers is more useful when it's backed up by research and grounded in community experience. Share your long-term goals, explain the reasons behind them, and identify practical next steps. Maintain relationships with legislative allies, staff members, and other decision makers while creating opportunities for people most affected by the issue to speak for themselves. One important avenue for getting your vision and message out to the public and policy makers is the use of the media. Build relationships with journalists and community media, provide accurate information, and make knowledgeable community members available when they wish to participate. Clear, consistent communication can help people understand both immediate priorities and long-term goals. Another important channel is digital communication. Websites, email, social media, messaging platforms, and online meetings can help people exchange information, coordinate action, and stay connected to the shared vision. Choose channels with your participants, provide accessible content, protect personal information, and offer phone, print, or in-person options for people who prefer them or have limited internet access. Committing to the long term Commitment to long-term advocacy takes persistence, planning, organization, and mutual support. It also requires resources, opportunities for people to contribute over time, regular review of the plan, and attention to sustaining both earlier gains and the people doing the work. Resources Committing to a long-term effort means planning for the capacity needed to sustain it. Three essential considerations are the people involved, the funding and other material resources available, and the time required. People An advocacy effort depends on people's knowledge, relationships, skills, and time. Depending on the circumstances, you may need researchers, community organizers, public spokespersons, outreach workers, fundraisers, grant writers, and people to handle essential day-to-day support tasks. These might include answering messages, maintaining records, preparing materials, organizing meeting spaces, and coordinating activities. Recognize all these contributions as part of the work. If you depend on volunteers, you need to find people whose skills, interests, and availability match the work. Offer clear roles, support, and flexible ways to participate. People's availability may change because of caregiving, health, employment, or other responsibilities. Ongoing outreach, recruitment, and training for new volunteers help maintain continuity. Share knowledge, plan for transitions, and keep everyone informed and included. If you rely mostly on paid staff, use clear job criteria and equitable recruitment practices to find people with relevant skills, community knowledge, and commitment to the work. Provide training, fair compensation, supportive supervision, manageable workloads, and constructive ways to address concerns. A respectful work environment helps people contribute effectively and remain involved. For a long-term advocacy effort, recruit people who care about the issue while recognizing that individual roles and availability will change. Build continuity through shared leadership, mentoring, documentation, and planned handovers. The effort should be able to continue without depending on any one person staying indefinitely. Money Money will probably be necessary at least at some points in your long-term effort, and may be a continuing concern. If you employ staff, you need to pay them fairly and on time. Your budget may also include computers, internet and phone service, accessible communication tools, printing, meeting space, transportation, interpretation, childcare, and compensation for community participation. Plan for the resources your particular effort needs, including both online and in-person activities. Even when some materials and labor are donated, other costs can add up. Organizations may raise money through donations, grants, fundraising activities, or other appropriate sources. Larger organizations may employ fundraising staff, while smaller community-based and grassroots groups may share these responsibilities among staff, volunteers, and board members. Match fundraising expectations to your capacity, and make sure funding arrangements support your mission and accountability to the community. A diverse funding base can help sustain an effort. When possible, build a funding base from several sources so that the loss of any one does not seriously disrupt your work. Consider the reliability, restrictions, and administrative demands of each source when planning. Time Two kinds of time come into play here. First, people need enough time to carry out the work. Set realistic expectations with staff and volunteers, share responsibilities, and offer ways to contribute that fit different schedules and capacities. A campaign may continue for years or decades, even as individual participants take breaks, change roles, or leave. The second consideration is the timeframe of the issue itself. Some goals require sustained changes in policies, institutions, and community conditions. Others involve an immediate threat that demands urgent action. For example, an environmental hazard may require prompt steps to protect people from exposure, alongside longer-term advocacy for cleanup, accountability, and prevention. Plan for both immediate needs and lasting solutions where appropriate. The time people can contribute and the urgency of the issue should both shape your campaign. If your plan exceeds the time and capacity available, adjust its scope, sequence activities, or seek additional partners and resources. Drive to continue the effort Sustaining a long-term advocacy effort depends on more than individual determination. It also depends on a shared vision, meaningful roles, supportive relationships, and opportunities to see progress. Community members and shared leadership teams can help keep the vision relevant and make participation manageable over time. People may join an advocacy effort because of lived experience, a commitment to fairness, concern for their community, or a belief that change is possible. Respect these different motivations and the different ways people contribute. Commitment can be expressed through public leadership, practical support, sharing knowledge, or occasional participation. Support that commitment without expecting people to sacrifice their health, financial stability, or other responsibilities. One way to reinforce the vision is to connect it to clear, achievable next steps. A long-range strategic plan should include intermediate objectives that people can understand and help shape. Recognizing progress toward these objectives can make a distant goal feel more connected to everyday work. Revisit your plan regularly, at least annually and when major changes occur. Develop a plan for the coming year that connects to the broader strategy while reflecting current community priorities and available capacity. An annual plan can clarify what needs attention now, what can wait, and how the group will assess progress. Reevaluation and adjustment of the plan A strategic plan is a guide for action and learning. Review how it is being used and whether it remains useful. Are activities happening as planned? If not, what barriers have emerged? Are the activities contributing to the intended outcomes? Who is benefiting, who may be excluded, and what needs to change? Chapters 36, 37, 38, and 39 of the Community Tool Box offer guidance on evaluating programs and initiatives. Match the scope of your evaluation to the questions you need to answer and the resources available. Even a small effort can gather useful information through participation records, progress measures, community feedback, and structured reflection. Include people affected by the effort in interpreting what the findings mean. Monitoring is useful when it informs decisions. If activities are contributing to the intended outcomes, consider what should be maintained or strengthened. If your message is not reaching people, a partner group raises concerns that your approach overlooks its priorities or cultural context, or a proposed policy has unintended negative consequences, work with those affected to understand the problem and adjust your approach. Regular review also creates opportunities to respond to new information. Research, community knowledge, or experience from other efforts may suggest a more effective approach. Be willing to reconsider strategies and, when appropriate, revisit goals with the people who helped establish them. Maintenance of past gains and of the effort as a whole A long-term effort needs ongoing attention and care. Maintain relationships with community members, policy makers, donors, and other partners throughout the work, not only when you need something. Share useful information, follow through on commitments, and make support for staff and volunteers part of regular practice. Advocacy may involve both focused campaigns and ongoing work to sustain progress. After reaching a major goal, work with community members to decide what needs continued attention, what new priorities have emerged, and who can take responsibility for the next phase. Shared leadership and planned transitions help maintain gains while allowing individuals and organizations to change their roles. In Summary Advocacy often requires a long-term perspective. Specific achievements can address immediate needs while contributing to a broader vision for the community. A sustainable effort connects those intermediate steps to shared goals and adapts as circumstances, knowledge, and community priorities change. A long-term effort rests on several elements: A shared vision that connects intermediate achievements with long-term goals. The flexibility to adjust objectives and strategies in response to changing circumstances and community priorities. Ongoing attention to maintaining gains and responding to emerging challenges. Patience, reflection, and recognition of progress when change takes time. Sustained commitment supported by shared responsibility, practical resources, and care for the people involved. A long-term effort takes a strategic plan that covers both short- and long-term advocacy goals and objectives. Planning should involve people affected by the issue from the beginning and give them meaningful influence over decisions. Consider the issue's social, political, economic, and historical context; examine changing attitudes and priorities; and develop practical strategies that connect immediate action with lasting change. Preparation on a more basic level is also vital. Establish a structure that supports coordination and community leadership. Involve allies, supporters, and community members in planning and decision-making. Recognize contributions, celebrate progress, provide practical support, and communicate clearly with the public and policy makers through accessible channels. Commitment to a long-term effort means maintaining the people, funding, and time needed for the scope of your advocacy. Support participation in ways that respect people's circumstances and capacities. Regularly review your strategies and goals, learn from experience, and plan for leadership transitions. Build an effort that can sustain progress through shared responsibility and continued community involvement. This work can be demanding, but it can also strengthen relationships, build community capacity, and contribute to lasting improvements in people's lives. Resources Online Resources The Democracy Center. "Strategy Development: Key Questions for Developing an Advocacy Strategy," by Jim Shultz, Democracy Center director. Ensuring Success for the Long Run is an article by the Institute for Sustainable Communities discussing sustaining yourself and your campaign throughout the advocacy process. A Guide to being a Successful Advocate is a legislative guide with practical advice to create a lasting effect through advocacy work. The Human Rights Connection. Lots of information on advocacy and advocacy planning, including a short piece on setting long-term and short-term goals and objectives, and a number of interesting case studies. Strategic Advocacy for Lasting Results is a toolkit focused on creating an advocacy campaign with lasting results. Successful Stories and Advocacy Case Studies has a variety of stories of successful advocacy campaigns with lasting effects. The UNICEF Advocacy Toolkit is an extensive resource for creating long-term advocacy strategies. What Makes an Effective Advocacy Organization is a guide that discusses both the short-term and long-term needs for an advocacy campaign. Print Resources Meredith, C., & Dunham.C. (1999) Real Clout. Boston: The Access Project.
