How to engage Politicians in community based activism?

Friday, 29 January 2010 | posted by scott.forbes
Activism, CAPs (Community Action Programmes), Global Youth Summit 2009, Politics

For those of you that attended the Global Youth Summit way back in November, you'll remember Kerry McCarthy MP who hosted our reception here in London, Kerry has so kindly written a blog for all of us Global Changemakers  on the below topic. I hope you find it as useful as I did!

How to engage Politicians in community based activism?

Politicians receive many requests every day to attend events, and to take part in  things going on in their local community. As much as we may like to, we cannot attend or get involved with all of them, and so its important to make your events and campaigns stand out to politicians  you’re trying to get involved, in order to get them on board. 

There are all the usual routes of engaging with your elected representatives, such as writing to their offices, phoning, and emailing . But MPs receive dozens of letters each day, so the question is - how do you get noticed? 

Politicians  above all want to make a difference. And so they like projects where they can see a real purpose,  that is, those that can help improve people’s lives and change things locally. You need to show how your particular project will  change things for the better in the MP's constituency and already have some concrete ideas that you can put forward about how you’ll achieve this. MPs can be quite good at coming up with ideas themselves, as most of them will have been involved with other local projects before, so asking if they have any further ideas is also a good way of getting not only their attention, but their input too.  

One of the mistakes people often make when lobbying MPs is thinking that it's enough just to make contact with them, and perhaps spend half an hour sitting there agreeing with each other. You need to be clear what your 'ask' is of the MP. What is it you want them to do for you? Don't be afraid to ask!  

Sometimes this will simply be asking your MP for an endorsement for your campaign website, or a quote for a press release. Or you might want them to use their contacts to publicise your cause, or to raise your case in Parliament. 

It can often help get the local media interested if an MP is backing a campaign. For example, last year I supported young people who wanted to protest about the leader of the Conservative group on Bristol City Council's lack of support for an anti-homophobic bullying campaign in local schools. I joined them on their lobby of the Council and it attracted some good local press coverage. 

Finding out what projects your MP has been involved with before is also a strong way to get them to engage with you. Having a look at their voting record, and checking out their websites are a couple of good ways to find out which issues they’ve taken up before and feel particularly passionate about.  I've done a lot of work on children's issues, particularly on the problems faced by vulnerable children, which is why I wanted to back the anti-homophobic bullying campaign. From your side, finding the right politician to back your campaign is, actually, probably more important than just having the first available politician, so it’s definitely worth the time to do a bit of background research. 

A number of MPs and Ministers can now be found on social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, and this is a very direct way of seeing what issues they focus on. Social media is also a useful way of communicating with them, and perhaps sending them a direct message with a link to your project, or photos of your local activism in progress may help your campaign catch their eye. The anti-homophobic bullying campaign was almost totally organised through Facebook and Twitter, and that's how the campaigners got hold of me to ask for my support.

Why not join Kerry on Twitter? Follow @KerryMP