Art and Design for Advocacy

Introduction to Advocacy: Finding your audience

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Finding your audience

Once you have identified the problem you want to address, done your

research, and decided on some goals and objectives, the next question

is—who is your audience? Who can help you make progress, and

ultimately fulfil your mission?

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Good Practice Tip

At this stage, it is a good idea to keep an open mind on whom you could

approach—you’ll be surprised at the variety of people that could help

your campaign, even if they are not immediately obvious.

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Example

In the past ten years, the United States have increased actions to end sex

trafficking, because of the advocacy efforts of a very unlikely partnership

between liberal feminists and evangelical Christians. Even though the groups

have very different backgrounds and belief systems, they have a common vision:

the eradication of prostitution and sex trafficking

5Questions to ask yourself to identify target audience?

Who is affected by the problem or issue? Who will be affected by the implementation of your objective? Whose support do you need in order to achieve your objective(s)? Whose support do you already have? Who will oppose your campaign and why? Who needs to be convinced to take action?

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Advocacy: List of possible audiences

academics and universities businesses or business leaders civil servants community groups governments of other countries international governmental organisations (UN, European Commission,

multinational corporations) labour organisations, trade unions media ministry officials nongovernmental organisations (local, national, international) opposition leaders parents politicians (local, provincial, national) political parties Professionals religious groups, churches school administrators teachers voters

Arranging audiences

With a long list of organisations and individuals, it is a good idea to arrange them into three categories: policy

level, intermediary level, grassroots.

8Policy level: institutions or individuals who can change policy

international governmental organisations government (local, provincial, national, ministries, and individuals) governments of other countries legislative bodies (parliament)

9Intermediary level: organisations that work for and with citizens

citizens’ associations labour organisations nongovernmental organisations (local, national, and international) trade unions

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Grassroots: groups of citizens which share certain characteristics and/or interests

cyclists parents police senior citizens students teachers mothers

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Good Practice Tip

Sometimes, it might be more effective not to approach decision makers

directly. Instead, think about whom they trust, whom they respect, and

whom they are going to listen to. Can you approach these people

instead?

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Good Practice Tip

Activity: Select your target audience

You have a limited time to choose which audience to target, and devise a simple yet creative way of communicating your message.

Budget: $2000

Target audiences: Grassroots and Intermediary

You have: pencils, markers, sprays, paper, T-Shirts