An examination of the group’s achievements, challenges you’ve faced, and opportunities for advocacy, which you’ll use to set aspirations for your work ahead.

How to draft campaign plans, set advocacy goals, and develop realistic timelines.

We’ll help you do an inventory of what each coalition partner brings to the table, and what types of skills, experiences, constituencies and relationships still need to be brought in.

Many groups profess a commitment to doing advocacy that is led by the base. But what exactly does that look like? We’ll talk through different models of advocacy, strategies to build member leadership, and different ways to incorporate members into your campaign operations.

We’ll guide you through a conversation to set expectations about who can join your coalition and how, what work the coalition will tackle together, what members have to commit to, how often you’ll meet, committees, voting structures, and more. (It might sound boring but trust us – it’s worth it!)

Have some challenging dynamics in your group? We can help you name the elephant in the room, remember why you wanted to work together in the first place, and address conflict in a way that allows you to move together in power.

We’ll help you think through different policy options, assess them, and collectively decide which are strategic and important to pursue based on your coalition’s goals, values and vision, the landscape you’re working within, and the communities you’re working with and for.

An overview of how to shape your idea, conduct research, and create a well-crafted policy informed by your base.

We can collect, organize and share state/local data to help inform or support legislative advocacy efforts.

LibGen can create a brief memo summarizing potential policy solutions for your group to consider, with context about other states & localities that have pursued similar ideas.

A succinct document tailored to specific issue(s) or campaign(s) that provides background information, fast facts, and brief policy analysis that can be used to educate and prepare partners to act on an issue.

Identifying the decision makers who impact your issue and assessing which people and institutions to target.

How to connect and build relationships with elected and agency officials and their staff. Includes a deep dive on how to prepare for legislative meetings, including setting clear goals, getting the info you need, identifying inclusive meeting roles, and figuring out how to follow up.

How to create a Town Hall to put community members face to face with policy makers/candidates to raise key concerns and solicit policy stances/responses to key issues in a public forum. This session addresses how to’s on crafting impactful questions, preparing your directly impacted leaders to take the lead, promoting your event, and synthesizing policy stances for public consumption.

The basics around how to push policy makers / candidates to state/ID their policy stances on key issues during strategic public encounters, and hold them accountable.

Learn how to engage with elected officials about your issues and campaigns. From setting up a lobby visit and researching their position, to making your ask and following up, we’ll walk you through best practices to ensure your meetings with electeds and their staff are focused and impactful tools to support your advocacy work.

Sample questionnaires for candidates running for office. How to draft questions to solidify public stances of elected officials, hold them accountable throughout the campaign trail, source content for score cards, and cement your organization as a go-to place for candidate info.

How to keep folks engaged in the organization via different leadership asks. These asks will help shape and grow the organization also causing new members to be a part of the co creation of the organization! Members that feel that they are a part of shaping their organization are more likely to stay invested for a longer period of time and bring more folks in!

How to have a 1-on-1 conversation with a directly impacted person / potential campaign leader. How to prepare, tips for engaging folks, tools to track the info given to you, and how to follow up.

How to identify who in your communities to engage (through 1-on-1s, public events, etc.) by mapping your social circles.

Involving community members in research can be a powerful way to build leaders, bring personal stories into your advocacy, and surface specific problems you might not have been aware of. In this session, we’ll review some basic tactics to use research to elevate your organizing & inform your campaigns.

Organizers are storytellers, and we can only succeed when the stories we tell paint a picture that speaks to our people. In this session, we’ll talk through the elements of a values-based message and practice crafting messages that center what we want, name who’s causing harm, and provide a vision of the way forward.

We’re all passionate about our issues, but sometimes, there’s a big gap between what we want to say, and what people need to hear. We’ll talk through how you can figure out what motivates people, approach their concerns with curiosity, adjust your message to your specific audience, and build trust to begin to move them in your direction.

How to turn the lived experiences of directly impacted leaders into tools for advocacy. Anchor your issues in the narratives your base to advocacy at the legislature, address the media, inform written materials, and shift public sentiment towards your cause.

Working on an op-ed, blog post, talking points, or something else public-facing that you’d like a second set of eyes on? LibGen’s Communications team can provide high-level editorial support to help you strengthen your messaging and get to the heart of the issue.