Enlarge Angie Forde, center, and Elyse Dashew discuss effective advocacy at Saturday's KIWI session.

Posted: August 22nd, 2011 Greg Lacour

As anyone who’s ever tried it knows, effective community advocacy is hard. It takes time, energy, patience, persistence, a gift for motivation and organization--and often a significant amount of money.

But sustained action can yield results, and a panel of experienced advocates met with community members Saturday under the Crossroads banner to learn what the session’s title advertised: “The Hidden Strategies & Techniques of Effective Advocacy.”

The session, held at the Johnston YMCA in NoDa, was part of the Civic Summer School component of Crossroads’ Know It 2 Work It civic engagement campaign. KIWI Project Manager Jason Fararooei led the discussion, introducing the three panelists:

• Bill Gupton, a longtime environmental activist and group chair of the Charlotte Sierra Club chapter.
• Elyse Dashew, a public education advocate who’s running for a Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board seat.
• Gregg Greer, a minister and Southern Christian Leadership Conference member who’s running for City Council.

One goal of advocacy, Greer said, is to route public resources to where they’re needed most. Another, said Gupton, is to block corporate projects that can do harm--a familiar struggle for the Sierra Club. One recent example that drew a lot of attention was the club’s opposition to the controversial ReVenture Park incinerator project, which developers claimed would provide green energy and jobs to the Charlotte area but which environmentalists said was a threat to air quality.

It took months of organizing, research, communication and campaigning, but the ReVenture developer finally decided in May to scale back the project and not fuel it with Mecklenburg County garbage. The lesson, Gupton said: Know your subject matter. Know the players. You’ll start from behind, but become so well versed in the issue that you become an expert and can anticipate what’ll happen next.

Dashew, a veteran of last year’s battle over school closings and consolidations, offered a pair of lessons: Keep people engaged in an issue--even when it’s not at a crisis point--through active communication, and manage their passions constructively when the crisis comes; and, in dealing with governments, get to know the staff members who work directly on issues rather than just elected officials.

Added Gupton, “You can sometimes accomplish more by developing a relationship with a lower staff member rather than the department director. You need to dig deeper within the structure … if you really want to penetrate the structure.”

The five people who attended the session are active in their communities, and they said much of what the panelists said rang true. Most people think political and corporate power is so entrenched that it can’t be challenged, but activists prove that wrong all the time, said Kamonda Phillips.

“The perception you have may not be the reality,” Phillips said. “So, try.”

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