ONL Getting Involved in Advocacy BrochureGetting Involved in Advocacy

Advocacy takes many forms, and effecting health policy change requires engagement and persistence.

As the country’s most trusted profession, nursing is an essential voice on health policy issues and a vehicle for positive change. Nurse leaders getting involved in advocacy—by building relationships, sharing their perspective, and engaging in their communities—is good for our profession, for our patients, and for our communities.

There are several ways you can get involved today to influence on public policy at the state and local levels in our region.

Download our Getting Involved in Advocacy Guide

Engaging With Your Legislators

Many legislators do not have a background or expertise in health care. As a nurse leader, you have knowledge and insights that are important to legislators and local policy makers. Sharing your unique perspective and building relationships with civic leaders in the community will help you find your way into important policy discussions.

  • Know who represents you in government: Find Your Legislators
    The priorities of legislators are heavily influenced by outreach from their own constituents. Learning who represents you in government is a way to target your advocacy efforts for greatest impact.
  • Communicate with your legislators: Call or email legislators—the more personalized this communication is, the better! Elected officials receive a lot of emails and phone calls. Their staff help to organize them by topic and position, but the messages that are the most personal will often receive more attention.
  • Interact with your legislators: Request to meet with legislators at the State House or “in district”. Most legislators hold informal office hours in community coffee shops, libraries, or other civic spaces. Taking the time to meet with legislators is an important step in building a working relationship with them. The more you work with them, the more likely they will be to seek your guidance on health policy related topics.
  • Testify at a hearing: This is a formal process by which nurses register to provide comment on a specific policy during a hearing. Seek mentorship to learn about testifying!
  • Submit written testimony: Nurses can submit a written document that offers a position on a specific policy.
  • Invite legislators to an event at your organization: This will take coordination with senior leaders at your organization, and may be something that is already happening. Legislators like being seen at organizations in their districts and often welcome the opportunity to interact with members of the community. If legislators are coming to your organization, make sure that nurse leaders participate in the events!
  • Participate in State House events through professional organizations.
  • Attend campaign events and/or support people running for public office.
  • Consider running for public office yourself! There are many ways to serve your community through elected and appointed public service roles. Attending public meetings is a great way to become more familiar with local governance. Healing Politics is a great resource for anyone interested in learning more about running for public office or pursuing a campaign: https://healing-politics.org/
Key points for delivering an influential message:
  • Prepare in advance and know what is important to the person with whom you are speaking.
  • Be concise and be direct. Tell the legislator what you want to speak with them about, and make a direct ask so that they know what you want them to do.
  • Present your position: Pair credible and accurate data with a story to make your point.
  • Be confident! You are the expert.
  • Use credible sources and offer to provide additional information to back up your main points.
  • Make yourself available to answer any questions they might have.

  • Stick it out: Policy changes rarely happen quickly. Nurse leaders should continue to engage and advocate, recognizing that changing policy requires endurance and sustained engagement.

 

Advocating Within Your Organization:

  • Build relationships and collaborate with the people at your organization who lead Government Affairs. Organizations will have policy priorities at the state and federal level. Large organizations will often have a team of people devoted to state and federal policy. Smaller organizations may divide the work differently. Find out who is doing this work, and tell them you are interested in learning more!
  • Infuse nursing priorities and perspectives into the conversations.

Getting Involved in Your Community: 

  • Join boards of organizations and/or committees in your community: All boards benefit from the unique perspective nurses have to share, and joining local boards—regardless of organizational focus area—is a great way to elevate the voice of nursing, build your own professional network and influence, and take part in important work and policy that may impact health care and health outcomes. The Nurses on Boards Coalition provides great resources for getting started with this: https://www.nursesonboardscoalition.org/

Working With Your Peers and Colleagues: 

  • Open the door: We need to keep nurses in the conversation! If you can open doors for others or invite them to join you in advocacy efforts, please do so with intention.
  • Build bridges and collaborate: Advancing policy is rarely a solo endeavor. Identify others (people and organizations) that share similar policy goals, and work with them. Professional nursing organizations can serve as conveners to get a new coalition off the ground, or they can participate alongside other organizations in an existing coalition.

Staying Informed and Amplifying Your Impact:

  • Leverage social media: Follow organizations and policy leaders to stay updated, and use your platform to weigh in and share your perspective.
  • Advance your knowledge: Policy know-how must be learned like any other skill. Nurses looking to advance in their role should lean into developing their knowledge, skills, and influence as it relates to policy. 
  • Get involved with professional nursing organizations, and, if you are an ONL Member, consider joining our Government Affairs committee. 

ONL's Role in Advocacy: Empowering Nurse Leaders to Engage and Influence and Amplifying Their Voices

ONL helps elevate and amplify nurse leaders' voices and empowers nurse leaders to grow their influence and engage to impact policy at the regional, state, and local levels. ONL also serves as a collective voice of nurse leaders in the region and as a centralized hub focused on sharing information to support advocacy on issues impacting nursing practice, the healthcare workforce, and the health of our communities. Our role is to support member advocacy at the organizational, local/community, and state levels.  For more information, and to learn about ONL's Member-Defined Policy Priorities, visit oonl.org/policy.

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