Political Action Plans: Developing Targets

Two weeks ago, I started a discussion about formulating political action plans. In that introductory post, I shared what I call the 4 Ts: Targets, Tactics, Timing and Testing. In today’s post, I plan to share more on the concept of identifying and developing targets for your agenda.

I know we’ve swerved away from advocacy in the past few posts, so here’s a quick refresher from that post, which you can read in full here.

When you’ve developed clear policy priorities for your team, it’s time to dive into identifying those key players who you’ll need along the way.

Two Pitfalls to Avoid

I’ve seen too many advocacy organizations take polarized approaches to the idea of targeting. On one extreme you have those who focus their resources on known champions without cultivating broader messaging that can appeal to new targets. Just as often you’ll see organizations try to cast so wide a net that they don’t have the capacity to haul it in. The sweet spot is identifying a blend of leaders on your issues who will influence others while your team crafts evolving messages that move opponents to neutrality, and neutrals to positive support.

The second shortcoming for many organizations is that they ignore non-traditional targets – those who are not positioned as decision makers. Especially in the early days of introducing a new concept, legislatively or socially, your targets will often not be policymakers. Rather, your more pressing target will be the members and volunteers within your own organization.

Two Principles to Embrace

As you’re looking to those targets, each of their respective categories will need informed on the topic in different ways. But the first principle is universal: education is advocacy. Your volunteers will need information that energizes them to take action on your cause. Leaders within your organization will require deep dives into technical aspects of your proposal that will allow them to speak as subject matter experts. Legislators will need introduced to the topic from a more global, 50,000 foot perspective – while you simultaneously work with their staff to ensure those aides are equipped to present your information to the member in your absence.

I want you to re-read the second half of that last sentence.

Good advocacy is successful because it adds value for your targets. From their vantage point, that’s the best version of you – a trusted advocate who will add value to their work and make your policy stand out as a clear solution to a problem. This sounds pretty rudimentary, but it’s so often overlooked that it can become laughable. Too many groups fail to properly identify how a particular issue overlaps with their target’s own agenda. Subsequently, they fail to add value to that target’s portfolio, and assume the role of nuisance, falling well short of the problem-solvers that all policymakers are trying to identify.

So where do you begin?

I like to start evaluating my targets by assigning them to categories based on some basic questions. Depending on your policy initiative, these types of categories may not fit just right – but I hope they are broad enough to be applicable in many ways for you.

I. Advocates – Who within your organization, or its coterie of volunteers, is most impacted by, and energized to pursue your policy initiative? What messages or incentives effectively inspire them to take action? What varying types of messaging correspond with desired actions?

II. External Stakeholders – What other organizations exist, separate from your team, that are operating in or around your policy area? Do their interests intersect with or run parallel to yours? Are they prepared to be active engaged or passively supportive on the issue?

III. Decision Makers – Who will actually formulate, negotiate and ultimately be positioned to enact your policy? What are their priorities for the coming session? Do they hold key relationships that will allow you to pursue non-partisan/non-factional approaches to introduction?

IV. Enforcers – What agencies, departments, or partners will be tasked to implement your policy? Have political appointees within those entities established a record in your policy realm? Do department or agency heads enjoy broad credibility with decision makers?

V. Opponents – Who may be negatively impacted by your policy? (This question is important – it needs to remain broad. Not all negative impacts are immediately perceivable, so you need to force your planners to consider second and third order consequences of your policy.) Have you worked with these opponents on other issues and established credibility that will position you to alleviate their opposition?

Take note of how these categories weave together. Advocates are likely to be positioned to engage with external stakeholders. Those outside your organization are likely to engage with decision makers about your proposal in relation to their own agendas. Decision makers will consult with administrators and executive agencies who will create the rules of implementation. And those enforcers will be the ones faced with the staunchest opposition to your proposal if it successfully goes through.

As you compile your action plan, you’re better served to acknowledge these naturally overlapping echelons, and to develop tactics to reduce natural points of friction. Next week, I’ll start in on tactics to activate those different categories. But as you’re beginning to look at the coming year, start asking yourself, and your team, the questions above. I hope posing those questions to your team will help you establish honesty about blindspots you may have, and to explore how you can mitigate those blindspots.