Empower to Impact: Advocacy Training for Meaningful Change

Advocacy training is central to empowering advocacy champions, and for EVERSANA’s Advocacy & PR group in Canada, it is at the core of the work that they do. In a recent conversation, Ryan Clarke, LL.B., senior vice-president, advocacy & PR, shared his insights on the importance of advocacy and what advocacy training can achieve for you, your organization and your community.

What is impactful advocacy?

When thinking about either beginning or advancing your advocacy efforts, it’s important to understand what advocacy is and how to implement impactful and successful advocacy plans.

Advocacy is about creating meaningful change that will have a lasting impact on issues that matter to you and others. It involves understanding the issues you want to change, identifying who can make the required changes and using various advocacy tools to engage those decision-makers.

Implementing Impactful Advocacy

Impactful advocacy involves two foundational pieces: personal stories and building good relationships with decision-makers.

• Building relationships with decision-makers who can become champions committed to your cause increases the likelihood of achieving change.
• Bringing forward your perspectives and experiences through a personal story can bring important issues to life for the decision-maker and demonstrate the real impact of policy change on Canadians.

The Value of Collective Advocacy

The more voices there are, the better. Having a combination of voices bring forward their perspectives and experiences on important issues strengthens the impact. Collective advocacy also helps ensure the momentum for change never decreases.

What is EVERSANA’s approach to teaching people how to be effective advocates?

EVERSANA takes a 360-degree approach to teaching people how to be effective advocates. Drawing insights from hundreds of hours of training sessions and feedback from patient groups, individual advocates, healthcare professionals and other organizations, our approach focuses on providing the foundational content that is typically missing in other offerings.

Providing a basic understanding of the world of government and healthcare equips advocates with the knowledge they need to effectively advocate for change. Furthermore, grounding advocacy training in foundational knowledge:

1. Enables organizations (and the people who run or manage them) to engage in advocacy on behalf of the organization
2. Empowers the organization (and the people who run or manage them) to enable their members or supporters to make their voices heard

Lastly, we see advocacy as a life skill and aim to provide participants with the ability to ask for and pursue change, regardless of the issue.

What is the objective of the Empower to Impact advocacy training?

The objective of this comprehensive program is simple: to empower participants to become effective advocates with the foundational knowledge, advocacy fundamentals and practical skills necessary to drive meaningful change.

The program has been updated and refined to maximize the skills and knowledge through three curriculums. Each curriculum contains a set of sessions (webinars and workshops) that build on each other with information, training and hands-on experience to equip advocates with the knowledge and skills they need to effectively advocate for change.

How does Empower to Impact differentiate itself in its approach to advocacy training compared to other offerings?

What sets Empower to Impact apart from other offerings is its comprehensive approach that explores the in-depth context of the advocacy environment, not just isolated pieces of information. With this approach, the advocacy training not only empowers people to not only take action, but also provides the context and reasoning behind why they’re doing what they’re doing. Advocacy is approached as a life skill, and the program aims to teach this skill comprehensively and contextually.

In conclusion, advocacy is a powerful tool for change. With the right training and approach, individuals and organizations can become effective advocates, driving change in their communities and beyond.