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Involving Congregations in Advocacy Now (ICAN)
an ELCA guide to developing an advocacy ministry within your congregation
How to Bring Advocacy to my Congregation
In this section:
 How
to Develop an Internet Action Alert
As email competes with telephones for a way of communicating, we
have seen many effective as well as some not so effective uses of
this technology. The purpose of this mode of communication is to
provide enough information so that an individual may take action on
the issue.
- Single alerts are one time e-mails sent out to gather the
greatest number of sympathetic responders. Structured alerts are
networks and list serves developed for a narrower audience
attracting people interested in a particular issue or source of
response. Your Internet Action Alert should always be structured
and part of a larger issue campaign strategy.
- All information on the Internet travels at the same speed.
Make sure yours is authentic so that you don’t give alerts a
bad name. Provide ways of the recipient to get back to you
(name, phone, email, URL, etc.) and make sure you have all of
your facts straight.
- Beginnings and endings are important. Have you ever received
the 3 year old request to send email to some school? Make sure
your information includes all pertinent timing dates as to when
a response is helpful and when it is no longer necessary.
- Confidentiality is an issue for all of us in this information
world. What you put in this alert may literally go round the
world. Be careful of using names. Be aware of who receives your
alert and be specific around recipients’ intentions to forward
the material.
- Now what am I to do? Present a simple, clearly defined step
with rationale for recipient to take. Chain letter petitions are
not helpful. Calls and letters to legislators are. Ask your
people to let you know what action they took so that you can
take time to review what happened after your alert was
distributed.
- Look before pressing Send. It can help to print your alert
before sending it. Is it clear, with a simple layout, and easy
to understand? Is spelling correct? Use short sentences with
simple grammar. Are there any words with double meanings? Have
someone review your work. The Internet is an exciting new tool
to use in our advocacy work. Remember, this alone is not
organizing an action. You need to have this as part of an
overall strategy for responding to a need for advocacy.
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