Advocacy toolkit
A Roots guide
A Tearfund Roots guide for community groups, churches and NGOs who want to speak up on issues that affect poor communities. It has 8 sections: what advocacy is, why it matters, the advocacy cycle, issue identification, research and analysis, planning, taking action, and monitoring and learning. Each section holds teaching notes in question-and-answer form, tools that work as handouts, and training exercises with facilitation instructions.
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How to cite
Tearfund (2015). Advocacy toolkit: A Roots guide. https://learn.tearfund.org/en/resources/publications/roots/advocacy_toolkit/
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A New Weave of Power, People & Politics
An action guide for activists, trainers and NGOs who plan citizen-centred advocacy. Its 17 chapters move from politics, democracy and power to 4 planning moments: looking inward, understanding the big picture, defining problems and choosing priority issues. Later chapters cover mapping strategies, policy hooks, allies and opponents, messages and media, mobilisation, lobbying, leadership and coalitions. An annex gives tips for planners and trainers. Chapters can be downloaded one by one.
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Advocacy in restricted spaces
A toolkit from Lifeline, a consortium of 7 NGOs, for civil society groups that want to do advocacy where civic space is closed or shrinking. It uses case studies and concrete examples to show ways of advocating while keeping risk to staff and partners low. CSOs, and the funders and consultants who support them, use it to plan advocacy that weighs safety alongside impact.
CurrentKey manual or guideFree - 9.3C125
Influencing for Impact Guide
An 81-page Oxfam guide for civil society organisations, activists and campaigners who design influencing strategies for programmes or stand-alone campaigns. It gives steps, tools and examples on context analysis, power analysis, setting objectives, building narratives and choosing tactics. Further sections cover research, lobbying, digital and social media, mobilisation, and changing behaviours and social norms. Teams use it to plan, run and learn from influencing work.
CurrentKey manual or guideFree
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