Advocacy means taking action to effect change in an issue that personally matters to you. Advocacy makes up a large portion of activity undertaken in community science projects. These projects often produce much-needed data about an environmental issue, and that data needs someone to speak for it [1].

Public Lab identifies four main pillars of advocacy:

1. Communicating with Government;
2. Communicating with elected officials;
3. Awareness raising, organizing, mobilizing, nonviolent direct action; and
4. Litigation

This page is a place to collect and organize resources on advocacy. Visit the advocacy tag page to see the latest community posts about advocacy on Public Lab, and get updates on this topic by following:

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Also visit related pages on organizing, community science, and law and policy.

Sources: [1] @kgradow1’s presentation about the bucket air monitor.

Advocacy methods

Within the four main types of advocacy (communicating with government; communicating with elected officials; awareness raising, organizing, mobilizing, nonviolent direct action; and litigation), here are some particular processes that projects may seek to generate or contribute to:

• Telling your story
• Relationship building (see section on audiences, below)
• Awareness raising / education
• Community organizing / mobilizing
• Getting media coverage
• Pressuring electeds to act on an issue
• Making an issue a focus of an electoral campaign season
• Providing public input to established regulatory processes such as permitting for land uses that are continuing, changing, or new.
• Providing cover to regulators so they can stand up to political/economic influence over an agency's action (Example: showing proof of valid grounds to sue the government agency for not acting)
• Triggering agency investigation, administrative action, and/or enforcement action
• Designing regulation in situations where there is none
• Mediation
• Litigation against industry
• Litigation against government agencies
• Nonviolent direct action

Types of audiences projects may seek to reach:

• Others who are affected
• Neighbors who are also constituents
• Landowners making private land use decisions
• Elected representatives
• Agency civil servants
• Industry employees, management, ownership, or board of directors
• Journalists
• Environmental lawyers

Additional methods published on Public Lab and tagged with advocacy will appear on the advocacy methods page

Activities

Activities on Public Lab that have been tagged with activity:advocacy will appear here

Research notes

Research notes on Public Lab that have been tagged with advocacy will appear here

Wikis on advocacy

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