Issue Advocacy

AAUW’s mission is to advance equity for women and girls through advocacy, education, and research.  Our national work in the political arena is the “advocacy” prong of our organization.  One of the most compelling reasons women and men join AAUW is to support the many positions we take on the important issues facing women today and the lobbying we do for them on Capitol Hill.  These positions are always backed by extensive study and debated at our biennial convention.  AAUW’s Public Policy and Government Relations Department is staffed by talented professionals.

State level activism is directed toward lobbying the state legislature on key issues and encouraging branches to carry out the national public policy program.  We encourage public policy action in our 52 Ohio branches and offer guidance through this Web site, our state newsletter, the Ohio Orbit, our AAUW/Ohio Public Policy E-Newsletter and the work of our state public policy chairs.

Branch activism ranges from simply informing members about national positions to carrying out complex projects such as community forums and get-out-the vote activities. This Web site seeks to help branches organize their approach to activism, become informed on the issues, plan projects that advance our mission and lobby legislators at the national and state level.  This section of the Web site also features a page recognizing branch advocacy accomplishments.

A vital link, repeated throughout this site, which facilitates state issue advocacy, is:

Locate Your State Legislator and State Bills

This Web site allows you to quickly find the e-mail address of your state legislator, call up an e-mail message box, cut and paste a letter related to a current issue and send it.  Note that this page concerns the current legislature, but it offers a link in fine print to a page that allows you to locate bills passed in earlier Legislatures.