AAUW Ohio - Communications

Branch Activism - Organizing Your Public Policy Work

Organizing|Becoming Informed|Planning Projects|Lobbying|Recognizing Accomplishments

In order to carry out the public policy work of the Association, branches should decide how they wish to organize their effort. If most branch members are interested in doing some public policy work, branches should appoint a Public Policy Chair to develop ideas for consideration by the branch board or membership. These might include:

- branch programs on policy topics of concern to women

- projects like public forums and voter turnout work

- a plan to lobby state legislators

- disseminating AAUW Action Alerts and news releases to the membership and local media.

The chair may recruit a committee to help her/him and at some point involve many members when special projects are planned.

Branch Public Policy Chairs are encouraged to read the Association’s Public Policy Chair job description. Its overview is: Take action on federal, state, and local (e.g. school boards) public policy priorities and lead AAUW Voter Education Campaign efforts. Represent AAUW's public policy priorities to elected and appointed officials, AAUW members, the public, and the media

If your branch has only a few members who are interested in public policy, ask them to form a Public Policy Interest Group as a means of focusing their activism. Interest groups meet separately from the branch and may accept non-members and persons who do not qualify for AAUW membership, thereby involving a broader group of women in working for our issues--women who may eventually wish to become branch members.

Interest groups that adopt the approach of doing projects rather than studying issues may have more success attracting younger members, who prefer the active to the passive approach. Interest groups might even make plans for projects by e-mail and meet only to carry out their projects.

Your Public Policy Interest Group or your branch is encouraged to sponsor a community action forum, "Vote in '08," in order to encourage women--especially younger
women--to vote in greater numbers. This idea could bring you lots of visibility as well as new members.