Effective advocacy is not a “one and done” activity.  It is a continuous process, rather than something you do only when an issue is urgent. Join Brandy Dillingham, AAM’s Director of Advocacy and Alexandra Coon, Executive Director of the Massillon Museum to learn more about year-round advocacy, building relationships with your lawmakers and their staff, and how to be a more effective advocate.

Transcript

Alexandra Coon:

Good practice. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Brandy. We our are proud members of the American Alliance of Museums and we are the only state in excuse me, the only institution in the state of Ohio that is funded by a city property tax levy at present. And the Maslow Museum has been funded in that manner since 1988. So we are all

Brandy Dillingham:

Hello, everyone. We’re gonna give it a few more seconds for everyone to join in. Thank you for joining us today.

Okay. Thank you everyone for joining us today for the webinar on year-round advocacy, being an effective advocate. My name is Brandy Dillingham. I’m director of advocacy for the American Alliance of Museums, and I am joined here today by Alexandra Kuhn with the who is the executive director of the Mass Lem Museum in Ohio. Alex, would you mind introducing yourself and telling the audience a little bit about why you and your museum got involved in advocacy.

Alexandra Coon:

advocates three hundred and sixty-five days of the year. From the perspective of the gratitude we extend to the citizens of Mass for their support and the great partnerships we have with our elected officials and community organizations to help make that happen. And I’ve been with the Maslin Museum for nearly twenty-four years.

Having first started as an intern, then having worked in collections and in the education department.

Having been a curator from 2004 to 02/2010, and then being, promoted to director in 02/2011.

But my predecessor, Christine Shearer, was a great introduction to advocacy for our organization. She had attended I believe, one of the first advocacy days that AAM hosted. And she testified to congress on behalf of the IMLS at one point in time. So her, engagement and advocacy set a really excellent example which our staff has continued to engage in ever since.

At the federal level that is. But we’re engaged at all levels of advocacy, which I know will talk about throughout the webinar.

Brandy Dillingham:

Great. Thanks, Alex. Before we get started in the webinar, I do wanna do a little housekeeping upfront. If you think of any questions as we go through the webinar, please type them into the q and a box. And feel free to use the chat at any time to introduce yourself or share your own personal advocacy experience and advice as we go along. So now we’re gonna move into the webinar. We’re gonna start off a little bit with some advocacy basics. Advocacy is a long-term effort. It’s not a one and done. Exercise. Policies often take a long time to be in enacted. There are policies that’ll come up in the future that you may not realize. You’re gonna need to know about. And so it’s a constant ongoing effort. And the political landscape is always changing. So think about where we were a year ago versus where we are today. And, you know, a year from now, it’ll probably change again. So things are always changing. And you’ve got to make sure that you’re always involved and following along. We’re gonna talk a little bit about building relationships in a few minutes. So I’m gonna leave that one for now.

Education is an important part of advocacy, and that’s educating both yourself on what is going on, educating yourself about your lawmakers but also educating the lawmakers. Sharing your stories, sharing how the policies and laws are impacting you and your museum and your community.

All politics is local. I know we hear a lot from folks asking, well, does my advocacy efforts even matter? The answer is yes because your constituent all lawmakers wanna get reelected, and they can’t do so without the support of their constituents. So your opinion does matter, the opinions of your community, because you are the ones who show up at the voting booth, to reelect them. So keep that in mind.

And do your homework. And this is actually the next point I’m gonna talk about. Many of you who have seen my past have trainings know that I emphasize the do your homework part very strongly. Research your elected officials, and I’m gonna take through some of the ways to do that in just a few minutes.

Oops. Sorry. My computer just tried to ask me to restart itself. Apologies for that.

You want to develop your museum impact. Know what that is. We do have on our website some, toilet economic impact statements as well as education impact statements. You do not have to include on your impact statement everything that’s on there. It’s just an example So think about what is going to, matter that’s gonna highlight your museum the best. And there’s also samples from what other museums have done. So take a look. You might get some good ideas of what you might wanna highlight from your museum.

Know some of the data from your state about how museums impact communities? And you can get this information a variety of ways. You can try reaching out to your state and regional museum associations. Some of them do have data that could be helpful to you. Some may not, but it doesn’t hurt to check and ask. You can check with, your local visitors bureau and see if they have any content that might be helpful.

You can also, AAM has our economic engines. Report where you can pull your state specific information as well. And so those are just a few options you can use to try to find local data. You can also check with local arts and humanities councils. They may have some additional data that you could use when you’re, contacting lawmakers. Those are good ways to get started. And know what policies and legislation is out there. There’s a wide variety of ways you can get that information from you know, following your lawmakers to, you sign up for AAM’s advocacy alerts. We do provide updates on the federal side. Follow your local news to find out more on what’s going on the local side for your for our policies. So those are good ways to get yourself started in getting educated.

When researching your elected officials, keep in mind that every elected official is different. They may seem the same. Like, you may look at them say, oh, they’re both the same party. They have some more votes. But the reality is they may have very different things motivating them. And so doing your research ahead of time and knowing you know, what is motivating them is very helpful in knowing you might be able to craft your message to little more meaningful when you go in.

So ways to do this I would say visit their, the lawmakers government websites. There’s a lot of information you can get from that. You can find out their key legislative priorities. Their committee assignments, and that’s helpful to know because those are often gonna be the areas where they’re gonna have the most influence. So knowing if your lawmaker is, say, on the committee that funds NEA. Like, that’s gonna be good to know that they’re gonna have more influence on that. Take a look at their bios. You can sometimes find some interesting nuggets in their bios. If you’re looking at, like, members of congress, their bios vary widely on their websites from some are just mostly purely work related, and some are very personal. And you might be able to find, like, an interesting nugget that when, like, you’re going into an office, you can start off as like, a nice little icebreaker, a way just to connect to get the meeting started. So I highly recommend, checking that out. And then, of course, as I mentioned earlier, staying up to date on the news That includes reading their press releases, signing up for newsletters, following them on social media. You can find out a lot about what they’re interested in and what they care most about.

And being aware of the current events impacting the areas they represent, You live in their district, so you probably already know, but it’s helpful to know. Like, there a big you know, major disaster that just happened and then that district, and that may be where their focus is. So you wanna be aware of that when you’re And Honestly, just searching their name and the word museum and just seeing what pops up. That may be that may give you some very helpful information.

And then before you interact with them, and having done all your research, you wanna know where you’re starting from on a given issue and what is a reasonable expectation from your interaction. So knowing that the lawmaker may be opposed to what you’re about to talk to them about, is helpful to know ahead of time, and then understanding why they’re opposed. That way, you can think about the best way to formulate an argument. And setting a reasonable expectation, don’t expect to get them to do a one eighty after a meeting. You’re gonna set yourself up for failure. You think you’re gonna come out of a meeting that way. Instead, think about what can I get to come from this meeting? Maybe it’s just giving them a better understanding. They may not they may not know how the policy is impacting your museum. So maybe the goal is just having them better understand the like, how it is impacting them. And so that’s just a good way to think about it. And knowing ahead of time.

What’s going on. And also keep in mind that while they may not agree with you on the particular issue, you never know what might come up in the future where they’re could be common ground. And so consider this meeting or this interaction as a way to lay groundwork for some of those future interactions where you might be able to find common ground. So that’s another way to think about setting reasonable expectations from your meetings with them. And I’d like to turn it over now to Alex for a moment to talk a little bit about, like, talk about some of the examples of, how knowing the law make interests and priorities was able to help you better formulate an argument during your advocacy efforts?

Absolutely. Well, going back to the advent of something you said, know, at the very beginning, with regard to researching the elected officials. If I may, I wanted to point out one of the first things that I do every year is update our one-page document with photos and name and contact information for all of the elected officials that serve our district from the municipal up through the federal level. Something I distribute to all the staff members so that at any given time, if someone walks in, they will recognize that individual. And to help establish, familiarization with how the lawmakers may change from election cycle to election cycle.

So think having that information handy is a really helpful exercise for you to engage in. In terms of researching, you know, before during advocacy day, one of the things that my fellow constituents and I do is just as you said, Brandy, go to the websites, be cognizant of what, if anything, they’re posting on social media, what issues are important to them, So we can find that intersection where our objectives and their inter their interests lie. A lot of them rest on the health of the economy. One of our former board members works for, an oil company, and she would attend advocacy day with us. And her perspective working from, you know, from a corporate point of view, she could share the impact of the museum on the health of the local economy. And how a big corporation like hers, benefited from extending into the community and from engaging with organizations like museums for the quality of life for their employees, and as a means of attracting new employees to the area. So sometimes understanding the angle at which you can come into a conversation and who is the best person at your organization to have the conversation and extend the request or discuss the issue with the lawmaker is really important. It might not be me, might not be the executive director. It might be a volunteer. It might be a board member. It might be a member of the museum or, a really invested patron.

So I think also knowing who is the best person to have in the room is really important. That’s not to say that everyone can’t take part in advocacy at your organization, but these meetings really have to be strategic. There’s a time and a place for all the staff to have some face time if the meeting warrants that and if the elected official is coming on-site to your museum and wants to have FaceTime with a lot of the folks versus a meeting on the hill or in a district office that’s very specific to a particular issue. Those are meetings that should be very strategic, and the right people to convey a point should be in the room.

Brandy Dillingham:

Thank you for adding that. That’s an excellent the that advocate for your museum is very important.

K.

Already talked a little bit about building relationships, and I like to thank Alex for sharing her wonderful photos, which you will see throughout this, webinar. Building relationships with your lawmakers is such a valuable part of advocacy, and not just the lawmakers, but staff as well. Keep in mind that every interaction you have with your lawmakers is an opportunity to learn. Whether it’s them learning something new about your museum, maybe a new program, maybe a new way you’re impacting your community, a new way that a policy is impacting you. Or it could also be opportunity for you to learn more about the lawmaker. They may be sharing some new insight about how they’re thinking about policies and laws that you can then utilize later in future interactions. So keep in mind that every time you interact, there is a learning opportunity that benefits both you and the lawmaker.

And that’s why building relationships is very valuable in that regard.

And staff. Staff is incredibly important to connect with. Especially if they’re, a lawmaker that rep represents a larger like, a governor or a senator where they’re representing the whole state. They cannot be everywhere. They cannot know every single topic. They rely so heavily on staff. And this goes this is true for many other levels of government as well. I can speak mostly on the congressional side as that’s, my background. But oftentimes, staff are surrogates for the person that they work for. They have specific jobs that it’s their job is to keep the member informed. So in the for members of congress and their district’s offices, they all have offices back home in the in their districts and states. That staff, their job is to get to know the community, to get to know the constituents, the businesses, and everything going on there. Their DC staff, their job is to know the policies. They often are assigned specific issue areas that it’s their job to be essentially the office expert on. And those two groups get together to inform

the senators or congressman’s position. And so it’s important to get to know both staff because they play very different roles, and you wanna make sure that your museum is being considered in both aspects. So it’s important to, like, get to know the staff.

And do so at all levels of government. You wanna get to know your city council members all the way up to your governor, your members of congress. And a, you never know what laws may come up in the future. Everything from, like, local ordinances to state laws, federal laws that right now, there may not be anything, but they’re certainly will be something in the future. There always is. And you never know where those lawmakers are gonna end up. Your city council member may be your member of congress one day. And it’s a lot easier to start building those relationships when they’re more local than it is when they’re, farther

you know, farther up the chain. So it’s really important to start now. And getting those relationships in. And when we’re talking about building relationships, not every interaction has to be a major It doesn’t have to be, an in-person meeting. It can be something as simple as sharing your museum’s e newsletter in an email just saying, hey. We last talked to you about this program. We just wanted to share this latest update with you. We appreciated when the senator came to visit a few ago, and we just wanted you to have a quick update. It doesn’t have to be anything major.

So when we’re talking about building relationships, we’re not talking about you constantly having to do some of these bigger interactions. It could be something very small, but yet still continuing to engage with the office. And that’s something I’d like for you to, like, keep in mind and to think about different ways to kinda help engage. And we’re gonna cover a little bit more about some of those interactions shortly. But I do wanna turn it over to Alex for a moment to share some examples of how you’ve built relationships with lawmakers and staff and how that has helped in your advocacy efforts.

Alexandra Coon:

Yes. So one of the first things that I had been taught in my early days of advocacy was making sure to add all the elected officials who represent you and your district where your organization is situated to your mailing list. So that there is a consistent, stream of communication and a level of familiarity. To Brandy’s point, building that relationship can start with something as seemingly passive as that.

You don’t necessarily want the first engagement with a lawmaker to be your coming to them with a request. That certainly may be I warned that my light would go off. I thought I had a half hour. Energy efficient lighting. But that may be the case that that is a first interaction, and that is okay. But the more you can make the elected officials familiar with who you are and what you do as an organization, the better the foundation and from which to make a request, but also the smoother the building of the relationship. So we have an event at the Maslow Museum, which just happened last year, Every year, our annual island party, it’s a free event, which anyone in the community and everyone is invited. It’s our thank you to that community for supporting us with those property tax dollars.

It’s also because it is one of the biggest parties of the year in Downtown Massillon. It is a place where lawmakers like to be seen. It’s a place where they know that they can bring their families, and it’s a place where they know whether they’re campaigning or not They’ll still see a lot of constituents. And so here, for example, in the photos, we have one of our state representatives pictured and then in the photo below, our former mayor. Who would come every year, bring their families.

And, again, it’s a great place to see what’s going on, see the good work you’re doing, as an organization, but a place for them to be seen. So that is, it’s always wonderful for elected officials to know when there are opportunities that they can be present to meet constituents, and just to show that they are approachable. Another great way to build those relationships is to attend any event you can in your community at which you think elected officials will be present. A lot of times chamber of commerce events or other large scale community events, at which there may be lawmakers speaking, or there may be elected officials who are there representing because there are award winners to whom they’re issuing certain commendations or certain other accolades come from members of congress or come from you know, the, state, representative’s office, whatever the case may be. So it’s a way for you to and those individuals are recognized at the advent of the events by name. Usually, they stand.

Or acknowledge, and so you can put eyes on who some of these individuals are in your community. This came in handy for me a few years ago. We had invited several of our, our members of congress and state representatives to attend an event at which we were dedicating our new building expansion and kicking off our ninetieth anniversary. And there was a member of congress I hadn’t yet heard from And, I happen to know from a lot of these other events, community events that I attend as a representative of the museum, that, I happen to know what one of his staff members look like. So when I was out with some girlfriends casually on a Friday night, at a restaurant, I saw him there with a friend. The staff member, and I went up to him casually and just said hello. And I asked hey. I haven’t heard from congressman so and so yet. I hope you received the invitation. And he asked, oh, what date is it that you would like for him to be there? And I said, oh, well, our event is on such and such a date. And he said, oh, and he picked up his other phone, his work phone, and entered the date in his calendar and said, the congressman will be there. And he was, and he spoke at the event.

And so sometimes, I can’t guarantee that that will often, you know, always happen, and I wouldn’t suggest that you go have to patronize on a Friday night every single restaurant or bar downtown looking for a staff member, of course. But you know, just those just then having the knowledge and the level of familiarity and the recognition and environment like that can be all that stands between you having a member of congress at a really pivotal event or not and having that that recognition. And, and then establishing those relationships with their staff members means that they’re sending you any notices that they receive about grant opportunities, that they would like to have a hand in. They also like being the first ones to let you know when you’ve received a federal level grant, if that’s the case because they often get that information first. Sometimes before the grantee does and before the general public.

So you know, as Brandy said, connecting with those staff members is a really, really important part of the relationship as well. And instilling in them a level of trust and letting them know you’re available when they request a meeting in the district. And if you’re not assigning another staff member so they know how seriously you take the reciprocity of that relationship.

Brandy Dillingham:

And that also reminds me that the same goes if there’s policy that pops up that they think might impact museums. If you’ve got that relationship established, they may reach out to you to say, hey. This has come up. Does this have an impact on you? So that’s another thing to keep in mind about building relationships that that it does keep you their front and mind when some of those issues pop up.

K.

Next, we’re gonna talk a little bit about some of the examples that, ways you can engage. I would like to point you all to our last webinar in May on in district advocacy. I don’t wanna go through and repeat everything we went through on there. So I recommend checking that out if you’re looking for ways to engage with your lawmakers locally. At home without having to travel anywhere. That webinar gives you some good information. But there are a few different examples. I’d like to touch on. I would like to touch on museums advocacy day a little bit. AAM sponsors this typically at the end of February, and we have a lot of other museum associations that partner with us and, promote it out. And people like Alex have been coming for a long time, advocating and getting to meet with their members congress here in DC. And Alex, I’d like to ask you if you wouldn’t mind sharing a little bit about what you’ve gotten from coming to museums advocacy day in the past. And how you’ve been able to leverage that moving forward.

Alexandra Coon:

Absolutely. Well, first of all, it helps establish, a greater relationship between your organization and AAM. I mean, I think for a lot of people, an entity like yours might just seem like a you know, the wizard behind the curtain, right, until you have FaceTime through opportunities like this. And it really gives you the chance to see how hard the staff your staff works to schedule hundreds of meetings and, develop all of this important literature for us to put in front of elected officials.

So it really demonstrates the value of an entity like AAM. And I know you didn’t tell me to say that, but it really is true. You know, really, really shows that there’s someone out there advocating on behalf of the field all the time. And really staying on top of the policy and, helping retain those relationships with elected officials. It also helps really reflect the broader scope, the national scope of how you as an entity are connected to museums all over the country, whether they are in a neighboring state or neighboring city. Or Alaska or California. You know, we are there as one voice speaking on behalf of the field, and it really does demonstrate the collective impact of all that data you gather as an institution about your, operating budget size and, the economic impact you have in your community. When you multiply that out by all the voices, all the institutions there, It’s really, really powerful stuff, and it’s great, great content.

And at the state level, you have all the wonderful data that your state museum association helps gather in concert with AAM. To make that case. I think, for us as well, we always use the AAM media release template to share with our community in the form of a press release. When our staff here in this photo, you see, my advocacy partner in crime, Scott Phillips. He’s our operations officer for the museum, and he’s an artist as well. To his right, Heather Pennington, who’s our former board chair and remains a museum advocate even though she’s in Alaska. Right now, she still travels to advocacy day. It’s very important to her. And then, to her right, Jana, McEntee, who’s the executive director of the Ohio Museum’s Association and she is really a champion in advocacy for our state and in educating and empowering advocates.

And so, we issue that press release so that the entire community knows what their Maslin Museum is doing on behalf of the field. Of museums. Because people who love the Massillon Museum love museums in general. They don’t just love the Maslin Museum. They love all the museums in our state, and they love traveling. To DC and all over the world to see museums. So they it is really empowering, I believe, for our community to see that we’re doing this work on behalf of the field. It also helps empower our staff to engage in, as Brandy said, the e advocacy that you can do from home. And, AAM sets up really great templates that enable you to effectively advocate I know especially at the advent of this calendar year when we were all navigating the changes that Brandy referenced earlier, a great way to make, engage my family members and my friends in feeling as though they had a voice and there was something they could do was to send out the template letters that were created. And all of them commented on how very easy that was and they, signed off on, you know, all of the different support letters And, that is a great way to introduce advocacy.

To community members as well as to others in your organization. So what we’ve gained from going on the hill has been really incredible. The relationships that have trickled down to the district are immeasurable. So oftentimes, and you’ll see in some other slides here, the staff members, because we’ve had that FaceTime and that relationship on the hill, we’ll often invite them. We always invite them to visit museum to visit our museum throughout the year. But oftentimes, they will then reach out to us when they’re in the district on recess and schedule meetings. So they’ve established that relationship, and it’s led to other things like the, Maslow Museum being a collection site for the congressional art competition. We did that many years for congressman Bob Gibbs and this past year for, congresswoman Emilia Sykes. And it’s that familiarity with staff members and the perspective you gain from going to Washington in their offices.

Is just, there’s really nothing to compare it to. But if you can send a representative from your organization, to bring that information back even if you can’t attend. The reward will definitely be exponential, you know, assuming that that information is shared in and not siloed.

Brandy Dillingham:

Thank you for that. I’d also like to say, you know, while AAM does, like, the big line DC for museums advocacy day, many state associations purchase state advocacy days, whether or not their actually hosting them on their own, they may be partnering with other arts or humanities organizations in their area to put on a state advocacy day. So I’d recommend checking to see if whether it’s your museum association or there’s arts or humanities or whatever is the best fit for your museum. Like, what other organizations are out there that may be doing a state advocacy day going to your state legislator doing essentially what we do here in DC but doing it back at your state legislator level. I’m gonna touch on invite congress in a moment. I’m gonna skip down to the next items. We talked about sending the museum e newsletter or something very simple. And I appreciate Alex talking about the writing your lawmaker law make That’s such an easy way to have, like, a communication. It doesn’t take much time.

We have templates. I do highly recommend editing the template. To make it personal. We talked about all politics is local. You want to make it personal. You want to bring in the local information When we’re doing a template, we don’t have that information to add in for you, so it’s so important that you just take a couple of minutes and add that in. And Alex mentioned the congressional art competition. This is an example of building a relationship without doing any advocacy. You’re just offering yourself up to assist if they need it. For those who may not be familiar with the congressional art competition, every congressional district hosts an art competition for high schoolers. One gets chosen and the artwork hangs at the capitol for a year. Where it will get viewed. And every congressional office does it a little bit differently. And so they may or may not need assistance, but it doesn’t hurt to say, hey. If you need a collection site or you need an extra judge, you know, we can help assist with that. So that’s something that I’d like to encourage you to keep in mind that there are other ways to engage with the office. It doesn’t involve you necessarily advocating for anything but just being helpful to them. Now I do wanna circle back to invite congress, and I’m gonna share some of Alex’s, photos from when she’s had members of Congress, and their staff visit. And I’m calling it invite congress because that’s the event that we have coming up in August. But really, you can invite lawmakers to your museum at any time of year. And this is a great way to show them firsthand.

What you’re doing, how you’re impacting your community, the impact that you have. And it’s so valuable. Right I just mentioned in my congress that’s coming up in August. We invite you to sign up and this year, we’re doing it a little bit differently. If you sign up, we will provide you access to office hours with me to get your questions answered if you need some assistance. We’re providing additional, like, tips and resources that aren’t necessarily all over our website. We also are hosting what I’m calling community meetings, so for anybody who signs up for Invite Congress.

We are hosting meetings with the groups. So that they can share with each other what they’ve got going on and any, tips that they may have for each other. Or if they are having any challenges, they can help. Each other solve some of those challenges as there, planning for their events. But I would like to ask Alex to talk a little bit about some of her past invite congress experiences, if you wouldn’t mind sharing.

Alexandra Coon:

Of course. I just thought this was, a collage of the many hairstyles that I’ve had over the years. I’m looking back. I’m like, oh my gosh. This spans quite an amount of time.

We’ve these are great opportunities, and these photos don’t reflect all the opportunities we’ve had to showcase our site to members of congress. But they, going from the photo of me and, former senator Sherrod Brown in the circus gallery at the top. That was actually just a few weeks before the world shutdown. That was February 20. It was shortly before advocacy day. In DC, 2020. And the senator was in town and had some extra time in Massillon. And because we’d had such a great relationship in the district with his staff member, former staff member, Jordan Panell, who’s in the bottom middle photo. Of me with the garments in the background.

We had such a great relationship with Jordan, and he would call upon us two to three times a year and come visit every time he was in town for other meetings. And so he had arranged for the senator to meet with us during one of his extended visits before he had to fly out, back to DC. And so that was really special and one of those opportunities where we had all the staff who are available on-site that day meet with him also and take a great picture, which, of course, they love having their photos taken, and they love for you to share those photos too because that’s a great outreach opportunity for our lawmakers to extend on their social media accounts and to demonstrate the extent to which they are visible.

In the community. On the far right, former congressman Gibbs, there at the late an amazing, underwater photography pioneer, Ernest Brooks. We’d invited the congressman and his wife to attend our exhibition opening and to attend a bit early for a VIP reception. Where he could meet with the artists and with, Ansel Adams’ son and daughter-in-law because we featured the images of Ansel Adams as well. And so he took us up on the opportunity and we had board members and some of our major donors there.

And it was a chance for him to meet with artists and artists to meet member of congress and him to really see what it is we do, at the museum after having met with his staff many times on the hill. And in the bottom, bottom left hand is a time where during recess in August, congressman Gibbs’s staff came and to the museum, and we specifically wanted to give them a tour behind the scenes of the collection storage facility so they could better understand the preservation efforts that we you know, all of us have those great stories to tell. All of us can invite those elected officials into the storage facilities. And allow them to see up close and personal the things that we that we care for, you know, the community’s history.

And so forth. And sometimes, it’s demonstrating the extent to which federal dollars have helped support an initiative. IMLS funds helped purchase a lot of the cabinetry and that storage that textile storage rack, for example, that’s installed in our collection storage room. So we wanted to demonstrate it wasn’t it was gearing up. Right? It was building a relationship and building the narrative about the value of IMLS, to let them see the way those federal federally invested dollars were put to good use. And so that was in August, but, of course, we knew we were coming back in in in February, and we’re going to make a case for IMLS as we almost always do.

So it’s important for to have those relationships. We always send, written thank yous as well following their visits. We always take photos. We, always let their district staff know in advance of us going to Washington, to say, hello. We just wanted to let you know that AAM has set up meetings for us on such and such a date. We look forward to meeting with whomever in your office in DC. And sometimes they’ll give them a heads up or other times they’ll, you know, just share some information that that’s helpful for our visit. But being able to have the access points that result from you know, many of these interactions involved started with a simple letter.

That we’d written inviting them to visit our site. Others started right after we visited in in DC. But they’re just some examples of the ways you can really showcase your institution And, again, they love photos that they can share. On their social media pages or in their newsletters.

Brandy Dillingham:

Thank you. And I’m also gonna share this collage of other activities that, you all have hosted. And that does bring me to a question. You kinda touched on this a little bit earlier, but if you could talk a little bit about some of the other activities you may have done in advocacy and what

what activities have you found to be the most impactful?

Alexandra Coon:

Sure. So starting at the local level, you know, I think forming that you know, oftentimes your locally elected officials have engagements and have their own reasons for connecting with, members of congress. As well on behalf of the cities they serve. So oftentimes, there can be joint ventures in leveraging similar interests for the benefit of a city.

Or a museum that will put you in working in concert with a mayor or a county commissioner. Or a state elected official. But on the but, again, building those relationships, making sure your elected officials are knowledgeable about your event and invited to everything. It can be a passive means of invitation by adding them to your mailing list, or the far-right photo is an example of our new mayor Well, he’s now served he’s in his midway through his second term. But we had an exhibition that was going to was one of the most ambitious we’d ever assembled.

And we wanted to provide an opportunity for the mayor to get to know us better. And so he and his staff member, we invited them to, behind the scenes while the exhibition was being assembled. I emailed his staff member and asked would you and the mayor like to come over and just see what it’s like when we put together an exhibition? It’s something we’re really proud of and something a lot of people don’t get to see. So there, is mayor Slutz in the far-right corner. Talking with our guest curator, Brian Centron, as he’s dressing mannequins for the exhibit And then, the bottom center image is him looking over the shoulder of an artist we commissioned to help, paint this wallpaper, faux wallpaper in a vignette that we created. And it gave him perspective. You know, I thought it was important for him to better understand we’re neighbors. The municipal building is right here. In fact, from our conference room, I can look into the mayor’s office, so sometimes we can say hello to each other. But, knowing that we’re neighbors and that we really rely on the city, for a lot of the logistics associated with us getting tour bus you know, parking for school buses, you know, coordinating large scale events where we have streets that need to be blocked off, You know, just helping manage that relationship.

We felt would, really be, softened by inviting him to you know, see a little bit beyond, you know, behind the curtains and terms of what we do as museum professionals. And I think he was really impressed with that and then the bottom right-hand corner, he attended just last Friday our island party with his wife. And I don’t think he’s ever missed one of the island parties. In the top left-hand corner, this was fun. The director of the Kent Museum of Art, Max Barton, who’s dressed as a sort of Grim Reaper character, and I, who’s an amalgamation of different paintings, historic famous paintings.

We cohosted a Halloween party, and we invited each of the, we invited May, Maslin’s mayor and Canton’s mayor to come and service costume judges for us. So that’s a fun photo of us all together. And that’s there’s a football rivalry that runs deep and very long and a century old, between Massillon and Canton. So he kind of had fun with that with wearing a Canton football uniform. And then we have other events at which, you know, just demonstrates the extent to which we invite elected officials to, just take part in what we do in a casual way where there’s not an ask. Connected to it, but it invites them into our world, shows them the value, that we have, the community in a way that can resonate with them.

And so when it does come time to make asks, especially at the state level, there a state capital budget that, historically is passed every two years and enables nonprofit organizations to request funds for things like our building expansion or, revamping the fire safety systems things of that nature we’ve taken advantage of. And so the more they understand your institution, and the way the community responds to it, the more apt they will be when you make a request, a monetary request, of the state to go to bat for you.

Brandy Dillingham:

Those are all really great examples.

And so next, I wanna touch on coalitions because you don’t have to do this all alone. I know that sometimes advocacy can seem a little overwhelming, but you can do this in conjunction with others. We’ve obviously talked about something like a museum’s advocacy day where you’re coming with a whole bunch of other museums. That’s, being organized by AAM.

But there are other things you could be thinking about, other coalitions you could be working with as well that might help you on the local and state level. You could be working with other museums, and Alex touched on, like, her event

earlier, but there you could work be working with other local museums to maybe form your own little coalition and working together sharing information. You could be, like, hosting a meeting together and inviting a lawmaker to come speak, and that way you’re all getting to interact with them at the same time. I’m asking questions, letting them speak to you. That’s an because not everybody can afford to travel to DC or to your state capital. So this may be an opportunity for you to work with other museums to do stuff locally.

I’d also highly recommend taking a look at your state and regional museum association, seeing what advocacy efforts they may be doing. Every state and regional museum association is different, so they may be volunteer only and may not have the capacity to do advocacy, but I highly recommend check to see what they are doing, seeing if there’s anything you could be involved in. Like a state advocacy day or maybe they have other activities, going on. But, also, if they are volunteer run and they’re not doing advocacy, it may be because they don’t have anybody volunteering to do it, and that could be an opportunity for you to get engaged. In that way as well and helping motivating

others in your state to get involved in advocacy and working together. So they’re, lot of opportunities that could be there that all you have to do is check with some of these organizations to find out. And also the same goes for state arts and humanities organizations. I mentioned earlier, I know many of the state museum associations work with these organizations, in their state to do state advocacy days.

Depending on your museum and what your focus is. There may be a group out there that fits like, some of the issues that you’re, that you care about. And so there could be ways that you could be utilizing them. To get information about what’s going on or act activities you can be involved in. So keep in mind, you don’t have to do all this stuff alone. You could be working with other organizations. I know, Alex, you’ve been very involved with, your state museum association. Do you mind talking a little bit about, some of the advocacy efforts that you’ve done through that and how that may have benefited you and your museum.

Alexandra Coon:

Sure. Well, the Ohio Museum’s Association is very actively engaged in advocacy. The I had the honor of serving on the board for many years and, eventually, as its president. And during my tenure, we became more involved in advocacy and started an advocacy roundtable where we brought together twice a year leaders from all the statewide organizations, state, the library association, the Arts Council, Ohio Humanities, major museums, and travel associations, you name it, from all over the state. So we could understand each other’s I guess, primary concerns, greatest interests in terms of policy, and ways where we could help advocate and cross promote, be supportive, just be aware, or perhaps, you know, when it called for it to, collectively advocate, you know, on behalf of a particular policy or topic so that we didn’t look disjointed. And so we’d have strength in numbers just to better understand what each of our sort of sister and likeminded or partner institutions throughout the state were most passionate about or most concerned about.

When it came to, policy and their relationships with lawmakers and things like the state budget.

So that has been very effective in bringing us together around the table in person, I’m no longer directly involved with that as I’m not a board member, but my, colleague Scott is on the board and is involved in the advocacy committee.

And there’s something that was started many years ago called, speak up for Ohio Museum’s Day. I think it happens on the first Monday. In October if I’m not mistaken, and it’s a virtual effort. To engage in social media campaign, but it can also be handwritten or direct email campaign. It’s a reminder to engage with your elected officials and to relay to them the economic impact and the importance of in the value of museums with data, with anecdotal information. There are great photo stories that Jana, the, director of the Ohio Museum’s Association assembles. And it’s a social media blitz. And it’s something that it takes time, but there aren’t dollars behind that. So those are some great efforts that the Ohio Museum Association is doing. Creative Ohio is another wonderful advocacy arm for the creative sector.

In the state of Ohio. And there are other entities that maintain excellent communication with the statewide organizations like Ohio Humanities and Ohio Arts Council, as, federal level decisions impact state decisions about the arts and humanities, respectively. So staying in touch with all those organizations to whatever extent you can and availing your space as one that can be used for an event that one of those organizations might host. Or a meeting, or a check, a grant and check presentation as you see above, with Rebecca Asmo, who’s the head of our Ohio Humanities organization, and to which elected officials can be involved. There’s two of our state representatives flanking the check there.

In the bottom right-hand corner, the museum was asked to host the chamber’s annual legislative breakfast in May, and we said, yes. It was the morning after a concert. None of left till, like, 11:30 at night. That room had been host to a concert the evening before and after it was over.

Many hands make light work. We switched it over to get it ready for the breakfast and you know, we’re back at 06:30AM the next morning. Now that’s not a usual turnover, but if given the opportunity to do something like host several of our elected officials, especially, you know, we had also one of our new state senators there and it was the week before the senate’s budget addenda were due for the state. And so all of our board members were there as well, expressing their gratitude. And making some direct pleas with regard to the state budget. So, I mean, we would have done that regardless, but the timing was really important. For us to be able to host that and have a lot of great FaceTime. So making your institution available some for something as simple as a meeting, space, or a larger scale event, or a photo op. I think the more open you

you demonstrate you are, the more you will invite those opportunities.

Brandy Dillingham:

Yeah. And I’d also have, like, AAM as a part of a lot of, coalitions that helps us keep you know, sharing information with each other when we have like-minded, interest. And it’s such a great way to, to really, like, keep engaged and keep up to date on stuff and, amplify your voice.

Developing a year-round advocacy plan. So I just wanna cover a few things that you might wanna consider when you’re thinking about what you might be doing for the year in advocacy. Think about what your priorities will be for the year, are you trying to go for local, state, or federal funding? I would also add be flexible as we all know. Because you never know what might change. So what you thought your priorities were at beginning may very well change as the year goes along.

Where do you need to spend more time building relationships? Is it do you have new lawmakers and you need to maybe focus some more time there? But I’d also like to highlight, do not forget about your champion. I know sometimes you may think, oh, they’re already supportive of us. We don’t need to spend any time there. Don’t take that for granted. They still need to hear from you just may not have to put as much time and effort into it. But still continue to maintain those relationships. Don’t forget about them.

Think about what activities or milestones you may be having coming up in the year. Are you launching a new exhibit? Do you have, like, your fiftieth anniversary coming up? Those are events you could be inviting lawmakers to. So think about, like, what you might have coming up for the year. And what resources do you have available? Are you able to afford to send a staff person to DC that year? If not, what else could you be doing to supplement that? Maybe it’s a virtual meeting with the DC staff, or maybe it is some of these a local meeting with your with your lawmaker. So keep that in mind. And consider making a calendar of some of the events you have that are coming up that year, like museums advocacy days and February or state advocacy day in March.

January, you wanna, like, send a welcome email introducing your museum to, like, your new lawmaker for the year. So keep the and check to see what kind of events are going on. Like, when is your city council meeting? Keep that on a calendar so that you can see some of the events going on. And I wanna ask Alex before we, because we’re running out of time. But I do wanna,

ask if, there’s any success stories or any other advice you’d like to share before we move on to, some of our questions.

Alexandra Coon:

I can’t stress enough what you said about not making assumptions. That that that someone who’s been in your corner doesn’t need attention. I also want I think that goes the other way I don’t make assumptions that someone who you think has a political you know, a particular political lean wouldn’t be supportive. And don’t dismiss investing energy there. We had some great success with the new, lawmaker on the hill, one of our newest members of congress who we had the pleasure of meeting with during advocacy day.

He was, there in person. For the meeting. We had a wonderful conversation. We had a lot of those touch points that Brandy alluded to that referenced his, formal former football career. And Maslin’s a big football town, and the Maslin Museum has is host to the Paul Brown Museum because of his legacy here. So we had a lot of talking points. We made the pitches as we normally do. We made our case. We shared data, anecdotes. Never forget. It was during one of our staff meetings when we used to have them on Fridays. That, we were, I received a call from this congressman office, congressman Anthony Gonzalez, And she said, I just wanted to let you know that the congressman has signed on to the appropriations letter and an increase, you know, in support for the IMLS. And I just started crying because, they didn’t have to extend that call.

They didn’t have to sign on the letter, but we introduced a new member of congress to a, you know, a really important mechanism for us in the museum field. Right? And they really took to heart the impact that, their investment would have. And, it was a really beautiful thing, and they he continued while he was in office that support, and they continued the tradition of calling us when they supported an initiative that we came to meet with them about. And so, you know, he was a new member of congress, Republican member of congress, and we didn’t approach the request any differently, except in the research we did to Brandy’s point. You have to always keep an open mind and remember these individuals are people. And, you know, in theory, they all want the best for their country and their communities, but you have to be flexible and open minded. And sometimes they’ll tell us sometimes staff members will say if we’re there representing the field but we’re not constituents, we don’t live or have a museum in the district, They’ll be very blunt with us about

Brandy Dillingham:

Great. Thank you, Alex. We are at time, but I am gonna quickly touch on these two questions that we have. The first question is, for staff to be advocates, don’t they have to be registered lobbyists? The answer is for federal purposes, there are particular thresholds you would have to hit in order to have to register as a lobbyist. Chances are you’re probably not hitting those. But I will, for everybody’s information, when we post this video and the links underneath, I will include a link to the information on what those thresholds are so that you can see what they are and know whether or not that

applies to you. For the other question, should you only have in the region of a physical museum or across area of impact?

Politics is local, so the lawmakers that directly impact your museum and the communities nearby that you serve that’s gonna be the lawmakers that are gonna have the most interest.

Alexandra Coon:

the congressperson really preferring to hear from

district constituents. And so then we say, totally understand, and I’ll be happy to put you in touch with so and so. And we try to follow-up with a more local story. That doesn’t happen so often, but we always try to bring a local story if we can’t bring the person who’s local with us so that we’re

Brandy Dillingham:

Yep. So since we are overtime, I am gonna go ahead and wrap up this webinar. I’d like to thank you all for joining us today. We really appreciate it. And this is being recorded and will be available online in a couple of days, and we’ll make sure to include it in our next advocacy alert. In case you need help finding it. Thank you so much for joining us today and have a good rest of your day.