The document presents a grassroots code of ethics for advocacy, emphasizing principles such as legitimacy, authenticity, relevance, transparency, civility, and honesty in communications between citizens and policymakers. It highlights statistics regarding citizen engagement and the importance of personalizing advocacy messages. The presentation includes insights from experts in the field and encourages integrity in advocacy practices.

1. Grassroots Code of Ethics A Presentation from Stephanie Vance of Advocacy Associates

2. It’s Quiz Time (With Fabulous Prizes!) Percentage of adult Internet users who have contacted Congress about a policy issue. Percentage of Congressional staff who believe that the form communications they receive are sent without the constituent’s approval. Percentage of Internet users who place a high value on the role of advocacy campaigns in our democracy. All statistics from the Congressional Management Foundation’s fabulous report “How the Internet has Changed Citizen Engagement” and “How Capitol Hill is Coping with the Surge in Citizen Advocacy.”

3. The Proposed Code

4. Legitimacy Communications should be direct from the citizen or with the express permission of the citizen.

5. Authenticity Communications should be authentic representations of that individual’s views on a specific policy issue. Advocacy practitioners should always provide tools for personalizing the message.

6. Relevance For general grassroots communications, tools should be in place to establish a constituency relationship between the citizens and the policymaker.

7. Transparency Grassroots advocacy practitioners should not take steps to hide an organization’s involvement in an advocacy effort. Likewise, communications from citizens that are generated as a result of an advocacy campaign should not be given less weight than those developed spontaneously

8. Civility Grassroots advocacy practitioners should encourage civility in communications between citizens and policymakers.

9. Honesty Grassroots advocacy practitioners should never knowingly provide false, misleading, inflammatory or inaccurate information in an effort to persuade citizens.

10. Our Panel Les Francis, Washington Media Group