Policy And Advocacy Training Development

Through this project, we are seeking help in thinking through and ultimately creating a bespoke lobbying training (and set of resources) for our growing organization and staff (which is remote and spread across the U.S.). Ideally, this training/resources would outline both state and federal requirements/limitations and would take into consideration the unique work (and lobbying) that is specific to our organization. It would be used to train new staff and to refresh existing staff on an ~annual basis. It might also help us develop a new and more efficient way of tracking our lobbying across staff and teams.

Our Mission: Everyone is entitled to respect, equality, fairness, and dignity under the law. Yet systems of justice so often discriminate, over-criminalize, and trap the most vulnerable people in destructive cycles of punishment and poverty. The Responsible Business Initiative for Justice (RBIJ) works with companies to champion solutions that promote public safety, deliver justice, and strengthen communities.

The success of this project - the creation of a bespoke lobbying training and set of resources for our growing staff - would be enormously useful for us as an organization as we undergo our mission. In particular, it would help us as we recruit businesses to lend their voices and platforms to drive change on key policy areas at the state and federal level.

As such, there is internal buy-in from leadership and across the Policy & Advocacy team (ie those most impacted by lobbying) for an updated and bespoke set of lobbying resources.

Our Director of Policy & Advocacy meets with our organization's fiscal sponsor on a monthly basis to discuss and track our lobbying efforts for the organization. She also has attended external trainings on the issue, and has done informal trainings for staff. While we have one-pagers and other resources, none feel specific to our organization's work and therefore are not used.