Lobbying and Advocacy

Lobbyists and Political Advocates

A lobbyist is an individual that conducts activities that aim at making an influence on public officials. These persons focus on swaying the decisions of mostly members of a body that deals with legislation. These decisions are those affecting the community or the individuals concerned. On the other hand, political advocates define individuals or a small group of people that use their knowledge to bring about social changes by way of mobilization and motivation of the community (Center for Society Orientation, 2013). These people always share a specific concern and direct the changes to the government laws, policies and procedures.

Differences between Advocacy and Lobbying

It is vital to know that, advocacy entails a lot of activities that might include time or not. However, the difference is that while lobbying will always involve advocacy, the later does not have to include lobbying. Whereas lobbying is restricted to a particular percent by the operational budget of the lobbying, there is no limit for the amount of advocacy that an organization can be involved in some situations. For instance, it gives a focus on education of the community about some specific issue while lobbying makes attempts at influencing state, federal or local legislation (Center for Society Orientation, 2013). These are some of the distinct differences between lobbying and advocacy. Both advocacy and lobbying are so crucial in that they lead to the passing of new and amendment of laws and reformation of judicial systems. Issues such as gender-based and domestic violence have found solutions through advocacy and lobbying.

Advocacy Examples

The World Health Organization (WHO) has used advocacy to raise mental health awareness and ensure that this issue gets included on national agendas of various governments across the world (World Health Organization, 2003). Based on the little attention given to mental health, this approach by WHO will lead to legislation and service development. The Joint Commission advocated for the Nursing Workforce Development using some strategies of lobbying and also to develop the CHGME (Children’s Hospital Graduate Medical Education). The results have led to federal funding under Public Health appropriations bill (Suzanne, 2009).

References

Center for Society Orientation (2013). Advocacy and lobbying. Retrieved from: http://www.cod.rs/en/what-we-do/advocacy-and-lobbying/

Suzanne, M. B., (2009). Lobbying Strategies for Federal Appropriations: Nursing versus Medical Education. Retrieved from: https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/64641/sbegeny_1.pdf?sequence=1

World Health Organization (2003). Advocacy for Mental. Mental Health Policy and Service Guidance Package. Retrieved from: http://www.who.int/mental_health/resources/en/Advocacy.pdf