YOUR ADVOCACY PLAN

Set Your Advocacy Program Objectives

firefighter teaching an elderly woman about fire safety in her kitchen — Image courtesy of Amherst (Massachusetts) Fire Department

What Makes an Effective Objective?

Objectives should be short, specific and measurable. While goals may be broad statements (“Increase fire prevention education in order to reduce the number of fires”), objectives should be clear statements of what the program needs to accomplish to be successful.

For this program your objectives may be similar to:

Recruit and develop five fire safety advocates from among community leaders to deliver presentations prior to budget time to policymakers on how prevention saves.
Make an average of 10 presentations per month about the benefits to your community of investing in fire prevention by the fire safety advocate team.
Increase financial support for the fire safety advocacy program by 12 percent.

Note the use of action verbs and measurable results. Your objectives should be specific to the needs of your program and community.

Learn more by reading the PDF document by the U.S. Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) article, Writing S.M.A.R.T. Objectives