Fire Prevention Advocacy Toolkit

A Guide to Fire Prevention Advocacy

  • Intro
  • CREATE DEMAND
    • Increase Advocacy for Fire Prevention in Your Community
    • A Comprehensive Advocacy Plan
    • Advocating for Increased Fire Prevention Will Benefit Your Community
  • DEMONSTRATE NEED
    • Fire Prevention Benefits from Accurate and Complete Data
    • Fire Costs Lives and Injuries
    • Fire Costs Dollars
    • Fire Costs Businesses, Jobs and Community
    • National Data Support Local Efforts
    • The Consequences of Not Investing in Prevention
  • DEMONSTRATE RESULTS
    • Documenting Results Helps Justify Your Investment
    • Evaluation
    • Fire Prevention Saves Lives
    • Fire Prevention Saves Dollars and Community
  • RELATIONSHIPS
    • Develop Relationships in Your Community
    • Policymakers
    • Business Leaders
    • Community Social Service Leaders
    • The Public
  • YOUR PLAN
    • Set Your Advocacy Program Objectives
    • Develop Your Advocacy Program Strategies
    • Work with Local Advocates
    • Use Real Life Stories as Inspiration
  • RESOURCES
    • Media Relations And Outreach
    • Successful Media Relations
    • Communicating Via the Internet and Social Media
    • Hosting Press Conferences and Other Events
    • Communication Sources
    • Using the Vision 20/20 “Prevention Saves” Video
    • Making Effective Presentations

Develop Your Advocacy Program Strategies

YOUR ADVOCACY PLAN

Develop Your Advocacy Program Strategies

What Strategies Will Help You Meet Your Objectives? 

Objectives determine what you will accomplish. Strategies determine how you will accomplish it. A single strategy can (and usually should) help to achieve more than one objective. You will want to limit the number of strategies in order to avoid overextending limited resources. It is more effective to do a few things well than many things incompletely.

For the objectives stated previously, you might develop the following strategies:

  • Create opportunities to involve spokespeople from the community with firsthand experience of fire loss. This testimony conveys the need for strong fire prevention (such as a burn survivor speaking to a group or a media story about a worker who lost his job due to fire shutting down a local business).
  • Network to distribute key fire safety materials to target audiences.
  • Develop relationships with community leaders who are involved in fiscal planning.

Each strategy will require the development of tactics (actions or materials) that can also help achieve more than one strategy and objective. The following pages discuss what some of your target audiences might be and what tactics can be developed to reach them.

For more information read:

The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) PDF document, “Writing S.M.A.R.T. Objectives”

“Building Blocks of Advocacy” by Jim Crawford in FireRescue Magazine PDF document.

Evaluate Your Program

Just as you need to document the effectiveness of your prevention programs, you also need to show the effectiveness of your advocacy program. Follow the same rules and procedures to determine if you are being successful at meeting your program objectives using the strategies you put in place. This will allow you to make adjustments as needed for a successful outcome.

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