Imagine a piece of legislation that could be the greatest conservation success in a decade if passed by Congress. What can an organization do to meaningfully support a bill like this with a government affairs staff of one, a small budget, and few members with experience in grassroots advocacy?

As policy director of the American Fisheries Society (AFS), I faced this situation regarding the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act, a bipartisan bill introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives last year that would dedicate $1.3 billion annually for voluntary, proactive conservation for at-risk fish and wildlife in all 50 states.

There are 12,000 species in the U.S. that have been identified by states as imperiled, but unfortunately there’s little funding for fish and wildlife agencies to keep species from becoming endangered. Our members, who broadly support this bill, are on the front lines of the crisis and have valuable knowledge to share with lawmakers. As AFS’s most important asset, members were a logical place for me to start in crafting a grassroots advocacy plan.

Soon after the bill’s introduction, I started the long process of developing a corps of dedicated and passionate fisheries scientists and professionals who would be willing to share their expertise with policymakers to foster support for the act. We knew we’d have to overcome one challenge with these volunteers: Advocacy does not come naturally to most fisheries professionals.

An Online Answer

I realized that AFS should create a webinar that would educate interested members on specifics about the legislation and tutor them on various advocacy techniques to help them effectively and meaningfully support the bill. In just two months, our staff pulled together content for the webinar from a few grassroots advocacy training manuals in the office, free online resources, and help from congressional staff and conservation partners.

It’s amazing how many members will help if you make it easy for them to get involved in advocacy outreach. Our members have risen to the challenge, and their efforts are paying dividends.

We started with the basics—how to find your member of Congress—and covered how to make effective phone calls, write letters, speak out on social media, conduct district office visits, and give field tours to legislators. We filmed short videos with a seasoned field campaign professional to walk participants through these various tactics. We also offered a question-and-answer session at the end.

By covering all the elements of grassroots advocacy, the webinar showed members that they could support the effort in whatever manner suited their comfort level, skill set, and preferred time commitment. Members who were willing to hold a face-to-face meeting with a legislator learned the value of using facts and storytelling to make the crisis for wildlife relevant to the state or district the lawmaker represents.

To drive this home in the webinar, we used a field visit scenario in which a fisheries biologist takes a congressman fishing in a clear, spring-fed river in the Texas Hill Country. They show him how the department used funds from the State and Tribal Wildlife Grant program to restore the iconic and imperiled Guadalupe bass by reintroducing fish and improving the habitat. At the end of the field trip, the congressman is asked to cosponsor the bill.

Clear examples like this one demonstrate how to begin and build a relationship with a legislator—the key to long-term policy success—and how members can present themselves as a source for reliable, accurate, and timely information.

Payoff and Progress

In the end, we reached several hundred people in that single webinar. Participants got the added benefit of learning skills that are crucial to professional advancement in natural resource management.

We followed up the webinar by making evergreen content available to several thousand AFS members on the website.

It’s amazing how many members will help if you make it easy for them to get involved in advocacy outreach. Our members have risen to the challenge, and their efforts are paying dividends.

One example: A fisheries biologist participated in the webinar and wanted to get her chapter more involved in advocating for the act. Based on her request to the California-Nevada AFS chapter leadership and my follow-up with the officers, the chapter sent a letter to every member of Congress. This in turn allowed me to secure meetings on the Hill with staff for House Natural Resources Committee members to talk further about HR4647. Since the letter was sent, we have four new cosponsors on the bill from those states.

We’re excited about the additional impact our members can make for this legislation and for fisheries conservation in the future.