How to Be an Advocate

Step 1: Tap into your moral outrage. Yes, there is a name for that flash of anger you experience when you see a patient or colleague being treated unjustly by the powers that be. It’s moral outrage, a term that my first mentor in advocacy taught me and that captures the essence of what drives many people to advocate. We all have an innate ability to detect unfairness and inequality. What matters is what we do when we come across it. By paying attention to what sparks your moral outrage, you can identify the advocacy areas that you care about most. Focus your energy on these areas, and your moral outrage will be your fuel when you advocate.

Step 2: Find your crowd. As another one of my mentors would say, “Advocacy is a team sport.” The bigger the problem you’re trying to fix, the more boots on the ground you’ll need to fix it. You need to surround yourself with like-minded people and work together to achieve a mutually agreed-upon goal. This is called coalition building, and it’s a vital skill for an advocate to have. By building—or joining—a group that is advocating for issues you care about, you’ll start to build the strength in numbers you need to succeed. In addition, the connections you make will provide you with invaluable mentorship and resources.

Step 3: Be specific. Many would-be advocates falter not from lack of enthusiasm, but from lack of direction. Because the definition of advocacy is broad, and because there is so much to advocate for, it’s easier to be passionate about the general idea of advocacy than to pick a particular topic on which to work. But the more specific you can be about the change you want to see, the more likely you are to succeed in making change happen—both because you (and your coalition) can better focus your efforts, and because policymakers respond best to direct, actionable, and specific guidance.

Step 4: Make your voice heard. Once you’ve completed the steps above, you’re ready to get your message out to the public. To figure that out who your audience is, identify the stakeholders for your issue—the individuals and groups who have a vested interest in that issue. Of course, psychiatrists and patients will be among them, but so might legislators, insurers, administrators, and others. How you craft and where you deliver your message will differ depending on who your target audience is. For example, telling personal stories (“In my practice, I often experience …”) may be compelling for policymakers, and this may take the form of meeting with them at the state house or giving congressional testimony. In contrast, a board of trustees may be most interested in hearing about ideas that advance its organization’s mission, and your best access to these leaders may come in the form of working with a committee that reports to the board.