Advocacy Tip of the Month, November 2006

The Advocacy Tip of the Month is meant to help further your knowledge of grassroots advocacy while offering tips to effectively engage your elected officials. Each month, we will give you information on the tip with action steps to take relating to that month’s tip. This information is distributed to all registered users of ACT and posted in NAFSA.news.

Say Thank You

This year, we have had many advocacy campaigns on legislation related to international education including comprehensive immigration reform, the Lincoln Study Abroad Act, and the International Education Policy. Your members of Congress may not have supported all of our issues, but in the spirit of Thanksgiving, this is a great time to send a letter to your legislators to thank them for supporting any issues that are near and dear to your heart. If you feel that your representative in the U.S. House or your senators have not been supportive of any of our issues, you can always thank them for their service to your community and ask that next year they take a more supportive role on behalf of international education and exchange.

Too often, constituents only contact their members of Congress to ask them for something. Members and their staff like to hear when they’ve done something right! If your members of Congress have done anything this year (cosponsored a bill, provided personal assistance to you or one of your students, etc.) that was positive, please take five minutes to send them a thank you note. If you've worked with the member's staff, be sure to name them and praise their work in the letter as well.

Access a list of issues that NAFSA monitored over the past year.

Action Steps for November:

1. Send a letter of thanks to any or all of your legislators. A thank you note will help build positive relationships with members of Congress!
   
   • Go to the NAFSA Take Action page and enter your zip code.
   • From there, you will be directed to a page with appropriate members of Congress listed. Under each of their pictures, you have the opportunity to send them an e-mail. Click on the e-mail link to compose your message. If you’d like to send it to more than one, you can copy and paste the text for each legislator.
2. Join the Advocacy Centered Team (ACT) or if you already have, encourage your colleagues and students to join. By participating in ACT, you will receive advocacy opportunities in your e-mail about legislation that affects international education and exchange. Access more information on ACT and join now.

Visit our new Tip of the Month Digest to view previous issues.