Telling Your Story: Help your legislator understand that value of your work

Telling your story is easy and effective, and has the potential to engage elected officials and the public on a deeper level. To be truly effective, your story should leave a lasting impression with those who have heard it.

In this section, we've given you a few tools to get started and feel more confident telling elected officials why your work has value, or importance in your community.

Storytelling 101: An introduction
The expression "telling your story" seems to be everywhere; but why is it so important and how do I tell my story? Learn the basics of effective storytelling and the role it plays in ARRM's grassroots advocacy work.

Contacting decision-makers
Making a phone call to a decision-maker is quick, easy and can be done at a moment’s notice, making it an attractive method for making your voice heard. For these reasons, it is critical that the call be effective. You don't need to be an expert on the process to be persuasive -- you just need to give your personal perspective. Download ARRM's Grassroots Advocacy toolkit (Word doc) to get started.

Meeting tips
If you are planning to invite a legislator to your site, download ARRM's Word document, "Site Visit Toolkit" which walks you through each step necessary in planning a visit, from determining who will attend to sending a press release to your local media.

Messages
ARRM has created messages for CEOs, professional caregivers, family members, and self-advocates. Click here to view the messages for each group.

Tracking and Feedback form
Last but not least, this information is extremely valuable to ARRM: it helps inform our direct lobbying strategy and tells us where to concentrate our grassroots and grasstops efforts. Click here for the Word document, or here for the online form.