Advocacy comes in many shapes and forms. Many advocates tackle a challenge in very different ways, using a variety of tactics and tools in different legal and sociopolitical environments. These tactics and tools come from a wide range of institutional, organizational, political and geopolitical positions, with advocates who have varying capacities, organizational cultures and resources to contribute to the particular project in question.
As an organization, we want to succeed with our advocacy: rectify an injustice, abolish a harmful law or policy, change discriminatory attitudes, protect people and communities against abuse, secure funds to protect health and save lives. To increase our chances of successfully making change, we want to be more systematic in assessing the impact of our advocacy efforts. What works or is working? What doesn’t or isn’t?
In Advocacy and Social Justice: Measuring Impact, we have tried to refine and distill some of our thinking about how to monitor and measure our impact as advocates, and to learn from that — particularly in relation to our legal advocacy work. Throughout this process, we have learned and hope that, with a continued commitment to ongoing learning, we will become better, stronger, more effective advocates.
We hope you also find these tools useful in thinking through the challenges of how to monitor and evaluate legal advocacy.
ADVOCACY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE: MEASURING IMPACT
A monitoring, evaluation and learning guide on legal advocacy
MONITORING TOOLS
Please refer to the following monitoring and evaluation tools found in our guide for your reference.
If you would like editable Microsoft Word documents for your organization, kindly send an email to mlong@hivlegalnetwork.ca.
ADVOCACY IN ACTION: CHARTING THE FUTURE OF CANADA’S DRUG POLICY
Advocacy in Action: Charting the future of Canada’s drug policy is a video that was developed concurrently with the monitoring, evaluation and learning guide on legal advocacy. This short documentary film showcases our efforts, actions and programs in promoting, defending, and expanding access to rights and equity for people living with HIV and specifically people who use drugs — a population in which regressive drug policy disproportionately affects women, Indigenous peoples, people of African descent, LGBTQI people, and people in poverty.