Each of these basic tools can easily be adapted to reach those other key audiences: other voters and the media.

• A letter to your state Senator can be re-written as a letter to the editor of your local newspaper. If it is published, you will be reaching other voters; even if it is not published you are calling attention to your issue (and point of view) to the opinion-shapers at the newspaper.
  
• The same message you convey in a call to your Representative's office can be relayed to the audience of a radio call-in show. You will be reaching other voters via the airwaves, and also alerting the station's programmers of listener interest in your issue.
  
• The reasons you give a legislator for supporting a bill could be repeated at an adult Sunday school class or PTA meeting... and written up for their newsletters.

In each case you will be informing other voters and the local media. And do not be discouraged if you do not get on the air or in print in the major media. It helps to remember that "the media" are just, "...the means of communicating." That includes countless less formal ways to reach other people: apartment house bulletin boards, congregation or professional newsletters, posters, flyers, skits, bumper stickers.... If your group is new to media work there are two very useful guides:

• "STRATEGIC MEDIA - Designing a Public Interest Campaign," available from the Communications Consortium Media Center in Washington, DC; 202-682-1270
  
• "HOW TO TELL AND SELL YOUR STORY," available from the Center for Community Change in Washington, DC, 202-342-0567
  
• Additional help in working with the media is provided in Part II of this guide - More Ideas For Making A Difference.

One Texas legislator commented that consciously or not, most legislators are looking for issues that are win-win. By that he meant: the legislator wins when the proposal is introduced, through favorable media attention and the approval of other voters; and then wins again at campaign time, because the supporters of the bill show up to help answer phones, contribute money, put signs on their lawns, and generally help with re-election. (If the IRS classifies a nonprofit as a 501(c) (3) it cannot take part in campaign activities. But individuals can always be active in campaigns as individuals if they are not representing a 501(c)(3) and not using the group's resources.)

Many issues important to nonprofits, by contrast, are what he described as "lose-lose". By that he meant that when the proposal is introduced the legislator loses because often there is negative (or no) media attention, and the indifference (or disapproval) of other voters. Then at campaign time the legislator loses again because the bill's supporters and beneficiaries are nowhere to be seen. If we want legislators to champion our policies, he was saying, we should work to help make our issues winners at some point. That means we have to get them before the media, expand the voter base (e.g., by voter registration), and be willing to work on the re-election campaigns of legislators who support our issues.

A Michigan state legislator made the same point another way. The decision is easy, he explained, when a legislator is asked to support something that is "good policy/good politics" - like indexing social security benefits. That was the right thing to do, and popular with voters - good policy, and also good politics.

It is equally easy to make a decision not to support something that is "bad policy/bad politics" - like designating scholarship funds for the Ku Klux Klan. That choice is equally clear.

What makes many nonprofit issues difficult to support, he explained, is that they often represent "good policy/bad politics". They may be the right choice but they are hard to support because being associated with them has negative political consequences (or no return for the effort). One of our jobs as advocates is to turn our issues into "good policy/good politics".