KLCOA Advocacy Policy

Updated May 2024

Title: Advocacy

Approval Date: July 6, 2022

Approved By: KLCOA Board of Directors

Next Review: MM DD, YYYY

1. Purpose

This Advocacy Policy has been developed to guide the KLCOA Board of Directors (BoD) to consider which topics and in what manner we should advocate with external organizations or the public.

2. Definitions

For the purpose of this policy, advocacy is defined as:

“An activity whereby an organization aims to influence decisions within political, economic, and social institutions or other organizations. Advocacy can take many forms and includes communication, activities, and publications to influence public policy, laws, and budgets by using facts, relationships, the media, and messaging to educate various levels of government, external organizations, and the public. Advocacy can include many activities that an organization undertakes including direct communication, media campaigns, public speaking and commissioning and publishing research.”

3. Policy

The KLCOA shall only engage in advocacy to achieve the objectives of the KLCOA Purpose [1] . The KLCOA may engage in any of the following advocacy methods in order to influence various levels of government, external organizations, the Kennisis Lakes community and the public. These actions may take the form of:

  •  Conducting Research into public policy in order to distribute and discuss the research and findings with members, the media and others as seen fit.
  •  Mobilize others by calling upon supporters or public to contact elected officials, public officials, political parties, to express support or opposition to a particular law, policy or decision taken.
  • Providing forums and convening discussions by inviting competing candidates and political representatives to speak at events to discuss public policy as it relates to the KLCOA’s Purpose.
  • Disseminating opinions, on matters related to the KLCOA purpose when participating in the development of public policy as long as the opinion is drawn on research or evidence.
  •  Representations in writing or verbally to officials and appearances at formal government committees or meetings to bring the views of the KLCOA to the public policy development process.
  • Communicating on social media by expressing views and offer opportunity for others to express their views on public policy, on social media or elsewhere.
  • Advocacy, to retain, oppose, or change a law, policy, or decision of any level of government.

The KLCOA will advocate on an issue under the following conditions:

The KLCOA will endeavour to engage with and to assess the support of the KLCOA membership for issues that are deemed to be important to advocate for. Assessment of support may include polling members (member survey), review of ongoing program support and feedback or evaluating other similar community advocacy efforts. The effort to complete an assessment of member support should be commensurate with the possible outcome of the advocacy focus. The KLCOA will use the model presented in Figure 1 as a guide to assess member support required for any advocacy position.

  • The KLCOA will always endeavour to move policy dialogue forward in a constructive manner,i.e., the dialogue may be critical but will avoid creating an obstruction.
  • The KLCOA will always endeavour to take positions that are evidence and research based
  • The KLCOA will focus advocacy efforts on policies and issues related to the Kennisis Lakes andHaliburton County.
  • All advocacy efforts will be conducted in the public realm with public knowledge and in makingthe decision to take a position or stand the Board will determine whether a leadership or supportrole is taken.
  • All advocacy efforts will be conducted with KLCOA BoD approval and if approved willbecome the position of KLCOA.
  • No one individual board member may advocate in KLCOA’s name without approval from theKLCOA BoD.
  • Any advocacy efforts that the KLCOA engages in, shall not materially jeopardize the KLCOA’sreputation.
  • Any costs related to advocacy efforts will be pre-determined and agreed to by the KLCOA BoD.

4. Membership notification

The KLCOA will notify the members of this Advocacy Policy. Thereafter we will inform our membership of our advocacy activities through the appropriate KLCOA communication tools.

References

1)  KLCOA Purpose – KLCOA Letters Patent and By-laws (Revised 2017)

2)  The Kennisis All of Us Survey results (October 2021)