1001 Centennial Way
Suite 300
Lansing, MI 48917

 

 

Welcome To

GRASSROOTS+
Broader Engagement for Better Results

This Tool Kit is all about the proactive side of grassroots engagement in legislation and policy making. The Kit will help leverage the impact MASA members have on the legislative process with the collective influence possible from the local communities we serve. Within each of our communities live the people who vote and, with their vote, determine the political future of their local legislators. Legislators understand that for every local voter they hear from directly, there is a potentially significant number of people who care about the same issues – maybe even enough to give their vote to someone else.

Within this Tool Kit are examples shared by our MASA and MAISA colleagues for mobilizing your community into action. We thank the first contributors to this Tool Kit resource and urge all users to keep us informed on how these ideas are working. We also invite you to submit your own ideas, examples, and materials as they are developed.

Please accept this partial draft as the first installment on a work in progress. I would like to thank the ISD, RESA, and local superintendents and staffs who have offered up ideas and examples to date. A full listing of contributors to date can be found in the menu to the right. To those of you who have not yet contributed, please use these ideas to inspire what you may have to share – then hurry up and send it off to me by electronic or any other means so I can use it for the next installment. Thank you and highest regards for the grassroots work you do out there.

Pat Reeves –
MASA Associate Executive Director for Government Relations
preeves@gomasa.org

About MASA Grassroots+

MASA and its members, historically, have a great track record of political activism on behalf of K-12 public education in Michigan. Both our lobbying activity and our member engagement with State and Federal legislators have increased steadily as MASA has responded to significant legislative milestones such as Proposal A, Vouchers, Charters, Term Limits, Education YES!, and No Child Left Behind. We have also stepped up efforts to shape public education policy through more active promotion of our legislative priorities and grassroots efforts to inform and involve our local constituents.

Ultimately, the goal of the MASA Grassroots+ Process and Tool Kit is to assist ISD/RESA superintendents and MASA Region leaders in promoting, coordinating, and supporting local district grassroots community engagement. This Grassroots+ Project is intended to augment MASA professional lobbying, our MASA Member-to-Legislator pairing initiative, our MASA Action Alert Member Network, and associated political action committee (SAPAC) and coalition building work.

To emphasize the coordinated nature of the entire MASA grassroots process, the MASA Grassroots+ Tool Kit contains sections for each of the various government relations and legislative action strategies. Wherever possible, each section includes sample ideas and resources along with an overview of that strategy and how it fits into the total picture of MASA’s Government Relations game plan for making a difference in Michigan’s Public Education Policy, Law, and Political Process.

Why Grassroots+

The legislator's district is where political power resides, and grassroots lobbying puts legislators into contact with constituents who hold that power. It demonstrates vocal and tangible support (or opposition) for a measure. In a grassroots campaign, constituents tell legislators how the measure will affect them, instead of the lobbyist doing it. – Alan Rosenthal, 1993.

Here's how Grassroots+ works:

  • Local legislators care what local voters think and want.
  • Lobbying and direct MASA member contact with legislators can lay the ground work, but the real influence comes from local voters.
  • A representative group of impassioned and energized local voters can seem like an army to the legislators they elect.
  • Local voters have to belief that they have a personal stake in an issue in order to contact their legislators.
  • MASA lobbying success will be in direct proportion to our ability to inspire local voters to act.
  • Thus, Grassroots+ must be all about building a corps of local voters who 1) believe they want and need their legislators to act and 2) are willing to voice that belief to their legislators.
  • And because we never know which legislator will hold that critical swing vote, Grassroots+ must happen in every district regardless of size and perceived political clout.

Here's what could happen: Certainly, one desired result is to inform. We cannot expect our local stakeholders to understand the issues we need to address legislatively unless we frame those issues in terms of:

  • impact to their own local schools,
  • impact to their community, and
  • impact to their own interests.

Additionally, we cannot expect to convert understanding to caring, and caring to action, unless we provide:

  • simple, but compelling messages
  • easy strategies for engaging legislators
  • process for connecting with others
  • recognition for their efforts

Grassroots+ and your local district

So, what does this look like at the local school district level? Our members are finding that activating their local constituents begins with forums and conversations between the local school officials and members of the community about the issues their schools are facing and how those issues affect them. These interactions can be as structured as formal presentations and as open-ended as informal question-and-answer sessions. They can take place in already scheduled venues like parent group meetings, budget hearings, service club talks, and other speaking engagements, or they can be the focus for specially scheduled public forums, town hall meetings, focus group sessions, and other opportunities to gather a representative cross-section of community members.

Grassroots+ and your ISD/RESA

Experience tells us that our Michigan ISDs and RESAs provide the critical ingredient of convening the school leaders on a regular basis. This makes them the perfect source point for organizing and coordinating Grassroots+ engagement activities. Because districts within an ISD or RESA jurisdiction often share the same legislators and voter base, it may make sense to coordinate both the grassroots engagement process and, to some extent, the content of the grassroots messages. That said, all politics are local and political activism is more reliable when people are moved to act from a deeply personal interest in the cause. For that reason, we urge local school leaders to resist the temptation to “let the other guy do it.”

Grassroots+ and MASA Regions

MASA Region officers and committee representatives can also play an important role by building Grassroots+ engagement into region meeting programs and discussions on a regular basis. We already know how significantly region dialogue on MASA Legislative Platform, Priorities, and Goals plays into the development of compelling public education legislative policy positions. We also know that regions, which meet regularly and provide their members ongoing legislative information while soliciting input on legislation and legislative policy positions, play a critical role in arming their region members with the understandings and talking points for direct interactions with legislators and Grassroots Plus+ local community engagement.

RESOURCES

MASA Government Relations & Grassroots+ Documents

Presentations

Web Site Links