Building a strong coalition

How to build an effective coalition:

Building a Coalition

A coalition is an agreement to work together between two or more parties, to achieve a similar goal. This process is similar to putting together a puzzle. It is important to get as many people and groups together to work for a common goal. One of the several ways to create an effective coalition is through grassroots coalition building. Grassroots campaigns are based on developing coalitions within your community in order to influence your legislators. Through the development of coalitions within your community you are uniting many different constituencies under a common cause. The other effective way to create an effective coalition is to connect with local and national groups with similar legislative goals. Then you have to mobilize the coalition through a call to action. This can be a time intensive task but worthwhile if you do it the right way. There is no better way to influence the legislature than through an organized grassroots campaign.

Once you have built a coalition of key players from your communities, you need to call them to action. You can activate your grassroots network through letters of support for your issue, attending town hall meetings, phone calls, and face to face meetings with the legislator you are trying to target. These are the most effective methods to benefit your cause.

So who should you reach out too? Well that depends on your issue. You have to ask yourself are these people impacted in anyway by this issue. Will they see a benefit to what I am trying to do? They need to see a positive outcome for themselves, or their group, to motivate them to offer their time and support. You need to try to sell them on your issue and its benefits to the greater community.

You can potentially reach out to the following groups among others as well:

Community and Constituents

• Friends
• Family
• Deaf or hard-of-hearing
• Elderly
• Mayor
• Governor
• Coworkers
• City council
• Chamber of Commerce
• Workforce Development Office
• Hispanic Groups
• Courts
• Judges

Support Groups that have State Offices

• American Bar Association
• Trial Lawyers Association
• National Association of Court Management
• National Center for State Courts

National Support Groups

• National association for women lawyers
• National Association of Women Judges
• Conference of Chief Justices
• Council of Chief Judges of the State Courts of Appeal
• American Judges Association
• National Conference of Appellate Court Clerks
• National Conference of Metropolitan Courts
• National College of Probate Judges
• Conference of Court Public Information Officers

Any person or group who lives in a legislator’s district will be able to influence the legislator by contacting them. Individual constituants are, after all, the people who choose to re-elect a legislator. By creating an effective coalition of both constituents and support groups, it will give your cause the best chance of gaining support from legislators.