ASH has the tools to help you not only get involved but succeed in your efforts to drive change for hematology research and practice. Each year, your senators and representatives make decisions that impact a wide range of issues that are important to the hematology community. ASH plays a vital role in influencing policies that affect researchers, clinicians, and patients by educating lawmakers and government staff on critical issues in hematology research and practice. However, the Society needs the help of its members to have a greater influence. Policy makers want to hear from their constituents. In advocacy, there is truly strength in numbers!
ASH has built the Grassroots Network to continue to expand and enhance the Society’s reach. The issues ASH advocates are striving to advance include funding for the National Institutes of Health; government activities in sickle cell disease research, training, and services; safe and affordable patient access to prescription drugs and therapies; and issues impacting physician reimbursement. There are many ways you can get involved and deliver messages via calls to your legislator’s office, writing a letter, emailing, and even having an in-person meeting with your senators or representative, or attending a town hall meeting. And while the COVID-19 pandemic has significantly affected the way we do advocacy, there are still plenty of opportunities to interact with your elected officials, including virtual meetings that ASH staff can help set up for you.
Below is a list of the tools included in the Advocacy Toolkit that will help you become an expert in advocacy in no time:
- Emailing, calling, and Tweeting to Congress: These can be effective means of communicating your views and expertise to your representative and senators. Although congressional offices get thousands of calls, emails, and letters, each one is counted and reviewed, and when a member of Congress is undecided, these communications contribute to how they ultimately vote.
- To send an email, click one of the “Action Alerts” on the Society’s priority issues and enter your contact information to automatically send a prepopulated email to all your elected representatives. You can also personalize your message.
- To call, you can find House and Senate directories on the ASH website. This toolkit provides a script you can use to keep your call short, to the point, and polite.
- When it comes to social media, the Advocacy Toolkit includes several links you can use to Tweet directly at your legislators as well as sample tweets.
- Meeting with your elected officials: To schedule a meeting with your representative and/or senators, contact a member of the ASH Government Relations and Practice team, and they will gladly help set it up for you. Once in-person meetings resume, if you are in Washington, DC, and available to meet with your congressional delegation, don’t hesitate to let ASH staff know. Not only will you be provided with relevant talking points and fact sheets in advance of the meeting, ASH staff will also assist with any necessary meeting follow-up.
- Advocacy Tools: These include fact sheets and infographics to help provide essential background information on certain topics for lawmakers, talking points that address several issues of importance to hematology to help ensure you get the most relevant information across while dealing with limited time. These talking points can also help you craft letters and emails and make phone calls. Additionally, ASH staff can provide help if you are interested in writing an article for your local newspaper, and you can find several videos that show the progress being made in priority areas of hematology research identified in the ASH Agenda for Hematology Research, which help illustrate the need for sustained funding to your legislators.
Visit www.hematology.org/advocacy/advocacy-toolkit to take advantage of all the resources found in the Advocacy Toolkit.
