You Give a Damn. Now What?

Most advocacy starts with something you already have.

You care about something. You notice something that doesn’t sit right. You have an experience that changes how you see an issue. You see a gap between how something works and how it could work. Or you know someone whose experience has made that gap impossible to ignore.

Maybe you have a voice you’re willing to use, a connection you’re willing to share, or the persistent sense that surely we can do better than this.

For a long time, “advocate” was a fuzzy word to me. An advocate was someone who did something important or helped someone somehow. In corporate life, we “advocate for a position” or “advocate for an employee,” which usually meant making a case in a meeting and hoping PowerPoint would carry the day.

I didn’t think much about advocacy as a practice. Which is funny, because apparently I was already doing it.

Years ago, a company where I worked began developing Business and Employee Resource Groups. I was asked to join the steering committee for the LGBTQ+ group in part because of advocacy I had already been doing informally: listening, connecting people with resources and one another, speaking up when something wasn’t working, asking questions, and noticing who wasn’t in the room.

Our steering committee was asked to support building an inclusive culture, which meant we had some learning to do ourselves. Together we explored different models, thought about the space we wanted to create, figured out where we had influence, and learned how to work within a large organization while still pushing it to grow.

That experience helped clarify something I understand much better now: Advocacy doesn’t always happen outside the building. Sometimes you’re inside the building trying to change it.

It also taught me that caring gives you a reason to begin. It does not tell you how to create change.

You can explain exactly why something should change and still accomplish absolutely nothing. Organizations, communities, governments, and healthcare systems are made of people, priorities, relationships, incentives, limited resources, histories, rules, and power.

A compelling argument can name the problem. Moving something requires a different set of skills.

Healthcare made that lesson personal.

I have spent enough time in healthcare systems to acquire an impressive vocabulary of acronyms I never wanted bragging rights to. Being a patient also makes power strangely visible: you can be the person most affected by a decision and the person with the least formal authority in the room.

So you learn to ask questions. Then better questions. You learn to value professional expertise without discounting lived experience.

You also notice that people enter these systems with very different resources. Time, education, language, money, confidence, access, and knowing whom to call all affect someone’s ability to participate.

Suddenly, “just advocate for yourself” starts sounding inadequate.

Sometimes advocacy helps someone navigate a system. Sometimes advocacy asks why the system is so damn hard to navigate in the first place.

That distinction is part of why I am drawn to systemic advocacy: looking beyond one person or one immediate problem and asking what structures, policies, relationships, and patterns keep producing it. But systems work can get abstract quickly.

For me, human dignity keeps it grounded. Not dignity as politeness. Dignity as agency.

People bring knowledge, strengths, preferences, relationships, experiences, and voices to the things that affect their lives. Advocacy takes those assets seriously.

That may mean using my voice. It may mean making more room for someone else’s. It may mean sharing information, connecting people, questioning a policy, or figuring out who holds power and asking them to use it differently. It may also mean joining work already underway instead of deciding the world desperately needs another initiative.

Writing taught me another piece. I write from personal experience, and I believe stories have power. They make statistics human, help someone recognize an experience they couldn’t name, and give people a reason to care.

But awareness and change are not the same thing.

If I’m writing with advocacy in mind, eventually I have to ask what I hope that understanding leads to. Maybe someone sees an issue differently, calls a decision-maker, shows up, shares information, changes a practice, makes an introduction, or supports someone already doing the work.

Sometimes advocacy is loud. Sometimes it is unglamorous—sometimes it is simply sending the useful email.

All of this is part of what drew me to UNA-Boulder.

UNA-Boulder’s “think global, act local” approach clicked for me. Human rights, sustainable development, equity, peace, and international cooperation are enormous ideas. Acting locally asks us to bring them closer: What do they mean in our communities? In our institutions? Who is affected? Who has influence? What could change? Where can I contribute?

For me, UNA-Boulder is not only a place to learn about global issues. It is a place to learn and practice advocacy.

That thinking became the foundation for UNA-Boulder’s new DIY Advocacy Workshop Series.

We are piloting the series this year with our intern cohort, but it is being created for anyone in the UNA-Boulder community who already has the first ingredient:

Something they give a damn about.

The rest of the series helps with what comes next. Across ten self-directed modules, we move from interest and research to strategy, power, action, communication, and defining what success could look like.

But the question is simple:

You give a damn. What can you do with that?

The answer might be leading, joining, researching, writing, connecting people, using your professional or lived experience, or strengthening work already underway.

One of the workshop modules is called Find Your Place, and the more I work on this project, the more I think that may be the heart of it.

Systemic change is what draws me to advocacy.

Finding your place is how any of us can enter it.

We already arrive with assets: our experiences, voices, relationships, skills, curiosity, frustration, hope, and willingness to notice when things could be better.

Advocacy asks us to figure out where those assets can be useful—and to remember that change is rarely ours to create alone.

Give a damn.

Learn more.

Find your place.

Then help move something.

Module 1 — From Interest to Advocacy

Turn an issue you care about into an advocacy opportunity by defining the problem, asking better questions, and beginning to identify what could change.

Module 2 — Research for Advocacy (NOTE: The website currently has this titled Research to Advocacy, instead of 'for')

Build a credible foundation for advocacy by finding the information, perspectives, and evidence that can help you understand an issue and inform action.

Module 3 — Framing Advocacy Through UN, UDHR, and SDG Lenses

Explore how your issue connects to the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Sustainable Development Goals — and how those frameworks can strengthen your advocacy.

Module 4 — Advocacy in Action

Explore the many ways advocacy happens and consider which approaches — from education and coalition-building to administrative and legislative action — fit your issue.

Module 5 — Choosing a Strategic Direction

Move from possibilities to a focused advocacy direction by considering potential impact, feasibility, available resources, organizational fit, and opportunities for action.

Module 6 — Who Can Move This, and What Moves Them?

Identify who has the power to influence your issue and explore the interests, relationships, motivations, and leverage points that can help create movement.

Module 7 — Find Your Place

Map the advocacy landscape, learn who is already doing the work, and identify where your effort can contribute, collaborate, amplify, or fill a meaningful gap.

Module 8 — Make It Move

Turn strategy into action by identifying what you want people to do and choosing tactics that can help move your advocacy effort toward its goal.

Module 9 — Make the Message Work

Develop clear, audience-centered messages and communications that help people understand your issue, see why it matters, and know what they can do.

Module 10 — Name the Win

Define a clear and measurable advocacy outcome — your North Star — so you know what you are working toward and how you will recognize meaningful progress.