Implement Activities

Outreach and Media
• CDHS/TCS funds may not be used to lobby an elected official, their staff, government employees or the general public for the purposes of promoting a "yes" or "no" vote on a specific piece of legislation.
  
• CDHS/TCS funds may be used to educate elected officials, their staff, government employees and the general public about their program and tobacco-related issues.
  
• Members of the campaign committee may legitimately be able to lobby by using their organization's resources or as private citizens.
  Strategically plan media activities to garner support for your issue. Sometimes, you may not use media until the policy is passed in order to avoid galvanizing the opposition.
• Develop and maintain a good working relationship with the media by having spokespersons accessible, providing them with facts and making their jobs easy by giving them photos, graphs, fact sheets, etc.
  
• Be sensitive to the media's deadlines and tailor your information to their audiences.
  
• Frame your messages in such a way that they make a compelling argument and they take the audience's perspective into consideration (e.g., don't be a public health geek).
• State your key messages first and keep them simple.
• Use direct action organizing tactics when those with the power are standing in the way of real improvements in people's lives.
• Direct action tactics are confrontational and may make staff and volunteers uncomfortable. To overcome this discomfort, openly discuss it.
• Direct action events require extraordinary planning and preparation.
  
• Use the strategy chart to plan a direct action event, identifying the goals, organizational considerations, constituents, target, and tactics.
  
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New Policy
• Successful implementation of a new policy requires leadership and tenacity. Do not leave it to chance.
  
• Plan implementation of the policy with a diverse group of people with content, enforcement, media and evaluation expertise.
  
• Be sure you clearly understand the law's provisions and how it will be enforced.
  
• Act quickly to clarify ambiguity in the law. Don't be out-maneuvered by your opponents.
  
• Broadly inform all those impacted by the law of the requirements. The goal is to achieve voluntary compliance as a result of everyone being fully informed.
  
• Cultivate a relationship with the enforcement agency and offer your assistance.
• Monitor compliance with the law and assess its impact.
  
• Generate on-going public support for the law through the use of recognition events, release of reports demonstrating support for the law and anniversary events.


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Merchant Education
• Studies demonstrate that merchant education can be an important component of an intervention to decrease tobacco sales to minors and tobacco advertising, but it is not sufficient to result in permanent change.
  
• Establish a relationship with businesses in your community prior to asking them to make changes (i.e., do something for them such as cleaning up trash in the area around their store).
  
• Take a community-oriented tact when approaching businesses. Carefully frame the issue and make it personal by asking, "Do you have kids?" Merchants are members of the community and want to be seen as good neighbors.
  
• Coordinate merchant education efforts with other agencies so that businesses are not receiving visits or materials from multiple agencies.
  

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