Legislative: Three Ways to be an Effective Advocate

Three Ways to Be An Effective Advocate

1. Stay Up To Date!

The easiest way to be an effective advocate for veterans is by staying informed. Fortunately, the VFW National Headquarters and their Washington Legislative Office take care of the difficult bits for us. All you have to do to stay in the know is sign up for VFW Action Corps Weekly, an email publication that will keep you in the loop for all things related to the VFW and Auxiliary’s legislative interests.

2. Read Your Newsletter!

Signing up may make you an advocate on paper, but reading Action Corps Weekly and acting on it when an Action Alert is issued makes you an effective advocate. A small percentage of users actually open, read and interact with the newsletter. There are over 10,000 minutes in a week; reading Action Corps Weekly should take about three. We all can contribute three minutes per week educating ourself about veterans legislation.

3. Take Action!

Responding to Action Alerts is amazingly easy. Use your address to find the correct members of the House and Senate and access their emails. You can easily fire off three emails, one to your Representative and one to each of your Senators, in less than thirty seconds. Take the time to let your elected officials know how you feel and promote the best interests of veterans everywhere.

Priority Goals

To be an informed advocate for veterans, please refer to the VFW’s Priority Goals. This page is a living document, that changes annually as different legislative challenges are presented to the veteran community. The priority goals are broken down into categories including:

• Budget
• Healthcare
• Disability Assistance & Memorial Affairs
• Education, Employment and Transition Training
• Military Quality of Life
• National Security, Foreign Affairs, POW & MIA

We will focus on each one of these in future blog posts!

Finally, be sure to check out our Legislative Resources and the Program Overview for more helpful tips.