Elementum

Position-Setting Worksheet.

Set your public positions deliberately, grounded in your mission and in what the people you serve actually want said, and bounded and checked against your legal room, so you know what you stand for before you are asked.

First in Find Your Public Voice, after your organization has decided to advocate and your legal room is defined.

Do this for each issue you may speak on. Your positions are yours to set; this tool gives you the method, not the answers.

Ground each position in two anchors

The issue

What our mission implies about it

What the people we serve actually want said, which we tested in the diagnostic

Where those two pull apart, and how we resolve it honestly rather than defaulting to what is easy

Our position, stated in one or two clear sentences

Set the boundaries of the position

Where this position ends, what we are not saying

Checked against our legal bright lines from the decision guide, is this position within our room? Yes / Unsure, ask counsel

Do the same for each issue

Issue

Position

Within legal room?

Good positions are grounded in both your mission and the voice of the people you serve, bounded so you know where they end, and checked against your legal limits so none drifts into ground your attorney marked off. A position set in the heat of a single issue, or borrowed from a funder or a partisan line, rarely holds when it is tested. If any position brushes your legal bright lines, confirm it with counsel before you speak it. Feeds the Credibility Builder and the Speaking Up Starter.

Your answers stay in your browser on this page and are never sent anywhere. Use Save or print to keep your copy.

Back to Find Your Public Voice, or start over from the welcome page.