Who Speaks For Them Reality Check.

Test, honestly, whether the people you serve would recognize and endorse the way you represent them, before you build a bigger voice that might speak over them.

After the diagnostic sorter, before you write your plan. This works only if you actually ask the people you serve, not just imagine their answers.

Ask the people you serve, not just about them

What would the people we serve want said on this issue?

Who would they want to say it, us, themselves, or someone else?

Where does what they want said differ from what we assumed?

Read honestly whether you are centering or replacing them

When I imagine our advocacy growing, is my instinct to put the people we serve in the room and amplify them, or to speak in their place because it is faster and I assume I know?

Have we ever taken a position on their behalf without asking them? If so, what happened?

Are the people we serve represented in how we would decide what to advocate for?

The honest test

Would the people we serve recognize the way we represent them and say yes, that is what I would have wanted said, by the people I would have wanted saying it?

If the honest answer to the test is yes, your advocacy is grounded in the people you serve and can grow. If it is no, or you are not sure because you have not actually asked, that is the finding: your plan needs to weight Build Power with Others and the People You Serve, and you should center their voice before you scale yours. Deepened by the Centering the Community Guide.

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