Summary

The Alliance held its ninth annual Advocacy Day on Thursday, February 26, 2009. Seventy-one Alliance members participated in this year’s Advocacy Day, visiting 73 House and Senate offices, and representing 18 states, the District of Columbia, and Guam.

The events began on the morning of Wednesday, February 25, with a new addition to the Alliance Advocacy Day agenda: a lengthy advocacy training session. While a brief training session has typically preceded Advocacy Day in the past, this year was the first time the Alliance has conducted a more in-depth and detailed advocacy training. The extended training resulted from last year’s participant feedback, and was designed for younger staff with limited advocacy experience. Perhaps as a result of the new session, Advocacy Day participants skewed younger than in previous years.

The training, conducted by Michael McCarry, Executive Director of the Alliance, and Christine Schulze, Alliance Vice Chair and Executive Director of Concordia Language Villages, covered such topics as the structure of a Congressional office, becoming an effective advocate for international exchange, and building relationships with Congressional members in the future. The session ended with a role-play exercise during which the 61 participants tried out their newly honed advocacy skills and critiqued each other’s performances.

A policy briefing that unpacked the details of the Alliance’s nine 2009 position papers followed the training session. The large number of position papers each year is due to the broad and diverse interests of the Alliance members and, in leading the briefing, Michael stressed that participants need only talk about the issues that are important to them. The position papers covered such diverse issues as the congressional budget and appropriations items, the Exchange Visitor Program, exchanges with Eurasia, high school exchanges, and visa policy and process matters.

The morning of February 26 began with a breakfast meeting and strategy session held at the National Association of Realtors building, in its top floor meeting space with a view of the Capitol. At the breakfast, state delegations had an opportunity to plan their collective advocacy pitches before descending on the Hill. Congressional meetings started at approximately 9:30 a.m. and continued into the early afternoon.