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Insights on Proposed Grassroots Code of Ethics
Dear Innovators:
The following commentary appeared in a recent Roots of Success newsletter, as well as a regular communication to our clients.
Take a look and let me know your thoughts: amy@showaltergroup.com Thanks!
Proposed Grassroots Code of Ethics
Legitimacy. The communications sent as a result of any advocacy campaign should always be delivered either directly from the citizen or with the express permission of the citizen. The role of the grassroots advocacy practitioner should be to provide citizens with the tools they need to deliver their own communications (whether based on sample messages or not) to policymakers.
Unambiguous and good.
Authenticity. Messages delivered from citizens to policymakers should be authentic representations of those individuals' views on a specific policy issue. In circumstances where communications are being sent based on templates and talking points, practitioners should always provide tools for personalizing the message. At a minimum, grassroots advocacy practitioners should ensure that citizens sending the communications agree, without coercion, with each specific message as developed by the organizer.
Authenticity is "wobbly" because it's hard to determine who had the "agenda" first, the elites or the roots. Seems this one speaks mostly to influence, which should be allowed. Notice coercion gets a sideways glance in this one, but it's not the core.
Plus, it's really hard to "ensure" that citizens agree with the organizer. Any grassroots professional that's been doing this for awhile has had advocates use the skills gleaned from their organizations to rally against the organization's position, and there's nothing the grassroots practitioner can do about that.
Relevance. Grassroots advocacy practitioners havea responsibility to ensure that the communications coming from citizens are relevant to policymakers. This means that tools should be in place to establish a constituency relationship between the citizens and the policymaker. Note that this does not apply to circumstances where a citizen has a personal, non-constituent relationship with a legislator's office.
We believe this is very problematic, exceedingly problematic, because it implies that the legislator's agenda is the agenda, and that grassroots must play only a responsive role, not a proactive role, in setting agendas. Further, it adds an ethical premium on the "legislator sets the agenda" idea. Pull grassroots out of the agenda-setting formula, and you're left with a larger role for ruling elite and media elite to play. It's undemocratic. The people should be able to set agendas, even if that agenda is "not relevant" as the ruler sees it. It's a cornerstone of our democracy.
Transparency. Grassroots advocacy practitioners working on behalf of organizations should not take steps to hide those organizations' involvement in an advocacy effort. Likewise, communications from citizens that are generated as a result of an advocacy campaign should not be given less weight than those developed spontaneously.
Good to avoid deception.
Civility. Grassroots advocacy practitioners should encourage civility in communications between citizens and policymakers. At a minimum, template communications and talking points should be drafted to reflect the opinions of the writer without resorting to excessive negativity or misrepresentations of the other side.
This one will be unenforceable because what's "excessive negativity and misrepresentation" to one side will be "truth and education" to the other side.
If nothing else, change the negative words to positive words, so it reads "...to reflect the opinions of the writer while adhering to the truth." You'll have to jettison the opprobrium of 'negativity' altogether; negative information is the coin of the realm in the influence world. Negative emotions are the ones that keep us alive. Positive emotions are slackers compared to negative ones. It's a human universal.
Honesty. Grassroots advocacy practitioners should never knowingly provide false, misleading, inflammatory, or inaccurate information in an effort to persuade citizens. At a minimum, practitioners should have due diligence programs in place to check the veracity of template messages developed for use in a campaign.
Problematic.This will allow the people in power to determine what is "inflammatory." I regularly tell my classes (Dr. Rhoads here) that "honest" is a very low moral standard. I can tell you half of what you need to know (as is regularly done by those in power) and tell you it's the truth. It's just not the whole story; and that's my moral "get out of jail free" card. I only told you about supporting information, no contraindications, and so left you with a distorted idea of what the truth is. Of course, to the speaker, there is no truth in what the opposition says.
Also there is the judgment call on "inflammatory," which allows someone to call foul for phraseology. I could call "death panels" inflammatory or deceptive (they're not actively putting people to death), or "living wage" inflammatory (minimum wage is overwhelmingly a supplemental income for teenagers), depending on which side of the aisle I'm on, in an effort to stifle debate and shut the other side up.
The Bottom Line: We would submit that it would be unfair to impose ethical standards for lobbyists that are higher than the people they work with: the media and legislators. Any time you enforce ethical standards on one side and not the other, you take an extreme risk of giving the advantage to the people with the looser ethics. This is captured in the well-worn phrase "nice guys finish last" and has been proven out on a million influence battlefields. Occasionally the person with the higher ethics* (as defined by someone!) wins. But often the person who breaks the rules, and lies, cheats, and deceives, wins. There is a dictum that "Any law that punishes people for being honest, is a corrupt law, because it corrupts people."
We would hate to see ethical lobbyists lose influence battles because they were unarmed, and their opponents were not.
Onward,
Amy
Comments from the Innovate to Motivate® Advisory Committee Members Discussion Thread
I have trouble putting into words how ridiculous I think this idea is. The establishment of a ‘code of ethics’ for grassroots practitioners is a futile effort in patting ourselves on the back to demonstrate how admirable we are. A code of ethics neither makes us better advocacy professionals, nor does it preclude us from doing something unethical in our practices. Ethical practices are best demonstrated by having trained, educated practitioners who have the expertise and ability to do their jobs. By voluntarily creating this code, we only work to legitimize the idea that there are large numbers of us using “unethical” tactics. The notion for a formal code of ethics is not only premature, but it is not well thought out in my opinion.
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I would have to second your comments. I think so much of this stuff is done as a stunt. People in the "real" world could care less and then when someone does do something "against the code" that document will be the first to be pulled up in the press and exploited.
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It seems this ethics code issue came to a head after fake grassroots letters were discovered last year supporting the climate bill. My response to that, as opposed to creating an ethics code is, that I don’t think any real grassroots practitioner would EVER falsify a letter/signature (from a local chapter of the NAACP and other high profile individual no less!) on a document. It’s not only unethical, but could be illegal.
The concern I’ve had with this whole issue and this goes back over several years to the Congressional Management Foundations studies on this subjectis that there appears to be a desire to push back on legitimate grassroots. In the CMF studies, Hill staff said they were overwhelmed by the level of contacts they’re getting via the internet, don’t have enough staff to handle it, feel the quality of contacts is declining (ie: too many form emails), and therefore, perceive some of the campaigns to be illegitimate. You can see these issues in the penumbra of this ethics code.
For example, under the “authenticity” portion, it seems that this is trying to address issues of too many form emails and the legitimacy of those emails. I have a lot of concerns with this because it seems to say that unless an individual specifically reads and attests to every word in an email campaign, their communication (and the email campaign itself) could be suspect. My response to that is that the individual does not have to take the steps to send the email in the first place (ie: go to the website, log in if needed, read through the issue and click send). But let’s say the email campaign is using a form email with NO option to edit. I wouldn’t do it this way, but even so, the individual still has the right to not click send. In other words, sending that form email is still their choice and it is still legitimate, as is my right to mobilize individuals who may not otherwise even know this issue was out there.
I guess overall, my concern rests on the fact that I don’t think an ethics code fixes a lot of the concerns, but could really diminish what are truly legitimate grassroots contacts and campaigns. While there could be pros to an ethics code (ie: take high road, be proactive and self-regulate before some regulates us), if this is done incorrectly it could really have serious, unfortunate consequences.
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First of all, we're all in trouble if we're basing our grassroots programs on letters alone. Since we all know that is only one part of a successful program, I don't know why we bother with a code of ethics. I agree with Leann and Jenny. By acknowledging and responding to the actions of one bad player, we make ourselves and our programs look weak and less effective. I don't think it's worth our time. The astroturf programs make the legitimate programs more successful. Hill staffers and MOCs know the difference between real grassroots and not. They don't need to see a list of who signed a code of ethics. Who has time for that? It's all about relationships and trust and no code of ethics can do that.
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Amen sista'!!!! Couldn't agree more with you three!
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I totally agree with you Meaghan – our integrity doesn’t come from a code of ethics but from our own actions and who we are – the relationships we build and we encourage our grassroots to build. And I couldn’t agree more that a campaign takes more than just email action – we all know that face to face meetings continue to be the most effective advocacy. A code of ethics on a piece paper doesn’t ensure ethical behavior. The reality is that those of us that want to be taken seriously are already following ethical behavior – and for those few that aren’t ethical – having a written code isn’t going to make them behave differently.
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I would agree with others who think the code of ethics is not the right approach. As many have already stated those involved in this discussion are the thought leaders and are leading by example. One of the ways that we can support our fellow grassroots professionals, particularly those new to the field is to mentor them on grassroots best practices. I2M already does a great job of pairing a grassroots newbie with a veteran and I think by building on this model we can most effectively demonstrate the integrality of our grassroots programs rather than investing in the development of a code of ethics.
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I agree with the feedback, particularly Meaghan's perspective.
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I agree with the all of the general comments about a written code of ethics. I have also yet to see a person who is going to behave in an unethical manner who was constrained in any way by a code of ethics.
I do believe however that a robust ongoing discussion about ethical considerations for grassroots professionals is helpful. Individuals who deal in influence can have a great deal of power and trust within their organizations and its important to make sure that it is not abused. We believe that it is so important that we have a section of our influence training for our grassroots advocates dedicated to the ethical considerations in applying influence.
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As the newbie to the business and I2M, let me say that I have a slightly less negative opinion on 'code of ethics'.
First, I don't believe that having a code of ethics reinforces an image that we are unethical and need to be policed. Many groups and industries self-regulate, for a variety of reasons. Even if the code does not help our image, I really don't think it can really hurt.
Second, Shaun brings up a great point that it is important for us to have a "robust ongoing discussion on ethical considerations". Yes, it is very hard to put down on paper a code of ethics that someone else in the business can't rip apart by saying 'but what if... this' and 'but what if.. that?' Maybe that's the point... that by having an internal code of ethics, and admitting that it is a constant work-in-progress, we can help to facilitate our robust conversation on the matter.
Personally, I think we should be able to try and write down something that we believe in, in regards to ethics in our profession. We don't have to promote it very publicly, but we should have something tangible that we can look at and strive to strengthen. Simply saying 'well most of us ARE ethical already' doesn't go far enough for me.
Again, the objective at this early point should be more to facilitate a robust industry conversation, not to particularly stop any unethical individual or to wave a 'code' around in public to proclaim our wholesomeness.
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As a licensed social worker in addition to working in gov't affairs, I have a different attitude toward this because I have been bound by a code of ethics as a social worker since I first had a social work license in 1986. I also regularly teach ethics classes to social workers since many states require social workers to have at least 3.0 hours of continuing education on ethics on a yearly or bi-yearly basis to fulfill our licensure requirements.
I believe the code of ethics provides strength to us as professionals, accountability in our actions, and reassurance to the people we serve. I don't see any harm in any of those, or harm in expanding these expectations to other professions. Ethical dilemmas always involve relationships, and as important as relationship building is in advocacy, I do not see a down side to a code of ethics. However, I did have suggestions for improvements and some concerns about some of the text that Amy emailed to us, and I've sent my comments back to her on those.
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The point that Dr. Rhoads makes about ethics being a tactic certainly challenges the thought process on the issue... Which is always a good thing in my book!
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Rarely do I see that our employees personalize their correspondence to legislators even though we continue to ask them to. I guess it's just easier to use a template. I may not be able to "ensure" the communications coming from citizens to policymakers. We can provide talking points, templates, and educate on the issues. But ultimately what they send in is their communication.
If there's a constituent who has an issue, then it becomes the legislator's agenda because the legislator represents the constituent.
I still think it's important that we encourage civility in any way possible, especially given the current hot topics and what we are seeing on the news, name-calling, spitting, etc. It's troubling.
Maybe change the word "Honesty" to "Factual". I think we can provide factual information, to the best of our abilities. Perhaps also adding that if any information is found later to be in error that practitioners should make every effort to communicate the error and provide corrected information.
I would hate to see living up to ethical standards and taking the higher ground as being seen as "unarmed." I think we need to be very careful not to characterize what we do using military type terms - it just continues to perpetuate the we against them attitudes that are so prevalent today.
