The Higher Education Archive Programme (HEAP) commissioned consultant Kevin Bolton to develop this toolkit to support HEAP members who are planning or undertaking advocacy work. Drawing on existing resources and the experiences of HEAP members, the toolkit explores what archivists mean by advocacy. The toolkit then offers a simple four-step approach, supported checklists, case studies and suggestions for further reading.
Find out what's in this toolkit and discover the definition and importance of advocacy.
The first step is to understand the strategic priorities or values of your parent institution or funders and be clear on the contribution the archive makes to them.
Once you understand the contribution your archive makes to the strategic priorities or values of its parent institution or funders, you can start to collect data and stories that demonstrate this impact.
This step involves identifying the stakeholders you wish to communicate or connect with and understanding their motivations and interests.
Once you have identified the stakeholders you wish to advocate to and have drafted the messages you want to put across, you need to think of ways to communicate and connect with them.
This section includes some essential viewing/reading for those who wish to explore this topic, but are short of time.