According to the authors, “A Next Social Contract for the Primary Years of Education envisions a transformation of our education system into one that serves children starting at age 3, erases the artificial divide between ‘preschool’ and ‘K-12’ programs and extends high-quality teaching up through the early grades of elementary school.”  Read more . . .

Contents (click to jump to that section):

General Information
What Can You Do
Branding
Communications Plan
Legislative Events
Outreach Campaigns
Data Resources

General Information

• How Legislators Make Decisions
• What You Should Ask Your Candidates
• Glossary of Terms
• Legislative Basics
• The Legislative Process
• Effective Advocacy Tips
• Know your Elected Officials and the Issues, www.congress.org and www.votesmart.org
• NAEYC Advocacy Tool Kit
• Child Advocacy Actions That Work, Children’s Defense Fund
• “Effective Advocacy at ALL Levels of Government”

[back to top]

What You Can Do

• Faith Community

  • Working with the Faith Community
  • Faith Based Advocacy
  • Hosting a Visit
  • Toolkit for Action
  • NAEYC Children’s Champions Action Center

• Advocacy Communications

  • Effective Strategies for Legislative Advocacy
  • “Educating Policy Makers”
  • Advocacy Communications – Fenton/Now Hear This: How to Educate, Motivate and Mobilize Your Audience,
  • “Spreading the Early Childhood Message: An Advocacy Q&A”
  • Using the Internet for Effective Grassroots Advocacy

• Samples

  • Letter to Legislators
  • Public Service Announcements
  • Postcard to Legislators
  • Birthday Card to Legislators
  • Organization Endorsement Form

• Grassroots Efforts

  • Arizona’s Weekly Assignments for Grassroots Coordinators
  • How to Circulate a Petition
• First Things First Grassroots Coordinators’ Job Description
• Guide to Non-Partisan Voter Registration Drives
• The Nonprofit Lobbying Guide: The essential book for nonprofit leaders who want to understand the federal law on lobbying and voter education for 501(c)(3) nonprofits. The guide discusses building a legislative program, effective lobbying communications and establishing a public policy committee. It includes stories from nonprofit leaders who have spent their careers lobbying in the public interest.

[back to top]

Branding

• Smart Start Identity and Graphic Standards Guide
• Branding for Non-profits Guide

[back to top]

Communication Plans

• Spitfire Strategies Smart Chart: A step-by-step guide to building a successful communications campaign. The report comes complete with a communications planning tool you can fill in as you go
• Communications Tool-Kit: By Cause Communications offers practical information in every area, including developing and budgeting a communications plan and identifying tools to raise awareness. Resources include an event checklist, sample audience survey, photo/video release forms and sample design style guide.
• Communications Plan Quick Tips
• “Connecticut Strategic Communications Briefing.” This briefing paper documents the progress of early childhood outreach in Connecticut and provides an example of how one state developed a message and strategies, and their early lessons learned in implementation
• FrameWorks Institute: Critiques, designs, conducts and evaluates communications campaigns on social issues.
• NC Smart Start Assessment
• Strategic Communications Audits: An important part of communications planning is making sure that an organization can carry out planned strategies. This working brief by the Harvard Family Research Project for the Media Evaluation Project of the Communications Consortium Media Center focuses on helping non profits assess their capacity.
• 10 Ways to Measure the Impact of your Communications: Guidelines for Evaluating Non-Profit Communications Efforts. This publication by the Harvard Family Research Project for the Media Evaluation Project of the Communications Consortium Media Center summarizes four working papers on communications evaluation and offers guidelines for the evaluation of nonprofit communications efforts.
• www.buildinitiative.org/files/evaluatingcommunications.pdf  www.mediaevaluationproject.org/Paper5.pdf
• Survey Monkey: Provides tools for creating professional online surveys quickly and easily. Surveys with limited features are free, and surveys with advanced features cost a small monthly fee
• Communicating About Children

[back to top]

Legislative Events

• Tuesdays for Tots
  • 2009 Press Release
  • Media Alert Template
  • Sample Thank-you Letter
• Tuesdays at Home
• Ounce of Prevention: Early Childhood Advocacy Day 2009

[back to top]

Outreach Campaigns

• Durham Partnership for Children Corporate Champions – Link includes tools and resources and reports/research.
• Docs for Tots: Engaging Pediatricians in Advocacy Work. The Docs For Tots NC Initiative is working to connect health professionals with meaningful ways to support early childhood initiatives that influence the overall health of our young children.
• More about Docs for Tots

• Building Brighter Futures: Campaign funded by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of NC. TV campaign targeted to parents of young children with messages on health, safety and child care. Campaign pointed to a toll-free number and free Parent Resource Guide.
• Parent Resource Guide: Funded originally by AT&T to serve as a calendar-style developmental guide for children birth through age 5. One of the most widely distributed publications of the NC Partnership for Children, Inc.
• Smart Start Oklahoma
  • School Readiness Brochure
  • Parents Resource Guide
  • Smart Start Local Communities
  • Highlighting Local Communities
  • Newspaper Advertisement
  • Born Learning Campaign
  • Smart Start Oklahoma Brochure
  • TV Campaign
  • Bumper Stickers
  • Bumper Stickers
• First Things First Arizona
  • Brain Science Fact Sheet
  • Economics Fact Sheet

[back to top]

Data Resources

• Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute
• Kids Count
• U.S. Census Bureau
• Child Trends DataBank
• Child Stats.gov
• National Center for Children in Poverty
• Families and Work Institute
• Born Learning

[back to top]