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Civic Strategist Caitie Whelan on "Giving folks the tools to make public policy for the people"
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Civic strategist Caitie Whelan's professional mission is to level the playing field of public policy. As she puts it on her website, "If regular folks don’t know how to have a voice in policymaking, lobbyists do. And they are very good at shaping it for their special interests." Caitie's work helping clients climb the learning curve of policy change advocacy made her a great guest for the podcast.
As she guides clients along the advocacy learning curve, Catie focuses on three core questions:
- Who has the power to do what the advocates want?
- What's a narrative that could spur those political decision makers to take the desired action?
- How do you sustain the effort for years to come?
Caitie says she's been especially impressed by the passionate care of the people she works with—the kind of commitment and determination that's crucial for sustaining the work over time. Caitie looks at public policy through a lens of human needs and human emotions, which is probably why she calls her excellent newsletter Policy is for Lovers. In that vein, it was interesting to hear Caitie talk about empathy for politicians and the importance of looking at the issues from their perspective.
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