Who Should Try To Change Policies?

Anyone who's concerned can and should be involved in trying to change policies, but some groups or individuals are more likely than others to be successful......

 
Coalitions.

In many ways a coalition is the ideal group to address policy change. Coalitions have a number of built-in advantages:

    Coalitions can - and should - represent a broad cross-section of the community, including all those affected by the issues and policies in question.
    
The broad representation leads to a variety of perspectives, which can generate more and better ideas about how to proceed.
    

Broad representation also means that the community's history with the issue, personal conflicts that might affect its resolution, and other such details will come out and be dealt with as part of a plan for policy change.
    
Coalitions have credibility, because they represent all points of view, and include leaders and spokespersons of all segments of the community.
    
Coalitions, because they involve all segments of the community, generate plans that everyone can buy into and feel ownership of.

Organizations that work with the issue.
Administrators and line staff of community-based and other health and human service organizations often have both technical knowledge of the issue - statistics, study results, understanding of root causes - and the personal understanding of its human consequences that comes from working with those affected. These organizations, as a result, have high credibility, and are appropriate leaders in a campaign for changes in policy.
 
Citizen-led community groups.

A well-organized community-based initiative, especially one that includes people affected by the issue, is another group with some credibility, and one that has information and knowledge helpful in discussing policy. Its capacity for advocacy may be another helpful factor here.
 
Professional groups with an interest in the issue.

In some circumstances, a bar association or medical association, for instance, might take the lead in trying to change policies.
 
Concerned individuals.

Sometimes, it takes a highly motivated individual to get a policy change campaign off the ground. It makes sense, however, to put together a group to take over the campaign as soon as possible. Credibility, as mentioned several times here, is greater if there's broader representation, and a group will produce more information and ideas than one person alone. There will be more people to divide up the considerable amount of work to be done. In addition, if the campaign is to garner support, it can't look too much like a one-person show, but has to reflect instead the real needs of the larger community.

    The listing above may seem to include everyone in the community, and, in a sense, that would be appropriate. In the ideal healthy community, all groups and individuals should feel that they have both the right and the capacity to try to change policy. In order to be successful, however, any policy change advocate has to be well organized and well informed, and has to be advocating for a policy that both appears to serve the public interest and commands public support. Anyone can try to change policies...but some are likely to be more successful than others.