Effective advocacy enables individuals and organizations to shape public debate on important issues. It also ensures that we have a voice in the policies that impact our daily lives.  In 2017, LGBTQ community centers and other nonprofits across the nation came together with CenterLink to form ActionLink.

Who: ActionLink is a partnership between CenterLink, LGBTQ community centers, and other LGBTQ-friendly organizations. Together we navigate 501(c)(3) policy and advocacy issues at local, state, and national levels. Most nonprofit organizations want to do policy work but don't have the funding or staff to do it. ActionLink does the work for LGBTQ community centers at no charge. We focus on advocacy, education, mobilization, and organization. 

How: Our relationships with federal policy coalitions, the Administration's LGBTQ Task Force and Congressional Caucus, and other national consortiums give us the ability to quickly receive and decipher new policy information that affects LGBTQ organizations and the people they serve. We then create a plan of action, share it with our partners, and speak as a unified voice to either support or oppose the issue at hand. We also help engage your community by creating action alerts, social media posts, and graphics for you to share with your contact list. 

Why: Your LGBTQ community center can and should be involved in policy work. Advocacy is the number one way nonprofits advance the issues they care about and help bring systemic, lasting change, and ActionLink offers the opportunity to be heard in political arenas both large and small.