Alicia McBride, Director of Quaker leadership at FCNL, spoke with us on January 24 to give us insights on best practices in Quaker advocacy and to share some resources with us. Here are some of the suggestions she made:

Dear Friends,

It was a joy to be with you yesterday in worship and to talk about Friends’ advocacy and FCNL. I wanted to follow up and send the links I shared in the chat, as well as more information on some of the areas that came up. 

Resources and support for lobbying virtually: Here’s where you’ll find written guides as well as links to our regular in-person training, “Learn to Lobby in 30 Minutes” (the next one is February 2) and ways to contact FCNL’s organizers with specific questions. 

Connecting Durham Friends to FCNL: In addition to FCNL’s action alert email list, I put out a monthly newsletter specifically addressed to Quakers. You can sign up on our website here. The email list is open to everyone, not just a person officially designated as a contact with your meeting. 

Federal Native American advocacy resources: An overview of FCNL’s focus is on our website. There’s also more on the history of FCNL’s Native American advocacy program. If you don’t receive it already, I highly recommend subscribing to the monthly Native American Legislative Update email for regular updates.  

Other topics that we discussed: 

• “The Electoral College Should Be Abolished” (FCNL statement). Also a response to the May 2020 Supreme Court case on “faithless electors,” which included one of FCNL’s General Committee members. 
• In President Biden’s first 100 days, FCNL recommends several actions related to the United Nations and restoring U.S. partnerships with the global community. 
• I mentioned a project related to dismantling militarism (as well as racism) in U.S. foreign policy, led by FCNL’s Diana Ohlbaum and Salih Booker of the Center for International Policy. The project is in a consulting phase right now, so we don’t have info publicly available. I’m sure we will share more soon. It’s an exciting effort to support a movement to address the structural and worldview challenges that often prevent peace and justice policy from moving forward. 
• The E. Raymond Wilson quote I shared is from his acceptance letter for the FCNL Executive Secretary position in November, 1943: “We ought to be willing to work for causes which will not be won now, but cannot be won in the future unless the goals are staked out now and worked for energetically over a period of time.” For a bit more about FCNL’s history, the first few minutes of this video from our 75th anniversary is worth your time.

 Thank you again for welcoming me, and if you have further questions or would like more information on a specific aspect of FCNL’s work, please let me know! I also wanted to let you know that we host a regular time for silent reflection and worship for the FCNL community, every Wednesday from 5:15-6pm Eastern. You’re most welcome to join Friends from across the country for a midweek pause and centering.

Alicia

Alicia McBride, Director of Quaker Leadership (Pronouns: she/her/hers)

Friends Committee on National Legislation, A Quaker Lobby in the Public Interest

245 2^nd St. NE | Washington, DC 20002

alicia@fcnl.org| (202) 465-7576