What is “advocacy”?

The practice of advocacy has recently gained legitimacy and momentum as a strategy for promoting social change. Wikipedia recognizes advocacy as “a political process by an individual or group which aims to influence public-policy and resource allocation decisions within political, economic, and social systems and institutions.” I would add that influencing private policy, such as used to govern private institutions and even community and family institutions, counts as well.

Nonprofit organizations are all over advocacy these days, as a new means for promoting effectiveness in their various missions. Changing public policy to prevent, ameliorate, or fix bad conditions (rather than the customary charitable approach of servicing victims one-at-a-time), has caught on as the more effective (and much more cost-effective) way to improve the quality of life for whole groups, populations, and regions at a time.