10 Ways to Advocate for Kids with Cancer
Advocacy is a bit of a vague term that can mean something different to everyone: public policy, awareness, self-advocacy, or something else entirely. Our broad definition of advocacy is using your voice to influence public support for a cause - in this case, childhood cancer.
If cancer advocacy is something you're interested in, this page brings you 10 ways that you can advocate for childhood cancer.
The raw and real experiences of childhood cancer families and survivors are incredibly powerful. Your voice could be the one to inspire a family who is facing a new diagnosis or motivate a policymaker to take action.
1. Share your story. The raw and real experiences of childhood cancer families and survivors are incredibly powerful. Your voice could be the one to inspire a family who is facing a new diagnosis or motivate a policymaker to take action.
2. Visit our Legislative Action Center to read about current issues pending before Congress that impact cancer research, treatment, and survivorship. Our action alerts make it quick and easy to send a message to your Members of Congress on the issues that resonate with you.
3. Flip through our Childhood Cancer Advocacy Toolkit to learn about topics like writing a letter to the editor, effective virtual lobbying, and much more.
4. Reach out to your elected officials to introduce yourself as a constituent and childhood cancer survivor. Start by plugging in your zip code on our our action alert page (under Find Officials). You'll be able to select all the federal and state lawmakers that you'd like your one-click message to reach.
5. Sign up on the websites of your elected officials to receive regular updates, invites to local events, and announcements. This is a great way to keep your ear to the ground on opportunities to engage with lawmakers. Anytime you meet with a legislator or make a good connection, we'd love to hear about it. When you take a moment to fill out our Congressional Visit Evaluation Form you help us refine our own work with these offices.
7. Following your Members of Congress on social media is another way to get a good grasp of their priorities as a legislator. By commenting or replying to their posts on your preferred channels (identify yourself as a constituent), you can contribute to the dialogue and make yourself known as a point of contact for relevant issues.
8. Brush up on childhood cancer statistics by browsing our fact library. Pick one fact to share on social media to help increase awareness with your network. (Tag us @childrenscause!)
9. Support our advocacy work on Capitol Hill with a donation of any size, or learn about other ways to support Children’s Cancer Cause, such as donating a vehicle, rounding up your change, or workplace giving.
10. Join our Kids Action Network to receive regular updates on legislative issues and opportunities to support our policy agenda (which you can read more about here).