Strategies

Letters to newspaper editors.  This page is among the most read pages of the entire newspaper, and letters to the editor have been shown empirically to influence public opinion.

• Keep your letter size short and comply with submission guidelines.  
• Pick one main point and state it in the beginning your opening paragraph.  Studies show people often do not read past the first paragraph.  
• Follow that with a few points or proof, then end with making a call to action (state clearly and simply what you are asking the reader to do).
• Bad grammar, failure to state your point clearly, name calling, or anything resembling crazy will ensure your letter will not be published.
• Most editors require you disclose your name to them, but you can ask for your name not to be published.  If you do the latter, you make the chance of publication slim to none.
• Your chance of getting published will be better if you capitalize on a current news story or event.  If it's Child Abuse Awareness Month, write something about child abuse in cults.  If there's a story of a parent refusing medical care for a sick child due to cult requirements, write something about that.  Writing a random letter about something that isn't newsworthy decreases the chance anyone will read it, or ever get the chance to.

Educate pertinent professionals and decision-makers.  

• Write, email, phone or visit your lawmakers or business owners.  Plan a few talking points in advance, and be prepared to wrap up your visit in 5 minutes.  Leave a fact sheet and your contact information behind.  Talk about what they care about--how many of their constituents or customers are affected by this?  Be specific--what are you asking this person to do?  State that clearly.
• Do a mass mailing of educational materials to professionals.  Don't use big blocks of text.  Spell check.  Don't "shout" (using all caps, overusing bold/red/italic fonts).  Your goal is to be credible.   
• Example:  Do a mailing to anesthesiologists and other physicians (download from ajwrb.org).
• Example:  Do a mailing of educational materials (download from silentlambs.org) to child abuse clinics.

Suggestions from factnet.org:

1. A Summary of Social Activism Techniques - Just Add Consciousness: A Guide to Social Activism

2. Spiritualized Social Activism

2. FACTNet activists: A FACTNet Newsletter - "FACTNet has always been of the opinion that each subscriber to the FACTNet Newsletter, or donor, is an activist."

3. Free Speech and the Internet: Websites concerning themselves with the issue of the free flow of information on the Internet.

4. Free Speech Newsgroups: A list of NewsGroups.

5. Electronic Frontier Foundation Blue Ribbon Campaign: Put a graphic on your website.

6. The Internet Free Speech Revolt: Here's how you can do something to become active in the growing global free speech revolt to stop Scientology's ongoing abuses.