Free workbook · 58 pages · Instant PDF
You don’t need a lobbyist. You need a plan.
A free 58-page workbook that takes you from “someone should do something about this” to a step-by-step advocacy plan, with the worksheets, sample letters and testimony scripts to actually do it.
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58 pages
5 phases
Printable worksheets
Free forever
Why this exists
Every year, decisions get made about victims and survivors. Most of them get made without you in the room.
Well-funded interests have professional lobbyists, policy teams, communications staff and millions of dollars. The mother who lost a child doesn’t. The family preparing for another parole hearing doesn’t. The neighbour who just wants their street to be safer doesn’t.
But you have something money cannot manufacture: your story, your community, and one another.
What’s inside
Five phases. From “where do I even start?” to “here’s my plan.”
58 pages, plain language, built to be written in. Every phase ends with an action assignment you fill out yourself.
1
Phase I: Analyze, Assess & Articulate
Find your issue and your voice
The ADVOCACY framework: ask yourself what you care about, determine your audience and your goal, organise your people, connect with local organisations, assess how you’ll get the word out, create your story, then yell it from the rooftops. Ends with a 30-day action plan.
2
Phase II: Activation
Make your local government listen
The Power of Public Comment. A government meeting tracker. The Public Comment worksheet. Budget advocacy. And how to work with local media, plus a media contact list you build yourself.
3
Phase III: Amplification
Stop starting from zero every time
How to build a regional coalition, why it matters, and planning templates so one county’s win becomes every county’s win.
4
Phase IV: Advancement
Take it to Sacramento
Find your Assembly Member and Senator. Track a bill. Write letters of support and opposition, with sample letters. Watch hearings and floor sessions. Provide testimony. And the Power of the “Me Too.”
5
Phase V: Achievement
Keep the movement alive
Build your contact database, sustain relationships between campaigns, and write your own advocacy action plan and pledge.
No political science degree. No lobbying experience. No public speaking background. You need a willingness to learn, organise and participate.
Where this came from
Four decades of advocacy, written down for the first time.
Crime Victims United was founded by Harriet Salarno more than four decades ago, after her own daughter was killed. The organisation she built has helped shape California’s victims’ rights laws ever since, including rallying support for Marsy’s Law, the Victims’ Bill of Rights.
Alongside that history, the (Em)Power + Resilience Project at the Placer County District Attorney’s Office has spent years training survivors and families to advocate for themselves. This workbook is both of those things, in one place, for the first time.
58pages, five phases
40+years of advocacy behind it
$0free, with no email required
“Moving stories inspire people. But connected people build movements.”
The Survivor Advocacy Manual
Who it’s for
If you want your community to be safer, this was written for you.
Survivors & families
Turn what you have lived through into something that changes the system for the next person.
Neighbours & residents
You don’t need a title, a law degree or a platform. You need to know where to push.
Advocates & organisers
A ready-made curriculum and worksheets you can hand to the people you support.
Agencies & organisations
District attorneys, victim service providers, faith and community groups, with a shared playbook.
Questions
Straight answers before you download
Is it really free?
Yes. The workbook is free, there is no cost to download it, and there is no upsell. It is published as a public resource by Crime Victims United with the Placer County District Attorney’s Office.
Do I have to give my email address?
No. Click download and you get the PDF. That’s it. If you later want legislative alerts, you can choose to join the Survivor Action Network. That is a separate, optional decision.
Will you contact me or add me to a mailing list?
Not unless you ask us to. Nothing is collected in order to deliver the download, so nothing is added to a list.
Is this only for crime victims?
No. It is written with victims and survivors in mind, but anyone who wants safer communities (family members, neighbours, students, advocates, agency staff) can use it.
I’m not political. Will this still make sense?
Yes. It starts with what you care about and explains the process from the ground up, city council and county budget hearings included, before it ever gets to the Capitol.
Can I share it with someone else?
Please do. The workbook is meant to be passed along. Sharing this page is the easiest way to get it to someone who needs it.
Get started today
Your next step is 58 pages away.
Download it now. Read the first phase tonight. Legislative sessions run on a fixed calendar, and the people who understand the process are the ones in the room when it counts.
Download the Free Workbook (PDF)
No email required. No cost. Yours to keep and share.
Want legislative alerts too? Join the Survivor Action Network.
