2026 GPACAC and MOACAC
Pre-Conference Session
Advocacy 101
Join Empower Missouri for an expanded Advocacy workshop, teaching attendees how to share their experience with elected officials. Geared toward state legislatures, these skills can help you advocate for systems change at many levels. Decision makers must hear from the experts, including you.
Policy advocacy doesn't need to feel scary or overwhelming, and you will leave this training with the basic education needed to grow your skills and demystify the process to have the greatest impact on the lives of our neighbors. Learning Objectives include:
This session will run from 1:00-4:00 PM on Wednesday, April 8th, prior to the start of Conference. We hope you will consider joining us early for this amazing opportunity to strengthen your advocacy skills to better support our students and colleagues.
Cost to attend this session is $50. Register now using this form or add it to your conference registration!
Session Leader Highlight
Sarah Owsley is a people lover from Kansas City, MO. She is passionate about ending poverty, and knows that the Missouri state legislature must do more to ease the experience of our neighbors who struggle to meet their basic needs. That can't happen without lawmakers hearing from the people who know the most about struggle. She pends her day as Empower Missouri's Advocacy Director providing individual advocates and direct service staff with the training they need to practice legislative advocacy, share their stories, and plan strategies for systems change. She earned degrees from Avila University and the University of Kansas.
Join Empower Missouri for an expanded Advocacy workshop, teaching attendees how to share their experience with elected officials. Geared toward state legislatures, these skills can help you advocate for systems change at many levels. Decision makers must hear from the experts, including you.
Policy advocacy doesn't need to feel scary or overwhelming, and you will leave this training with the basic education needed to grow your skills and demystify the process to have the greatest impact on the lives of our neighbors. Learning Objectives include:
- Learning what advocacy is and isn't, when it becomes lobbying, and the limits imposed by the IRS on most 501c-3 organizations and the staff who work for them.
- Learning how the lawmaking process works as well as how and when it is most easily influenced.
- Learning how to read and understand a bill, research its potential impacts, and when to capitalize on your strategy and positioning for change.
- Gaining the knowledge needed to have a successful advocacy meeting with a lawmaker and use a media strategy to get extra attention to the issues you care about.
- Understanding about how boundaries help us to be life long advocates and how to plan a successful self care strategy.
This session will run from 1:00-4:00 PM on Wednesday, April 8th, prior to the start of Conference. We hope you will consider joining us early for this amazing opportunity to strengthen your advocacy skills to better support our students and colleagues.
Cost to attend this session is $50. Register now using this form or add it to your conference registration!
Session Leader Highlight
Sarah Owsley is a people lover from Kansas City, MO. She is passionate about ending poverty, and knows that the Missouri state legislature must do more to ease the experience of our neighbors who struggle to meet their basic needs. That can't happen without lawmakers hearing from the people who know the most about struggle. She pends her day as Empower Missouri's Advocacy Director providing individual advocates and direct service staff with the training they need to practice legislative advocacy, share their stories, and plan strategies for systems change. She earned degrees from Avila University and the University of Kansas.
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