Directly Speaking - ICHP Opens Its Advocacy Center
by Scott A. Meyers, Executive Vice President
May 16, 2016
Jim Owen, ICHP’s Legislative Consultant in Springfield, and I have preached, pleaded and begged you, ICHP’s members, to get involved legislatively for years. We’ve asked you to contact your State Representative or State Senator or both on a variety of issues over those years, but unfortunately, we haven’t been able to do much to make it easy for you. Well, that’s all changed now. At its April Board of Directors’ Meeting, the ICHP Board approved a one-year contract with VoterVoice to create ICHP’s Advocacy Center on the ICHP website!
Now, when we ask you to send an email or make a call, we will provide you with a link to the Advocacy Center and the specific campaign for which we are engaged. On the Advocacy Center, you can look up your current State Rep or Senator (you know they may change this fall). We will provide you with a choice of templates for emails that clearly and succinctly describe our issue and our position so that all you will need to do is plug in your personal experiences, if you choose.
You may have seen services like this before with other campaigns for other organizations, but this particular service will make it absolutely easy to contact your legislators and the Governor if needed with a few clicks and a few words. I recommend that you go to the ICHP website (ichpnet.org) and visit the Advocacy page to find the Advocacy Center. I bet finding it will be as easy as using it! Sign in and explore. I’m frequently amazed at how many people can’t tell me who their State Senator and Representative is. Look up your legislators. Then you will know for the next time I run into you!
There are no campaigns out there now but there may be soon as the General Assembly is starting to move on many of the pharmacy issues. But you can still explore, complete your profile and get ready for some legislative action! In addition, this service will allow ICHP members to lobby the State agencies like IDFPR, IDPH, IDHFS and IDHS.
Finally, this exciting portal will be available for sharing with your non-member colleagues when a Red Hot pharmacy issue surfaces! ICHP has the option to offer this service to non-members and because many of your colleagues will be on your side when an issue arises, you will be able to forward them the call to action with the link to our Advocacy Center. Once they’ve done their professional duty, who knows, maybe they will decide that they want to be as smart as you and join ICHP, so they can receive this great information when you do.
This is a big step for ICHP, and the service will help us get our message out faster, stronger and clearer than ever. This new service will allow us to do the heavy lifting part of lobbying on an issue. All we will need from you is a few clicks, words, and minutes of your time whenever the need arises! Come visit the ICHP Advocacy Center and see.