Volunteers of America, as a ministry of service, has a commitment to care for the poor, vulnerable, and disadvantaged, and to assess social policies and political initiatives on their impact to those in need.

Our strategy is to strengthen the whole community by assisting those who are most vulnerable. We seek the input and combined resources of other human service organizations, rather than pitting groups against one another. Our most urgent challenge is to respond to those who are most in need, most powerless, and who must rely on the compassion of others.

Public Policy Defined

Public policy is a principle, plan or course of action adopted into governmental law to address the needs of the nation or the community at large or the people as a whole. Public policy is intended to reflect an organized strategy for addressing public issues for the good of the whole community.

The components of Volunteers of America’s strategic actions include the public policy activities below, and may take place at the local, state, or national level with the intention of influencing policy at any one or all of these levels:

• Advocacy is generally used to refer to activities designed to convince someone to support or favor an issue, cause, group, or idea.
• Public Education is a broad effort to familiarize policy makers and the public on a general subject matter related to public policy.
• Lobbying refers to activities that are undertaken to influence specific legislation or proposed legislation. Lobbying is one kind of advocacy, and is governed by laws and regulations adopted by the US Congress and the Internal Revenue Service.

For more information about public policy, and what you can do to help, please see our National Advocacy Action Center, which includes links to local Western Washington legislators and legislative information.