The Power of Paid Advocacy
Why Should “Diabetes Industry” Invest in Paid Partnerships and Projects with Local Advocates?
Diabetes is a global health challenge affecting millions of people. It’s a lifetime condition that doesn’t sleep, and neither can the efforts to prevail through life with it. Advocates play an essential role in driving awareness, creating change, and building bridges between communities. While some organizations have made strides to incorporate paid advocacy roles within their organizational framework, allocating budgets and providing paid partnerships and project opportunities for local advocates already working within the community is the next essential step in driving systemic change.
What Do T1D Advocates Do?
Advocates in the Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) community contribute in diverse ways, leveraging their lived and loved experiences, knowledge, and networks to create meaningful impact. Here are 10 key roles they play:
Educate Against Stigma: Advocates creatively educate to reduce judgment, misunderstanding, and stigma.
Influence Policymakers and Legislation: They engage with policymakers to advocate for affordable insulin, access to diabetes technologies, and legislation that protects against discrimination.
Raise Awareness: Advocates raise awareness for important topics by building out or participating in campaigns.
Provide Peer Support: Many advocates mentor newly diagnosed individuals and families, providing invaluable lived experience.
Partner with Schools and Workplaces: Advocates work with institutions to educate and protect against discrimination.
Collaborate with Research Initiatives: Advocates amplify the importance of research, promote clinical trial participation, and advocate for funding groundbreaking treatments and technologies.
Organize Community Events: From diabetes walks to educational workshops and fitness classes, advocates build community and raise funds to support programs.
Advocate for Technological Access: They push for the affordability and availability of continuous glucose monitors (CGMs), insulin pumps, and other essential technologies.
Create and Share Content: Advocates use blogs, podcasts, social media, and public speaking to educate and drive awareness.
Amplify Voices of Underrepresented Communities: Advocates highlight the unique challenges faced by marginalized groups, advocating for equitable access to care and culturally competent healthcare.
These contributions are indispensable, but they require time, effort, and resources. Paying advocates ensures that their labor is valued and sustainable.
Here’s why paying advocates to implement targeted action plans is ethical and essential for diabetes organizations:
1. Advocates Are the Bridge Between Diabetes Organizations and Virtual and Local Communities
Living with diabetes is deeply personal, and no one understands the challenges better than those who face them every day. By creating more paid advocacy opportunities, nonprofits like Beyond Type 1 can better carry out their mission to raise awareness about diabetes, provide tools and resources to help people manage their condition, and ultimately enable individuals living with diabetes to "survive and thrive.”
Advocates create the bridges between diabetes organizations and underserved communities, bringing real-world insights and cultural competence that can make campaigns and programs more impactful. Organizations are already making strides to include or prioritize paid full-time advocacy positions within their framework. However, there is a need for paid opportunities for advocates that hold hybrid engagement roles within the community and with organizations and institutions established to impact change. These types of advocates genuinely are a “bridge,” with unique skills, perspective, and experience that people working within the organizations don’t have.
2. Compensating Advocates Ensures Commitment and Professionalism
Advocacy is often treated as volunteer work, but the truth is that advocacy is labor—labor that involves extensive time, resources, and emotional investment. Many advocates are already doing the work at their own expense because they are doing what needs to be done to address the unmet needs within their communities, all while often managing their own health needs.
When organizations pay advocates for their work, they’re not just compensating for time—they’re valuing expertise, passion, dedication, commitment, and lived experience. Paid advocacy opportunities lead to sustained momentum in campaigns.
3. Advocacy Requires Resources and Training
Carrying out comprehensive advocacy plans, like organizing community workshops, media campaigns, or policy advocacy efforts, requires resources. Advocates need training, transportation, and access to materials to succeed in their roles.
By allocating budgets for paid advocacy collaboration, organizations can provide advocates with the resources needed to execute initiatives effectively. This investment ultimately amplifies the reach and impact of the organization.
4. Elevating Representation and Equity
Unpaid advocacy often excludes those who cannot afford to volunteer their time. Paid projects and partnerships create opportunities for advocates from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds, ensuring more voices are represented. There are many communities affected by diabetes that are underrepresented in healthcare conversations. Advocates from these communities bring unique perspectives that challenge systemic inequities in healthcare access and diabetes management.
Organizations benefit from partnering with local advocates who intimately understand the barriers faced by their peers. Through paid partnerships and projects, organizations can empower local voices, ensuring that solutions are not imposed top-down but co-created with the people they serve.
5. Paying Advocates Creates a Ripple Effect
When organizations invest in paid partnerships and projects with diabetes advocates, they invest in more than just a single campaign— they are investing in leaders who can inspire and mobilize others. A paid advocate becomes a role model, showing others in the diabetes community that their voices matter and their efforts are valued.
This ripple effect fosters a culture of advocacy and leadership, where more individuals feel empowered to join the movement for access, equity, and improved care. It’s a sustainable model that multiplies impact over time.
7. Paid Advocacy Is Ethical, and Unpaid Advocacy Isn’t
Some organizations might hesitate, citing budget constraints, but the reality is that paid advocacy is ethical and unpaid advocacy isn’t. Every dollar spent on advocacy efforts brings organizations closer to their mission. When advocates are paid, they can focus fully on their work, resulting in better-planned campaigns, more community engagement, and measurable outcomes.
Call to Action for Diabetes Organizations
The time has come for diabetes industry to lead by example and set a new standard for valuing advocacy work. Through collaboration on paid projects and partnerships with advocates, organizations can ensure that the voices of people with diabetes are heard and that action plans are executed with the precision, perspective, and passion they require.
Investing in advocates already doing the work is about honoring the labor of those who dedicate their lives to making the world better for everyone with diabetes. Let’s move from awareness to action and build a future where no one is left behind.
Join the Movement
If you’re a leader of a diabetes organization, start the conversation today about incorporating paid partnerships and projects with local advocates into your organization. The diabetes community—and the world—will thank you for it.
