ADVOCACY & COMMUNICATION PLAN

The Institute for Economic Justice (IEJ) has developed its first Advocacy and Communication Plan to translate complex economic research into accessible content and leverage it through strategic campaigns. The strategy identifies four key target audiences: progressive social forces, the media, the general public, and political and governance actors. To reach these groups, the IEJ utilizes a variety of platforms—including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, and a newsletter—and produces diverse outputs such as policy briefs, reports, and infographics. The plan sets seven desired outcomes, focusing on improving internal processes, segmenting audiences via databases, optimizing social media usage, redesigning the organizational website, increasing engagement with research outputs, maintaining a consistent 'compassionate, informative, and clear' voice, and maximizing the impact of events and workshops.

• The IEJ identifies four primary target audiences essential to its theory of change: progressive social forces (including worker movements, feminist formations, and climate justice activists), the media, the general public, and political and governance actors and bodies.
• The organization employs a specific 'if-then' logic for its theory of change, asserting that if rigorous research is shared with progressive social forces, those forces will be empowered to contest orthodox policy and shift discourses, eventually leading to a democratized policy process and systemic economic transformation.
• The IEJ utilizes a diverse array of digital platforms with specific focus areas: Twitter for real-time response and visibility, Facebook for reach via the Free Basics programme, LinkedIn for networking and professional profiling, and Instagram for visual storytelling.
• To improve audience targeting, the IEJ plans to develop and maintain comprehensive organizational and project-specific databases that catalogue researchers, trade unions, media outlets, and representatives in elected bodies.
• The strategy mandates a redesign of the IEJ website to transform it into a 'dynamic platform' and 'primary hub' for stakeholder engagement, incorporating user-centric design, interactive elements like polls and surveys, and integrated social media sharing.
• The IEJ defines its desired organizational voice through three core attributes: 'Compassionate' (conveying empathy and warmth), 'Informative' (providing clear and accurate data), and 'Clear' (avoiding jargon and ambiguity).
• The plan outlines specific tactics to increase the impact of research outputs, such as ensuring 'author ownership' of content, accompanying reports with infographics, and using targeted emails for Parliament committees and provincial MECs.

APA

Institute for Economic Justice (n.d.). ADVOCACY & COMMUNICATION PLAN. https://iej.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/IEJ-Advocacy-and-Communications-Plan.pdf

Chicago

Institute for Economic Justice. ADVOCACY & COMMUNICATION PLAN. n.d. https://iej.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/IEJ-Advocacy-and-Communications-Plan.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Institute for Economic Justice |title=ADVOCACY & COMMUNICATION PLAN |url=https://iej.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/IEJ-Advocacy-and-Communications-Plan.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{instituteforeconomicjusticendadvocacy, author = {{Institute for Economic Justice}}, title = {{ADVOCACY \& COMMUNICATION PLAN}}, institution = {Institute for Economic Justice}, url = {https://iej.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/IEJ-Advocacy-and-Communications-Plan.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }