Two Viewpoints: Why I Advocate
We spoke with two FCNL constituents to learn why advocacy is personal to them.
We spoke with two FCNL constituents to learn why advocacy is personal to them.
In honor of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, students at Carolina Friends School decided to take action for justice. Together, they wrote letters to their senators urging them to advance legislation to address many of the pressing issues of our day, including the climate crisis, access to health care, police brutality, gun violence, and more.
FCNL’s weekly Witness Wednesday Silent Reflection is a time to step out of doing and connect to what motivates and sustains us in this work.
I am personally very dedicated to the national Quaker lobby organization, the Friends Committee on National Legislation. For most of the past twenty-five years I have attended their annual meeting in D.C., and I joined the 2020 event online from home where gathered for four days of worship, organizational meetings, and to virtually lobby of our elected officials.
Each month, FCNL brings individual Friends’ witness in the world into conversation with Quaker advocacy work through our Quaker Changemaker event series. Here are some highlights from this past years’ events.
The Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) brings Friends’ spiritual values and testimonies to bear on U.S. public policy decisions, guided by the legislative priorities below.
This has indeed been a year of reckoning—of challenges so big and so constant we cannot turn away. Reckoning with the election; the coronavirus pandemic; systemic racism of our country; and the continued destruction of our planet.
The Quaker Welcome Center hosts programs and events that equip people to change policy, nurture integrity in governance, and collaborate across political differences.
Like many convinced Quakers, my advocacy work brought me to the Religious Society of Friends and I never left. Nourished by the spiritual community I found among Friends, I was led to join the Quaker legacy of standing up for peace and justice.
FCNL has hosted Quaker volunteers as Friends in Washington for more than five decades. Friends in Washington have strengthened FCNL’s expertise in priority areas, written resource materials, and cultivated relationships with lawmakers from their states. The Friend in Washington program is on hiatus through June 2026.
Stay informed and stay active