Speak Up for History

The history community needs advocacy but often struggles with where to begin. What does advocacy look like for the country’s thousands of small and mid-sized organizations, so often strapped for time, money, staff, and other resources? This is where AASLH’s new state and local advocacy effort, Speak Up for History, comes in. This initiative will offer a hub for concrete tools, guidance, and programming to help practitioners more effectively demonstrate the value of history work to their communities.   

While much advocacy guidance is prone to theory and focused on the federal landscape, Speak Up for History underscores the notion that effective advocacy means continual, everyday actions that demonstrate your value and build relationships within your immediate community—in other words, speaking up and proving to your neighbors that you matter. 

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To get started, view our kickoff resource, Speak Up for History: Getting Started in Local Advocacy, as an online booklet or as a downloadable PDF.

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Interested in wearing your support for Speak Up for History? Check out the AASLH store.

To help kick off this Speak Up for History, AASLH was proud to work with consultancy Story + Reason to offer an introductory manual, Speak Up for History: Getting Started in Local Advocacy. This new tool starts at the foundational, community level and translates big ideas into simple actions that are scalable, adaptable, and concrete. The manual emphasizes base-level information, case studies, and resources you can use right away to help communicate where you want your organization to be, make a plan to get there, and prepare a specific ask for what you need. View the manual either as an online booklet or as a downloadable PDF.

Because information is changing in real time, resources and links to further support your work can be found here, rather than in the manual itself:

AASLH Resources 

Other Resources 

  • American Alliance of Museum: Congress Letters, an email-generating hub for easily sending topical emails to elected officials, and Invite Your Rep, resources to support organizations looking to invite members of Congress to visit.  
  • Internal Revenue Service: Latest rules on nonprofits’ ability to lobby and tax-exemption status. 
  • National Council on Nonprofits: guidance on nonprofits’ ability to advocate and lobby. 
  • Texas Museums Together: Created by authors of AASLH’s local advocacy manual, project offering free guidance and templates for museums 

The spread the reach of Speak Up for History and support use of the new local advocacy manual, AASLH is offering various in-person and virtual programming throughout the year. Keep checking this page to learn more about upcoming events:

  • September 16, 2026: In-person workshop at AASLH annual conference in Providence, RI 
  • October 20, 2026: Webinar on local advocacy