The California Coalition for Reproductive Freedom

Bringing the Message Home:
Ten Ways for CCRF Members to Apply the “A Woman Knows Best” Framework

The California Coalition for Reproductive Freedom developed the “A Woman Knows Best” framework on reproductive rights to expand the movement and build bridges across related health and social justice issues.

CCRF encourages reproductive rights advocates and allies to use the frame as a resource to adapt, use, and share. Below are some practical, hands-on ways that you can put the framework to work to advance your own outreach and advocacy goals.

1. Do proactive outreach to constituencies whose active support you don’t already have. For example, you can use the framework to make the case for reproductive freedom with young women, women of color and social justice advocates who may not have responded to traditional messages about “choice.”

2. Offer a workshop about the framework at a conference sponsored by your organization or another group, or for your internal staff. Presenting the framework in these settings is a great way to actively engage and train your staff or allies and to brainstorm ways to put the frame to use in service of your goals.

3. Share the framework with other organizations, including groups you may not currently work with. The frame is a statement of shared purpose that can help you build bridges to other issue movements by articulating common ground you may share and by sharing intellectual resources. In particular, you might look to human rights or economic justice advocates.

4. Share the Web ad with your networks of members, supporters, and donors. This can re-activate your conversations with them and engage them more deeply with your cause by reasserting your driving values.

5. Put a link to the Web ad on your homepage. Disseminating the Web ad can help generate buzz and enthusiasm for a fresh and more inclusive approach for talking about reproductive rights and freedom.


6. Devote a story in your organizational newsletter to the framework and the Web ad so your staff and members are on top of recent innovations in the reproductive rights movement. Provide your own analysis for what it means for your issue and the work you do.

7. Customize the Web ad by adding your organization’s logo and writing up a brief example or case study about using the frame to talk about the issue or issues you focus on. You can incorporate the customized version into a training, Web site, presentation to funders, or anything else.

8. Revise your boilerplate communications documents – your press packet, mission statement, etc. – with the “A Woman Knows Best” framework in mind. This may seem like a dramatic undertaking. But, at minimum, we recommend using the frame as a lens through which to rethink whether your communications are successfully reaching audiences that may be important to you – women of color, young women, and potential allies across different issue movements.

9. Integrate the frame into an op-ed piece about your issue so you connect with as broad an audience as possible. The number one rule of op-eds still applies: respond to a timely event in the news cycle. But use the frame as a running argument to bring people over to your point of view.

10. Introduce the framework to your funders as a tool you’re using in your communications and outreach efforts as a way to re-energize them about the work you do and to position your organization as an “early adopter” and thought leader in your field.