Knowledgeable community leaders and spokespeople and can be effective in spreading messages to the public through planned presentations, gatherings, and interviews. Public hearings, such as in a city or county council, a state legislature, or in the United States Congress, serve as important avenues for being heard by legislators as well as the general public.

By following a few rules, and with some practice, you can learn to develop your public speaking skills and deliver credible testimony to a legislative body.

Public Speaking in General
Speaking to groups about our cultural institutions and issues is one of the most effective ways of reaching others to encourage their support. By bringing your personal experience and views of the issue directly to them you have the opportunity to show your enthusiasm and personal involvement with arts and culture. You also have the opportunity to engage the audience personally with a sense of immediacy about the issue.

Tips for Speakers

• Keep your message simple and brief. No one likes a long-winded speaker who can’t seem to get to the point. Keeping the speech simple and concise increases the chances of getting and keeping the audience’s attention.
• Organize your thoughts. Plan your speech to do the following three things:
  1) Tell the audience what you are speaking about.
  2) Tell them about the topic with explanation.
  3) Conclude by reviewing what you just explained.
• Analyze and understand your audience. Plan your presentation and remarks to fit the audience and their needs and interests.
• Use notes and rehearse your speech. An outline with main points and your stories, examples, and support will keep you on track.
• Be clear about what you want the audience to do. Tell the audience why arts and culture issues are important to them and what they need to do about it.
• Be conversational in delivery. Practice looking at the audience while speaking to engage them. Be sure to have notes or a script, but don’t just read a prepared speech.
• Share your experiences or stories you know about arts and culture. Personal experiences are touching and involving for the listeners and add dimension to your points.
• Be enthusiastic about arts and culture. This is the benefit of appearing in person as a spokesperson and what sells your message.
• Use visual aids where appropriate. Engaging the visual senses will heighten the impact of your words. Use posters, photographs, charts, cartoons, video tapes, slides, or other images to support your message. Practice using the visuals so you will be comfortable with them in your presentation. If you need special equipment, arrive early and check to be sure it will operate properly.
• Be prepared to answer questions, especially the difficult ones.
• Thank the audience for listening and giving you the opportunity to speak.
• Use hand-outs as reminders of your message. If possible, have brochures, flyers, newsletters, or other publications available for people to take with them. This will be a reminder of your message and the importance of arts and culture.

Delivering Testimony to a Legislative Body
Public hearings are an opportunity to address legislators and the public, potentially with the support of other testifiers, in a setting already focused on resolving specific issues. Your presence at a public hearing is an important exercise of your rights a citizen, and it reminds your legislators that you have a vested interest the legislation and policy that affects you and your community. In some situations, when testimony is requested by a legislative committee, you can request (usually in writing) to be put on the list to testify. You might also be invited to testify by the committee or a non-profit organization. The Cultural Alliance sometimes works with legislators to help organize hearings on cultural issues, arranging for experts from the arts and culture community to testify.

If you have the opportunity to testify at a hearing, take it! A decision against testifying sends a message to legislators that you or your organization isn’t interested. Here are a few tips to help you effectively deliver testimony:

• Be sure to find out how much time you will likely have to speak (usually under 5 minutes), and design your testimony accordingly. You don’t want to bore or annoy legislators, or take time away from other testifiers, by running over your allotted time.
• You will have to submit a written copy of your testimony. Find out how many copies you should bring, and when they should be delivered to the legislative committee. The initial page of your written testimony should be a one-page summary illustrating your main points, to ensure that even if legislators and staffers don’t read your testimony, at least your main points will be noted.
• The cover page of your written testimony should include the legislative committee before which you are testifying, the name, title, and organization of the person testifying, and the date.
• In your testimony, respond to the current state of things as a result of current legislation and policy. Tell legislators what is and isn’t working.
• Make recommendations and present ideas about how you think things could be made better. Sometimes legislators just need good solutions for issues they may not be familiar with in order to bring about a change in legislation.
• Be sure to use personal anecdotes to illustrate your points and make them more poignant and memorable.
• Seek out successful examples of the recommendations you make. Find models that prove through experience that your solution can work, and include them in your testimony.
• Consider using visual aids to illustrate your ideas, as long as they don’t detract attention from your testimony, and as long you can set up and break down any accompanying technology smoothly and efficiently.

As always, if you are asked a question that you don’t know the answer to, say that you don’t know but will find out and get back to the committee with an answer.

Back to Top

© 2004 Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance | Home | Privacy Policy