Join your local Impact Team!  Attend a day-long training and become a "super volunteer" to help mobilize marriage supporters where you live. Trainings will empower you to organize local events in your community and talk to local legislators and the media. Whether they are organizing a letter writing campaign or going door-to-door to talk with neighbors, Impact Teams help to educate voters and elected officials on LGBT equality and justice. Over 300 people have been trained so far and we are planning more trainings across the state soon. Click here to find out when Impact Team meetings are planned near you!

Contact your state legislators.  Call or handwrite a letter to your State Senator, asking them to support marriage equality and asking that they encourage their colleagues to do the same. Find out who your Assemblymember and State Senator is here.

Meet with your state legislators at LGBT Equality & Justice Day.  Join over a thousand New Yorkers from across the state for the annual LGBT advocacy day in Albany. Educate your legislators about the rights and responsibilities that our state government provides with marriage to take care of families. Let them know how important it is that all New Yorkers have equal access to marriage.

Volunteer on the campaign of a marriage-supportive candidate.  Every two years, every member of the New York State Legislature -- meaning all state Assemblymembers and state Senators -- is up for election. It is important to stand up for candidates who support marriage against candidates who don’t, and to work to replace legislators who refuse to do the right thing. Contact the Pride Agenda to find out if there is a candidate near you who needs help making calls, stuffing envelopes or talking to voters.

Mobilize allies.  Engage your union, church or employer in the fight for marriage equality by holding forums, passing resolutions or issuing public statements. Our Pride in Action programs (Pride in Our Union, Pride in the Pulpit and Pride in My Workplace) can all help show them how.

Advocate for a local resolution in support of marriage.  Have your city council, local board, congregation, union council or workplace committee pass a resolution calling on their Albany legislative delegation to support and advocate for marriage legislation. In addition, you can encourage your county and city/town elected officials to write letters to their state legislative counterparts to do the same. Sample resolutions and letters of support can be found in the Marriage Toolkit available here.

Get a speaker!  Have an Impact Team member or Pride Agenda speaker discuss marriage equality at your house party, or at a meeting of your church, union, PTA or other community organization. One of the best ways to win supporters is to engage people who know you (friends, co-workers, neighbors and family members -- especially non-LGBT people), but who might not know why the issue is personally important to you. Click here to request a speaker.

Work with your local newspaper.  Write a letter to your newspaper(s) in support of marriage for same-sex couples and email us a copy! Find out if your newspaper(s) print wedding and anniversary announcements of same-sex couples and, if so, send in yours. Straight couples can include language in their announcements calling for marriage equality for all loving couples.

Advocate for marriage equality at weddings.  Raise awareness or money at your wedding or commitment ceremony to let your guests be part of furthering the day when all loving, committed couples can marry in New York State. Encourage your friends and family to do the same. Click here for our online wedding toolkit to provide you and your friends – gay and straight  – with ideas and tools.

Sign up to stay informed.  By taking this simple step, you will be kept up-to-date on marriage developments and organizing activities in New York State. You will also know when to take a specific action at the time it will be most effective. Be sure to fill out our sign-up form completely so we have the information we need to keep you informed.

Support the work of the Pride Agenda.  Help us beat the forces that are working against our efforts to win marriage in New York State. Click here to make a donation to the Pride Agenda.

For more information contact the Pride Agenda’s Upstate Director for Pride in Action, Sheilah Sable, at 518-472-3330 x303 or ssable@prideagenda.org.