Ask the Pros: Government Relations
ACCE called upon the expertise and insight of full-time government relations chamber professionals to learn more about the trends and activities they are using within their organizations.
What has been your biggest advocacy win over the last couple years?
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Corey Atkins, Esq. We rallied regional partners and local elected leaders to secure over $100 million in critical funding to support a massive interstate connector project that will benefit our entire region. Funding was not a given and certainly not guaranteed, but a collaborative effort from staff and volunteers secured an affirmative vote from our regional planning organization and brought the funding our way. |
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Daniel Brooks In 2017, we began our Elections Matter initiative to engage in local elections by grading candidates based on responses to a questionnaire and communicating those grades to our membership. With a strong majority of members indicating our Election Matters material is informative and useful, we’ve continued through our most recent 2019 election cycle with a selective endorsement process to support business-friendly candidates. |
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Katie Kirkpatrick The Metro Atlanta Chamber has been fortunate over the past several years to experience big wins in infrastructure investment. We secured an additional $1 billion in annual transportation funding, passed new transit funding mechanisms enabling $2.7 billion in additional funds for MARTA (Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority), and successfully pushed for the creation of a new regional transit governance structure. While those are notable wins, we’ve continued to advance strategic policy initiatives, such as the creation of Georgia’s first needs-based aid scholarship program, state conformity/decoupling with the federal tax changes, putting computer science classes in every middle and high school by 2030 and appropriating $1 million annually for training and more. |
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Mark Fisher One of our overarching successes has been our work with the Brookings Institute on shared prosperity and inclusive growth. Relating to that effort, we focused on transit advocacy to increase workforce mobility. By empowering a diverse coalition to organize the legislative strategy, which led to a very successful 2016 referendum, we have begun implementation on Indianapolis’ expanded transit system. From that same work, we also convened the expertise of our business community to help implement efficiencies within Indianapolis Public Schools to drive an increase for teacher pay to retain top talent. |
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Waymond Jackson During the 2019 legislative session the Birmingham Business Alliance, and a coalition of partners, lead an effort to pass legislation that improved our ability to recruit, grow and retain start-up and tech companies. The legislation was called the Alabama Incentives Modernization Act. |
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Steve Baas, CCE, IOM The most high-profile win was securing state backing for financing a $300 million expansion of our Milwaukee Convention Center. Expansion had been talked about by the Convention Center District for more than a decade, but it took the advocacy engagement of the MMAC to finally make it a reality. That being said, probably our most significant wins have been on “defense;” blocking legislation to create over $1 billion in proposed new business taxes and to repeal Wisconsin’s Right to Work protections. |
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Yvette A. Núñez Our greatest advocacy win was the launch of the PHL Neighborhood Growth Project (NGP) in partnership with our city’s diverse chambers and community partners. With nearly 300 companies and organizations signed on as PHL NGP coalition partners, we are proactively moving an agenda forward that brings growth into neighborhoods throughout Philadelphia, rather than waiting for policies to be driven out of city hall. As a part of PHL NGP, we recruited more than 120 Council Connectors, motivated leaders from the private and civic sectors, who regularly engage council members on PHL NGP and growth in Philadelphia. |
Many chambers do not have a full-time government relations position on staff. What are some simple ways for chambers to begin engaging on policy issues?
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Corey Atkins, Esq. Educate your volunteers. Do calls to action across your entire membership on policy issues affecting your community. Encourage members to show up to committee hearings and local council meetings when possible. Be clear about how the issues affect them and their businesses and provide the data and talking points they need to engage. |
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Daniel Brooks We host an informal breakfast roundtable for recently elected city council members. It allows us an opportunity to connect our board to new policy makers, and it lets board members discuss the work we do for the business community. We’ve identified areas to partner with incoming councilpersons because of these informal breakfast roundtable discussions. |
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Katie Kirkpatrick For those without the resources, identify a champion within your membership to serve as a point person for policy issues. Utilize work committees, partner with other non-profits, engage local and state elected officials (including school boards) through your members, and define a simple policy action plan with two to three discreet policy issues that support your organization’s overall mission. Most importantly, stick with the plan and don’t try to boil the ocean. |
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Mark Fisher We operate on the philosophy of “If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.” Additionally, we focus on what chambers of commerce do well: convene, connect and communicate. By elevating an issue, you can educate your membership with the facts and empower them to take individual action. |
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Waymond Jackson Use the chamber's power to convene to bring together elected officials at the local, state and federal levels. Also, chambers are rich with data and information; use this to become a trusted source of information for elected officials as they consider policy issues. |
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Steve Baas, CCE, IOM The most important – and most often overlooked – first step is to carefully listen to your membership and understand where and how public policy becomes relevant for them. Government is complex, the chamber needs to be your members’ “Easy Button” for navigating the process. Unless you have a clear understanding of the specific challenges your members are facing on a micro and a macro level you will not be in position to coherently pick your targets for efficient and effective engagement. |
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Yvette A. Núñez While many chambers may not have a full-time government relations position, many of their members do. Partnerships are a great way to voice your position(s) in spaces that you otherwise wouldn’t occupy due to capacity. Chambers can go much further on these issues by assessing and positioning their members’ subject matter expertise on various policies, making board and committee recommendations across their footprint, and always sharing talking points that amplify the chamber’s positions. |
What are key skills and tactics for building and strengthening relationships with elected leaders?
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Corey Atkins, Esq. Utilize volunteers and board members who might have relationships with elected officials. Learn what issues they care about, and get your chamber engaged by attending meetings and having business folks volunteer for related committees. If they’re not ready for that level of engagement, invite them to lunch or coffee without an agenda to learn more about their policy priorities. |
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Daniel Brooks Begin building the relationship early. Candidates running for office, especially those running for the first time, are hungry for information to ensure they’ve got an answer for any issue that might arise. Giving them the chamber perspective early not only adds to their knowledge base and helps during their campaign, it can establish you as a reliable source of policy perspective for future issues. |
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Katie Kirkpatrick This is simple. Use facts not emotions; be succinct and don’t lead with an ask when interacting with elected officials. Remember that they are public servants, not subject matter experts on every policy issue. Strengthen the relationship during times when you don’t have an ask or a need. In return, create opportunities for elected officials to build relationships with your members. Follow these steps: education, awareness, understanding, support, then action. Only make commitments that you can deliver and then follow-through. And last but not forgotten, political action committees (PACs) are an effective tool and an easy way for member companies to engage without directly contributing to a candidate. |
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Mark Fisher If you have the ability and means, engage them in their campaigns. If not, invite them to address your membership, but meet with them first. For metro chambers especially, you should also meet with them in their local districts. And, always be a resource, provide them data and facts. |
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Waymond Jackson Relationships are built on trust. Establish open lines of communication with elected officials where you actively listen to their priorities and provide them with accurate information on policy issues. This goes a long way towards building trust and establishing your organization as a resource. |
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Steve Baas, CCE, IOM The skills and tactics you use with your members are the same ones you use with elected officials: work to understand the nature of their business and the challenges they face. Be as attentive to helping them with their challenges as you are to asking them to help you with yours. Whenever possible, praise them publicly. Whenever necessary, correct them privately. In the end, it is all about creating a value proposition that makes them see that supporting your chamber’s public policy agenda is a wise investment for them personally, politically and professionally. |
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Yvette A. Núñez Presence in the community, not just legislative chambers, is a key tactic for building and strengthening relationships with elected leaders. Through our Roadmap for Growth and Grow PA initiatives, our chamber has developed on-the-ground relationships with constituents, including small business owners and civic leaders, who can diversify the pool of those offering testimony and/or amplify messages in districts. Political contributions through an established chamber political action committee is also a way to commit to elected officials who are willing to work with the business community. |
How do you communicate and engage your members in the chamber’s policy work?
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Corey Atkins, Esq. We describe the nuts and bolts of our public policy department in new member orientations. We also hold casual happy hour policy events, beverages included, that allow members to engage with local experts on infrastructure, housing, workforce development and more. We’re also launching a weekly policy issues newsletter that polls our members on emerging issues and makes it easy for them to keep track of local, state and federal policy developments that impact our community. |
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Daniel Brooks Visually, as much as possible. During our most recent legislative session, we created our Weekly Update content using an infographic program to highlight the bills we were supporting or opposing. Members could quickly check the support/oppose graphics without having to read through a text-heavy email. |
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Katie Kirkpatrick We utilize several tools and tactics to engage our members in public policy. We leverage a policy board filled by members of the Metro Atlanta Chamber executive committee, an advocacy council for a broad range of members, policy surveys and a political action committee. In addition, we strategically engage in-house government affairs teams for our significant investors through our Business Advocacy Roundtable. New this year, we implemented an annual policy conference and a set of unique events called “On-Tap” featuring key policy initiatives and lawmakers. Our most effective communication tools are our policy blog and social media accounts, which are amplified by our larger social media efforts through the chamber and ChooseATL. |
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Mark Fisher Adhere to the five “R’s” of effective advocacy: Relay the Right message, at the Right time, from the Right person, to the Right audience, in the Right manner. “In the right manner” means it is essential to have engaging content. We like to incorporate old-school hip-hop references in our weekly advocacy updates to make sure our audience is paying attention. |
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Waymond Jackson Our legislative policy agendas are developed through the collaborative work of our CEO led public policy committee and our governmental affairs committee - which is comprised of governmental and policy professionals from investor companies. To better communicate the value of our policy efforts, this year, we launched a new publication to highlight our legislative successes - the BBA Legislative Impact Report. |
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Steve Baas, CCE, IOM It is really a three-step process. First, in our biennial Blueprint for Economic Prosperity, we publicly lay out our agenda so that our members understand, philosophically and directionally, what we are doing and why. Second, we offer members a variety of touch points with public officials: from relationship building and idea exchange at speaking and social events, to direct legislative engagement via public testimony or issue-based legislator contacts. Finally, via voting scorecards and political giving options, we give members the issue-based information necessary to hold their elected officials accountable and the tools to support the officials who stood with us during the legislative session by standing with them during the election season. |
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Yvette A. Núñez With the launch of our PHL Neighborhood Growth Project (PHL NGP), we launched its own website, where more than 7,000 have subscribed to receive weekly communications regarding our chamber’s policy work. We augment that by featuring PHL NGP priorities in traditional chamber channels like blog posts, newsletter articles and social media. For deeper touches, we also host regular conference calls with our Council Connectors and NGP Coalition partners, as well as a series of neighborhood-based issues forums and small business roundtables through Roadmap for Growth, from which PHL NGP was born. |
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