Category Archives: Political Action Committees
How to Gain Internal Support, Status and Money for Your Grassroots and PAC Programs: Part One
Why do some government affairs departments, specifically grassroots and PAC operations, consistently get increased budget funding and staff resources while others struggle to justify their existence? We track our clients’ results, and what we found was startling.
After the conclusion of our collaborations, over 85% of our consulting clients have experienced long-term funding increases, increased staff resources, and enhanced internal status for their grassroots program and/or PAC. So, in hot pursuit of the truth, I wanted to find out what some of these organizations have in common.
Intrepid Accountability/Focus on ROI
It doesn’t take DNA evidence to prove the value of grassroots advocacy. I’ve always believed that one of the reasons many of our programs suffer from the “Rodney Dangerfield Syndrome” is because…
The Good “S” Word
The good “s” word in PAC leadership is sales. The most successful PAC professionals know that they have to be superior salespeople.
They sell their PAC like crazed weasels (that’s a compliment) to PAC eligible employees and members, and also sell its’ virtues and results to senior organization leaders who can help or hinder their PAC development. They take nothing for granted. Unfortunately, many government relations professionals don’t practice this discipline.
My observation is that PAC professionals either do not believe in the PAC enough to be persuasive salespeople, or they believe in their PAC, but don’t know the basics of sales.
How To Get People To Respond To Action Alerts or Take Volunteer Leadership Roles
Laser in on what being involved in the advocacy network means. What does it mean when the volunteer joins in terms of their commitment and expected activity levels? Despite your nice graphics and catchy tag line, many times, there’s just no there there. The ubiquitous sign up usually goes like this: “Yes! I want to be involved in the advocacy network!” It’s nebulous – what does “involved” mean, exactly?
Common Obstacles to Trust and How to Overcome Them: Part Three
We’re going to explore more common obstacles to trust and how to overcome them.
Negative communication
If we are truly grassroots professionals, we should embrace bottom up communication. Many times our messages only ask members to do something for us, or tell them what they should not be doing, saying, thinking, and so forth. It is important to be a carrier of good news. It affects how we are seen in the organization and how much time our advocates will give us in the future.
People attribute negative personal characteristics to those who bring us bad news, regardless of whether they were involved in creating that bad news. We generally don’t trust those we don’t like.
What is your positive-to-negative communication ratio? Ask your…
More I2M Survey Results
Here are more results from our Innovate to Motivate® Success Survey. These results focus on PAC fundraising techniques and metrics.
One of the hallmarks of I2M is that we go beyond what is being discussed and commonly known to “drill down” and reveal patterns and data that can help us pursue political involvement excellence. I think you’ll find these results indicative of that philosophy.
Effective PAC Fundraising Techniques vs. Frequently Used Techniques
We asked our community two PAC fundraising questions:
- Which fundraising techniques are most effective?
- Which do they most frequently use? (percentages may total more than 100% due to respondents citing multiple techniques)
Most effective PAC fundraising techniques:
- Peer to peer (one on one asks, small group meetings, personal phone calls, etc.) – 69%
- Special…
