Tag Archives: grassroots
Starting a Grassroots Employee Network
Memo to corporate and business leaders who want to wield a bigger stick in the political arena: Start a grassroots employee network. Most politically active companies hire lobbyists and make political contributions. But the most effective companies use politically engaged employee networks to supplement that work and bring their corporate activism to the next level.
The first step is educating your workforce about your company’s top legislative priorities. Teach your employees how to lobby their elected officials and create opportunities for them to connect with each other. Invite your congressional member or state legislator to the plant or bring a busload of employees to the statehouse. Don’t be like so many other businesses and wait until the summer before the election…
Quick Tips for PAC and Grassroots Goal Setting
1. Be firm on your results, rather than the activities to get the results. I find that very successful people are firm about their intended results, and flexible on the process to achieve the results. Less successful people are firm about the process and flexible on the results.
2. Work backwards from your envisioned goal. Planning is taking what you have and generating activities. Strategy is working backwards from your envisioned goal.
3. Create implementation metrics and accountabilities.
4. Determine the level of organizational change needed to meet the goal and secure appropriate sponsors in key departments, as well as key grassroots and PAC volunteers.
En route to your goal:
- Communicate like crazy. Make the grapevine is the “truthvine.”
- Demonstrate early successes.
- Share credit and…
How an Association’s Government Relations Shop Can Get More Respect
This is a real challenge for many organizations. I know of several prominent national associations that have a huge government relations staff and budget. They are competent and highly professional, but they admitted to me that their Board does not know what they do for the association.
No one is going to seek out ways to recognize your department’s work. You have to get in front of your Board, get on their meeting agenda as often as you can, and tell the positive stories of how grassroots and your staff have really benefited your members.
Let’s all make a pact right now to STOP with the “legislative updates” at Board meetings where you recite the latest status on a bill and all…
Why Everyone Needs Grassroots
Quite simply, local, state and federal governments make decisions that impact what kind of schools we have, how much we pay in taxes, what kind of health care we’re going to have, what kind of cars we can buy and drive, and what kind of energy we should use. The beauty of this arrangement is that elected officials listen to their constituents because they all want to be re-elected and to do that, they need votes, so they tend to listen to people who vote, and even more to those who are well-organized.
Whether or not you pay dues to the AARP, they are lobbying to preserve Social Security and Medicare; even if you aren’t a member of the National Association of…
Mixing Business and Politics
You may have seen the recent research from the University of Tennessee, in which Russell Crook, David Woehr and Sean Lux have found that yes, indeed, mixing business and politics makes good financial sense. If you would like a copy of the full academic report -…