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Wielding Influence: How Scotts Miracle-Gro Got It Right With Super PAC Donation

This blog post first appeared on Forbes.com

In June, Scotts Miracle-Gro contributed $200,000.00 to the Restore Our Future super PAC supporting GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Corporate executive giving to super PACs isn’t news, but it is news when a consumer goods company with a prominent brand does so with corporate treasury dollars; most corporate donations to super PACs are from privately held entities.

My understanding is that thus far, they have not witnessed angry citizens storming their offices with pitchforks ...

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Big Business Does Best In Washington When It Plays The Underdog

This blog post first appeared on Forbes.com

In my work helping large for-profit (and non-profit) organizations maximize their political influence, I’ve repeatedly witnessed powerful legislators make decisions based partly on the merits of a decision, and partly on the messenger. And when the messenger is a small business owner or principal, they are a mighty messenger. It’s an article of faith that helping “the little guy,” in this case small businesses, makes them feel better about themselves, as it should. ...

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Increasing Internal Government Affairs Visibility Through the (can you believe it?) HR Department

Many corporate government affairs staff covet the opportunity to meet with new employees during routine “new employee orientation.” We often believe if we can simply ...

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How To Be A Mediocre and Ineffective Advocate

Here are the sure-fire ways to be a mediocre and ineffective advocate.

These are the truths that, if ignored, will take us from the on-ramp directly to the road to perdition as we try to communicate with legislators.

1. Reliance on technology as communications panacea. The craze over the latest Internet techniques to communicate with legislators was legitimate in the early 90s. Savvy advocates know the tools are not the answer, but rather the strategy and message behind them.

2. Transfer of knowledge ...

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Solutions to the Social Loafing Lifestyle

In a previous post, I talked about social loafing. Now I’m going to talk about how we change the social loafing dynamic.

Identify Contributions

Identify team member contributions. What have coalition members done to advance the cause? Be specific, and enumerate contributions that you want duplicated. Are the contributions distributed to the coalition members or posted on an easily accessible Web site?

What about your faithful PAC recruiters? What about your PAC board members who help answer tough PAC questions or find ...

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Categories: Government Relations, Government Relations Excellence, Government Relations Staff Development

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The Habits of Effective State Advocacy Groups

The results of the following research have been featured in many of my advocacy workshops, as well as various national and regional publications.

In our initial research review, we saw that the specific word “grassroots” was the second highest response as one of the habits of an effective advocacy group. However, upon further review of the responses, we noted that there were numerous responses such as: “active membership,” “lots of members”, and “regular people” that refer to grassroots.

Therefore, I am republishing ...

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Categories: Government Relations, Influencing Legislators & Politicians

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Supreme Court Rules in Citizens United Case

From I2M faculty member Brett Kappel at Arent Fox:

JANUARY 21, 2010 – WASHINGTON, DC – This morning in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the US Supreme Court overturned the ban on corporate and union independent expenditures in federal elections. This opinion will have a major impact on the 2010 elections. Corporations will now be able to spend their corporate treasury money to advocate the election or defeat of federal candidates.

Nonprofit groups may also be able to benefit ...

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Categories: Government Relations, Innovate to Motivate

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Want to Innovate? First, You Have to Know Your Strengths

As a leader in next-level political involvement skill development, the Innovate to Motivate® Conference is known for investing in expert faculty to connect you to nationally-known thought leaders.

Another one of our expert faculty members is Candace Fitzpatrick, President of Core Clarity, Inc. You can read more about her here: http://www.coreclarity.net/pages/AboutUs.html.

As many of you know, I believe that to improve your government relations performance, you have to work from your strengths, rather than focusing on shoring up weaknesses. This applies ...

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Categories: Government Relations, Government Relations Excellence, Innovate to Motivate

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Social Loafing

We’ve all been on a team where 20 percent of the team members do 80 percent of the work – a few board members recruit for the PAC, a couple of organizations in your coalition make the effort to mobilize their members on an important issue, or one member of your GR staff reviews and edits the department’s Web site.

I grew up on a farm, and there are great lessons from the farm. A German agricultural engineer named Max Ringelmann ...

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Categories: Government Relations, Government Relations Excellence, Government Relations Staff Development

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The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Free Enterprise Campaign

As you know, sometimes I like to publish the email threads of my colleague, Dr. Kelton Rhoads and I, on whatever intrigues us at the moment. Here’s the latest on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and their free enterprise campaign.

Amy: I see that the US Chamber is launching a campaign to promote the free enterprise system. Sound familiar? Weren’t you advising them to do something like that back in 2007?

Kelton: It’s interesting all right. A few months ago I heard ...

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