Deep Dive Breakout 1: Fly-in, Drive-in, Zoom-in: More Opportunities to Empower Advocates

This session will rely on a mix of case studies and audience-led thought experiments on how to directly connect advocates with lawmakers (and their staff) in our new reality. Particular emphasis will be given to engaging district office staff, leveraging recess/campaign periods, and incorporating virtual meetings.

Randy Dwyer, American Farm Bureau Federation
Leann Paradise, American Hotel and Lodging Association
Adam Katz, American Society for Microbiology
Sarah Mcdonald, The Home Depot

Notes

• Former Staffer’s Perspective
  • District/state staff holds a special place in the office structure
    • Elected official depends on them to be eyes/ears
    • Knowledge feeds into official’s decisions
    • A deep sense of hot bill will have an impact on the community
    • Spend lots of time with official in-district
    • Use this to your benefit! Set up meetings before recess
    • They don’t want to go back to the district with empty time and prefer to maximize efficiency
    • Hill staff might lack focus (bills coming up etc.); district staff is more quality time
    • Misunderstanding about district staff’s importance
  • They are the most critical components of any staff
  • Mike Thomas (George Allen) – ran governor campaign in 1993, director of the transition, sec. of administration. Nobody knows VA politics like him. 
  • Often trusted, long-time advisors
  • Bring in local perspective and impact to issue decisions
  • Spend long stretches of time in the district 
• Engagement
  • Don’t sleep on statehouses
  • Staff must be trained
    • Efficient and effective
    • Staff listening will be appreciative
    • What are you talking about, why do you feel that way, what do you want me to do about it
  • Local leaders are key
  • District staff are you FB’s wheelhouse
  • Focus on federal/state/local officials
  • When an issue is local & important = Action by Legislators
  • Issues important
  • Time is a major challenge! 
    • Bring advocates close to them
• Learning Objective: Leverage campaign experience
  • • Start early
    • Utilize network
    • Explain issues
      • Nobody wants to act unless they understand the issue
    • Share stories
    • Establish rapport
      • This is what it’s all about! People to people
    • Followup Q&A
    • Continue Dialogue
      • Not a blip on the radar – need to create an ongoing relationship
    • Win the vote!
  • If you want your voice to be heard, use your voice
  • Frequency of dialogue? Afraid of overwhelming legislators, is there such a thing as too much?
    • In DC office, we know who you are, we know what you want – foster a relationship to skip the introductory 
    • Met once per quarter; sometimes district, sometimes facility, sometimes DC, sometimes town hall
    • Doesn’t feel overwhelming (at least
    • If it’s too much, they’ll tell you (or ignore you!)
    • Not frequency for sake of frequency – do it when you have something to tell them
  • How much do you help advocates schedule meetings? We hire an outside firm to schedule meetings – staff can’t handle it, not confident that members will do it themselves
    • AK: Some organizations do it for them; do the handoff 
    • Other ways you can do it – for fly-ins (250 attendees) work with state affiliates if possible – states have relationships and want to do it themselves – rely on them if possible. Make it as easy as you can. 
    • Put in an ambassador program – 1 “owner” who takes the lead, they are conduits for others in the area. They bring interactions together
    • If your organization allows, a voter guide is a great way to be engaged, who are our friends vs. not our friends
  • Targeted hill days, done over 3 days (small groups, 3 groups of 3)
    • Due to last year being done entirely online – able to dial into advocates’ calendars, troubleshoot and react more quickly
    • Know leg calendar and when the leg is moving
    • Have about the same success rate being agnostic to session calendar
    • Equal impact of virtual vs in person
  • Leeann – Facility tours
    • Why host a facility tour?
      • Gives the official a hyper-local look at your company and industry
      • An anecdote about put official in hard hat, up in a bucket, change a lightbulb – still talking about it
      • Elected officials love the “live a day in someone else’s shoes” experience
      • Facetime for officials with constituents and vice versa
      • Officials love it, it’s their constituency
    • How can you facilitate
      • Create a toolbox or guide
        • Hand it to your staff or to member company to do themselves
        • Make it as easy as possible
      • Draft sample collateral – from invitation letters to agendas to one-pagers
      • Invite media or closed? 
        • Provided option, left up to host/members
        • Press release afterward, whatever comfort level is
        • Horror stories from facility tours?
          • Bubble gum factory – didn’t want to wait for a hair net! 
          • Sensitive to photos – those pictures (official in cherry picker) can go sideways
          • Make sure you know ahead of time
          • Member talks licensing for forklift went to store on his own, got on forklift sitting in the aisle, posted on social media
      • Work with member hosts or local personnel to staff the event – get out there!
      • Share information about the event
  • Incorporating Virtual Meetings
    • We hear that advocates like the hybridized model
    • More efficient, targeted, and in-depth with virtual (8 meetings per day!) 
    • Venn diagram of online/traditional hill days
      • Online
        • More targeted meetings
        • Enhanced access to policymakers
        • No getting lost
      • Traditional
        • Serendipitous opportunities – won’t run into a member in the elevator
        • More photo ops
        • Sightseeing
        • Travel
      • Both
        • Relationship building
        • Advancing policy for microbial sciences
        • Meeting structure
        • Networking – require people on camera for Zoom – nonverbal communication facilitates conversation, grows network within the field
        • Less difficult logistically – easier to clump people together – easier to combine/split
    • Similar but different
      • Can’t port the in-person program to online
        • Immediate debrief unavailable in person
        • Real-time feedback – first meeting good, second better, improving throughout day
      • The benefits – outweigh the disadvantages
      • Disadvantages – not a captive audience! People will say they can’t make a call due to a conflict, easier to cancel
        • How do you handle this? 
          • Able to reach out to the audience, do you have availability this week or the following week – easier to be flexible
          • Tell people the role they play ahead of time, give them buy-in
          • If there is a conflict, gather questions ahead so the questions can be asked even if they are unable to join
        • What is the “fun” activity? No more zoom happy hours, please
          • Jeopardy Q/A
          • Political Capital Board Game
          • Virtual Escape Room
      • Opportunities
        • Able to break into groups for time zone differences 
  • Q/A
    • How do you make online meetings engaging/fun?
      • Happy medium to facility tour – if appropriate/allowable, we provide branded zoom backgrounds, leave it on, put a microscope in your background, and it becomes a conversation piece
      • Using different media – don’t just do a Zoom call with a grid of faces, use (short) video or other multimedia to underscore the problem, and pictures to tell the story. Able to do this with an online platform?
      • Helps member retention
      • Have a video ask at the end of the video – call to action 
• Virtual Meetings
  • Hill staff love them
  • Hill staff want to keep them
  • Groups must 
    • Embrace tech
    • Effective/efficient use of time
  • Mix w/in person
• Two case studies
  • Co-op 101
    • Brings more people together
    • We provided the deck with content
    • Reached out with state organizations to schedule
    • States personalize to their needs/wants (Michigan example)
  • Virtual Legislative Conference
    • Nothing in 2020, in 2021 members were clamoring
    • Rural broadband? Can you rely on this? 
    • Pre-recorded as much as possible
• Learning Events
  • Hybrid – yes or no?
    • Adam – No
    • Leeann – No
    • Brad – hybrid is a myth. It doesn’t exist unless you can afford a TV studio with camera lighting etc.
    • Randy – multiple goals for fly-ins – training, are people happy, cosponsors on the bill, seniority of meetings, participant demographics, take info back to districts