It’s that time of (every other) year again. New legislators are being sworn in across the country (unless they were last month). And for those of us in the advocacy world, our volunteer Key Contacts are getting to know these legislators too. Today I’ll cover some first steps for new Key Contacts.
Like many of you, I’m learning more about these newly elected officeholders. And with these new lawmakers come new opportunities — opportunities to forge new relationships; to collaborate on new policy; and to make real change.
Some of our grasstops volunteers working with these new legislators have existing personal relationships. Others will need to create a relationship from scratch. But they will all have questions. What are my first steps? Where do we start? What do I do first? What’s next?
Here’s what I advise our new volunteers to do to get started in their Key Contact role.
First, they should call the legislator’s campaign or their fundraising consultant make sure to get on the invitation list for any local events. They will want to be sure to attend these as they come up.
Next, I advise that they call the district office to arrange to meet with the district director. At this meeting introduce themselves and explain the role they play as key contact. Ask for contact information for key staff that would include not only the district director but the chief of staff, the scheduler and the legislative staff that would be handling their policy area. Offer to be a resource. This is important because they don’t want the only communication they have with this office to be when they need to ask for a vote.
If their legislator has an open house to celebrate the opening of the new office they should be sure to go and introduce themselves to the legislator and other staff. As an aside: these staff contacts are crucial. I once had a key contact who couldn’t easily get in touch with the legislator personally but who forged a strong relationship with a member of the district staff. At the end of oner year’s legislative session a make-or-break vote came up for my client. It was late at night and the legislature was still working hard towards their midnight deadline. This key contact’s legislator was going to be the deciding vote on our bill. When I called the volunteer, she immediately said that she would call her staff contact because she knew he would pick up the phone. She reached him quickly and explained the issue. He immediately said he would reach out to his boss. In the end that legislator was the deciding vote in my client’s favor. That staff relationship made the difference.
These new volunteers should be sure to sign up for any newsletters the office or campaign sends. It will be helpful later to know more about their legislative priorities. These same newsletters will list Town Hall meetings when they are scheduled. It’s nice to show up to these when possible.
And finally, they should be sure to follow their legislator on social media. They will want to follow both the campaign accounts and the official accounts. Legislators will use Facebook and Instagram to make announcements and share information, but they use Twitter more often to engage directly with their constituents. Be sure to be on all three platforms. More will be coming on using social media in grasstops and grassroots engagement strategies in a later post.
P.S. Please forgive any typos or other mistakes for a while. I broke my wrist last week and dictation software isn’t living up to the hype.
