GR IN Y2K.

A modified government relations model molds itself to the new millennium.

You say your computer network is already Y2K compliant? That's great, but is the quality of your association's government relations operation fit for the new millennium? Current tends shaping government relations activities have strong implications for association executives and the actions you and your organization must take to remain a cutting-edge provider of legislative services. As we approach 2000, the association executive who wants to stay ahead of the curve will have to retool and react to significant trends that have already begun to change the way association government relations departments operate today.

Trends to track

Susan R. Meisinger, executive vice president and chief operating officer, Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), Alexandria, Virginia, points out that in the Information Age associations must "scramble to make sure they remain the trusted information source for members on public policy issues, and stay on top of new technologies that will help meet a member's needs," she says. To use government relations as a tool for retaining members and attracting new members, association leaders must understand the changing political, economic, and information landscape.

* Changes in public policy making.

Despite the recent shift from deficit to surplus politics in Washington, Capitol Hill's budget battles remain much the same. Budget offsets, deregulation, re-regulation, and Social Security reform are still hot-button topics.

What has changed is the process of how policy issues are raised, framed, and resolved. Business inside Washington's beltway and in the statehouses goes on much as before, but the number and influence of those involved has expanded dramatically. Increasingly, national issues--such as tobacco settlements and school choice--are drawn and framed outside the beltway, then quickly become nationalized within the decision-making corridors in Washington. As the public becomes more interested and directly involved in that process, the stakes get higher and policy outcomes grow less certain.

* Transparency of public policy information. Information technology has helped put the public back in public policy. Technology has vastly improved the speed and access to public information for the average citizen, and as the trend continues, voters will be able to gain enormous leverage in future policy debates. Several factors are driving the increased interaction.

The electorate is more tuned into the governing process than ever before. Because of media like C-SPAN, the Internet, Web TV, and cable television, more households are able to take advantage of information technology to routinely--and selectively--access information that affects their daily lives. A U.S. Internet Council (Washington, D.C.) April 1999 survey reports that an estimated 81 million Americans have Internet access, and it is clear that the Internet is rapidly becoming the preferred venue for collection and delivery of information on federal and state activities.

Citizens are also more inclined to act on what they see. Lower information technology costs and ease of use have stimulated steadily rising interaction between elected officials and constituents via e-mail, bulletin boards, chat rooms, and Web pages. A 1998 Bonner and Associates (Washington, D.C.) survey showed that 95 percent of all congressional offices experienced a large increase in e-mail volume, and all expected a continued increase in constituent use of the Internet.

Industry data also show that those who frequent the Internet are better informed, are more frequently contacting their elected representatives, and are more likely to vote--key traits that will not escape politicians' notice.

* Information overload. The explosion of information from all sources and the ease with which members can fire off messages to government relations departments are generating more member questions, which place a costly burden on association staff struggling to keep on top of issues. Surveys indicate that routine data management, member correspondence, and communication can consume up to 60 percent of staff time.

Technology, then, can create opportunity costs associated with staying closely linked with your membership. "Member communication is time consuming, especially queries on fast-moving issues," notes Bob Norton, deputy director of government relations for The Retired Officers Association (TROA), Alexandria, Virginia. "Replies require research, thoughtful review, and sometimes verbal dialogues with members, which is necessary yet time-consuming. It is difficult to respond in a timely manner and still lobby the Hill. There is a definite tradeoff."

Ideally, you want your organization to be the preferred source of both current public policy information and expert knowledge when it comes to activities affecting key stakeholder issues. To master the art of knowledge management in the Information Age, you must understand the various uses, roles, advantages, and disadvantages of new technology and leverage them to the organization's advantage. This frequently requires a reassessment of how your government relations department processes, analyzes, and disseminates information.

* Members' rising expectations.

Given these dynamic trends, the traditional government relations operations model will no longer suffice. The government relations department of the 21st century will be expected to both meet its member demands for knowledge and maximize its visibility and clout on the Hill.

For many years the government relations mission was simple and straightforward: Track the stakeholders' issues, lobby Congress to support their interests, then report back on the results in the monthly magazine or newsletter. But, increasingly, members can track the basic legislative and government information themselves, as many hold multiple association or interest group memberships. (See sidebar, "Factors Driving Association Member Expectations.")

As a result, associations will have to compete for their members' loyalty and attention, with the government relations department playing a more critical role in membership retention and growth. As association executives know, the competition for membership--both new members and old ones--is a critical measure of successful association management. Pressures to grow are directly linked to satisfying members with new and ever-improving services and raising visibility and clout with key decision makers.

Actions to improve GR performance

What do these trends imply for associations as we enter 2000? The near-term policy environment will likely be characterized by zero-sum federal budgets, with greater streamlining and commercialization of government functions. Constraints on existing programs and new initiatives will result in smaller federal operations that are more consolidated (less duplication of capability) yet decentralized (managed outside of Washington).

In the long term, the picture is less certain and will depend in part on the amount of public and organizational activism that goes into influencing the debate. "Decentralizing federal decision-making authority out to the states will coincide with continued industry deregulation on some core industries--for example, telecommunications, banking, and insurance," says Dean Garritson, vice president for small and medium manufacturers, National Association of Manufacturers, Washington, D.C. "Yet there will be growing pressures for horizontal regulation of health, education, environment, and the workforce," he adds. "This continued legislative and regulatory activism on these home and workplace issues will affect the majority of American citizens as well as most industries." This will not involve direct allocation of resources, but will result in either indirect transfer of wealth among groups (or directly to the federal government) and/or an increased regulatory burden.

In this dynamic environment, you can identify and act on opportunities by ensuring your government relations department achieves interaction with its members and delivers what they want when they want it. Using the steps of a new model for government relations activities can be an effective way of responding to today's challenges. (See sidebar, "A GR-in-WK Operations Model.")

Central to the GR-in-Y2K model is a focus on process, not only products. Addressing current trends requires more than purchasing new personal computers, jazzing up your government relations product line, or adding a colorful Web site. Many government relations organizations are reluctant to reengineer business processes with which they have become comfortable, however dated those systems may be. The new model challenges such reluctance; it requires a commitment to interrogate and revise the following vital processes.

* Knowledge transfer. Savvy association members at the turn of the century will not need the traditional association representative in Washington or at the state capitol monitoring developments for them. "Our profession is fundamentally changing. We're moving toward a much more antiseptic, more fact-based type of lobbying," claims DeLancy W. Davis, cofounder of InCongress, an Internet site where lobbyists can post their positions on a wide variety of issues. "The days of going to a chairman and cutting a deal are over," Davis asserts in a January 1998 Washington Post article.

What the association member will value more than bill status information is context, perspective, and meaningful forecasts--in other words, public policy knowledge.

To create knowledge, you must draw from both its internal (expert members and policy shops) and external resources. Knowledge "is also created by think tanks, research institutes, or the analysis shops of coalition members," states Hal Coxson, managing partner of Ogletree Governmental Affairs, Inc., Washington, D.C., a government relations consulting firm. "Associations will often use coalition budgets or in-kind contributions from members to coordinate knowledge creation and delivery from a wide range of sources, from specialized studies and surveys to articles printed in law reviews and the specialized trade press to information on the Internet," explains Coxson. The annual Electronic Industries Association, New York City, 10-year business forecast, for example, based upon its broad scan of industry knowledge and expert analysis, is considered a reliable indicator of future activity in the industry.

Knowledge delivery is as important as knowledge creation. The U.S. Internet Council's Status of the Internet report states, "The number one factor that attracts visitors to return to Web sites is the quality and availability of content." Government relations departments, then, can add value to their services by creating and delivering knowledge in usable and readily understandable formats.

New and sophisticated database designs, data integration, and customized Web publishing systems can help you educate and mobilize members. Internet lobbying, pioneered by firms like Issue Dynamics, Inc., Washington, D.C., and Web sites like InCongress (www.incongress.com), is proliferating to meet the changing nature of government.

Larry Lorber, a partner in the law practice of Sonnenschein, Nath, and Rosenthal, Washington, D.C., says, "Even the best grass-roots efforts are wasted time unless the organization has good credibility and good analysis to back up its position with key players on the Hill." In the long run, the return on the investment in knowledge creation and transfer to members will be a more effective, credible, and persuasive advocacy campaign.

Coordination of resources. Government relations professionals must leverage and coordinate their better-informed members in ways that maximize desired results. Traditional legislative alerts--large mass mailings to stakeholders--are becoming rare, expensive, and far less effective relative to alternative means. "We rarely do traditional alerts," says the Society for Human Resource Management's Meisinger. "We rely more on growing a dedicated grass-roots network of busy activists who coordinate regularly with our Washington headquarters on their concerns. They provide an effective multiplier for our lobbying operations." This network is more likely to respond to a call to action not only by writing letters but by seeking out decision makers in home districts, making calls to other interested stakeholders, and using the Internet for better networking.

Coordination also includes maintaining a robust ability to track, report, analyze, and, increasingly, help shape the public policy developments affecting member interests.

* Reading the pulse of the public and your members. Aggressive and more Frequent survey and polling techniques can identify member concerns Far enough in advance to position the association on critical, long-term policy and resource issues. "It often takes time," says Lorber, "sometimes five or six years, for an issue to run its course with Congress. The issue is: Who has the tolerance to stay the course?" He says the ability to position ahead of the pack and more favorably frame policy issues often requires "planting a seed where action is not immediate but begins a long gestation period of perhaps years, leading to a broad consensus on need for action down the road."

* Providing in-depth and far-seeing policy analysis. Government relations shops must also analyze and assess the policy-making environment and better project and influence the outcomes. The stakes are higher and the stakeholders are likely to be more demanding. Credibility on the Hill may depend on the ability to present positions that are not only supported by both members and society at large, but that are grounded in good analysis and empirical data. "There is a strong focus and connection between issue analysis and advocacy," states Lorber. "There can be no advocacy without analysis and the means to deliver it. Issue analysis is part and parcel of congressional advocacy."

Pushing information and knowledge to members. The smarter government relations organizations will also aggressively collect, analyze, and leverage issue preferences of its members in order to better coordinate and mobilize lobbying campaigns. In addition to serving up information, Internet tools allow organizations to learn about the specific preferences and interests of their members. "This knowledge can be obtained directly from individuals through online surveys or profiles, or indirectly by tracking which areas within a Web site a browser visits," states Keith Peck, president of IVS Communications Group, Windham, Connecticut, a multimedia developer of Web-based products.

Just as amazon.com promotes book titles to customers based on known personal buying habits, association members can receive tailored information delivered regularly to their email addresses. "Web-based push technology provides association members with an information conduit customized to their interests," says Peck, who develops Web sites for associations and consults, speaks, and writes on e-commerce. "With these individual preferences stored in a database, an organization can efficiently construct information bulletins unique to each member, in effect filtering out all unrelated or irrelevant material."

Your government relations staff must push knowledge to your members before they ask for it. Pushing knowledge routinely to members can head off many questions and help counter suspect information your members may pick up while surfing the Web. This focuses your finite government relations resources on high-payoff activities, such as advocating face-to-face with decision makers.

Measuring GR performance

You can take several evaluative steps now to turn the preceding trends and implications to your advantage and ensure that your government relations activities are top-notch.

* Give your government relations department a "performance check-up." Find out how your organization measures up to other leaders in the industry. TROA recently commissioned an independent benchmark study to determine how its government relations department stacked up against others. "We were pleased to find out that we compared quite well with other cutting-edge organizations," says Michael A. Nelson, TROA's president. "Benchmarking did identify some areas where we could adapt, improve, and learn from others."

Even if the checkup merely validates your leading-edge status, you'll always learn something from the exercise, resulting perhaps in a tune-up rather than an overhaul.

* Measure performance of your government relations unit across time. A lingering perception among the association government relations community is that performance is difficult, if not impossible, to measure. Unlike many industries, where output, progress, and merit are easily quantifiable, the political and policy formulation process is highly subjective, making it difficult to assess your association's role in legislative wins and losses.

Regardless, senior executives still need to determine the government relations unit's contribution to the organizational bottom line. Critical decisions on staffing and budget issues often come down to an ability to document value to the organization. Performance metrics--measuring both government relations unit activity as well as results--allow you to evaluate the unit's contribution, and to demonstrate improvement over time.

SHRM's governmental affairs department recently developed a set of performance measures customized to SHRM's overall strategic goals. "We want to measure items like success of our legislative strategy, performance of our grass-roots network, and member buy-in to SHRM's legislative program," states Meisinger. "The metrics will not only identify how well we meet our current goals, but provide a baseline for future performance and value to SHRM's members."

For optimal organizational performance, the ability to meet future member expectations will require either demonstrating greater efficiencies, hiring more or different types of staff, adding more resources, or a combination of all three. Performance metrics will help you keep what you've got, make your case for more, and understand where the tradeoffs exist.

* Focus on a range of processes. Evaluate not only high-end processes, but also low-end processes that require labor-intensive investment and result in opportunity costs for higher-payoff activities. One major process change introduced by TROA and other associations is the establishment of member service centers, modeled on commercial retailers, which can ease the burden of routine member communication on government relations staff. TROA is finding that these customer-oriented centers not only free up staff time to focus on knowledge creation and lobbying activities, but they are useful in distributing knowledge and collecting member preference data.

"Our member service center effectively captures, screens, and refers an increasing number of phone calls, while handing off our government relations staff's existing issue knowledge by way of frequently asked questions, fax-on-demand information packets, or Web-based data," says TROA's Nelson. "It saves staff time, yet allows us to satisfy member information queries." Creating new process outputs such as knowledge creation and distribution, rather than merely data management, will provide major returns on an initial investment in process reengineering.

As many forecasters will tell you, a failure to adapt to leading indicators and changes in your business environment will have direct consequences in terms of lower bottom-line results and perceived performance of your organization. For the association executive, the consequences could be fewer members and declining clout on Capitol Hill.

Taking action sooner rather than later will better position your government relations organization for the future. So, there's no time like the present to consider the GR-in-Y2K model as a way to retool for the next millennium.

Kevin M. Generous is president of The Pautipaug Group, Inc., Baltic, Connecticut.

Factors Driving Association Member Expectations

Greater access to information and more choices on public policy issues are raising member expectations. Consider the following indicators and how they will affect your government relations initiatives.

* A diverse information marketplace. At the click of a mouse, your members can conduct comparison shopping for the best, most timely, informative government relations service. With issue-oriented Web forums like Policy.com, other free Web sites, and competing associations, how do you get (and keep) your members on your association's page?

* Rise of the cyber-citizen. An obvious indicator of a more wired citizenry is reflected by the proliferation of new area codes required for near-ubiquitous fax machines, modems, mobile phones, and pagers--a situation that Federal Communications Commission Chairman William E. Kennard describes as an "area-code crisis." Moreover, greater numbers of citizens will likely soon access the Internet via Web TV, as differences among television, phone lines, and desktop computers are blurred. Can your association deal with the volume?

* Changing demographics. While baby boomers will almost certainly take advantage of the potential for more direct participation and policy input, the expanding senior population is now going online. With the availability of lower cost and more user-friendly systems, how can you leverage their participation most effectively and retain them as members?

* More frequent legislator-citizen communications. Your members may not feel they need an association membership to represent their interests in Washington. They can communicate directly with officeholders and staff via e-mail and phone, often receiving direct responses well within the typical association's correspondence cycle. Recognizing this fact, the astute politician may cater more comprehensively to individual constituent inquiries, seeing an advantage in defusing constituent concerns one-on-one rather than being lobbied by organized interests. Can your association match this apparent win-win scenario?

A GR-in-Y2K Operations Model

The defining trends of the new millennium will require altered ways of achieving success for your association's government relations activities. Consider applying the GR-in-Y2K Operations Model to satisfy heightened member expectations, to deliver customized information more quickly than your competitors, and to continually measure your performance.

Take action to improve government relations performance

1. Transfer knowledge. Create meaningful public policy knowledge and deliver it in usable, easily understood forms.

2. Coordinate resources. Leverage and coordinate knowledgeable members to maximize desired results.

3. Read the pulse of the public and your members. Poll frequently and aggressively.

4. Provide in-depth and far-seeing policy analysis. Effective advocacy demands strong analysis and empirical data.

5. Push information and knowledge to members. Use Internet technology to create customized information for members.

Measure government relations performance

1. Give your government relations department a "performance checkup." Determine how your government relations unit compares to that of industry leaders.

2. Measure performance of your government relations unit across time. Develop performance metrics that allow you to chart your organization's progress.

3. Focus on a range of processes. Do not neglect to evaluate both high- and low-end processes that can provide significant returns on an investment in process reengineering.