How Advocacy Pros Are Navigating the New Washington

Advocacy organizations and causes are scrambling to adjust their strategies in a Washington that has undergone rapid political and cultural changes in just a few months.

Many of the key players in D.C. have changed and advocates are competing like never before with a deeply fragmented and fast-moving media environment. But there are ways to cope. Three public affairs pros spoke with C&E during a recent panel discussion. Here’s their advice for handling advocacy in a changed Washington:

Don’t ‘Jerk the Wheel’

The past 100 days have been defined by an unpredictable – at times erratic – newscycle and a tidal wave of policy proclamations. With that in mind, public affairs pros are advising clients to take a breath and fight the urge to insert themselves into every fight.

“I think of the times right now in one word, which is uncertainty,” said Shana Glickfield, a founding partner of the D.C.-based public affairs firm Beekeeper Group. “We’re looking at this as a bit of an opportunity to build trust as an intermediary – as advocacy organizations or whoever our client base is. We want them to be a voice of reason amid the madness.”

“This is, again, an opportunity where we’re kind of advising clients to slow down a little bit and think about if their contribution is really going to add value or noise,” she added.

Matt Krayton, the founder and principal at the consulting firm Publitics, said he’s “advising clients to not jerk the wheel too much” and “stay the course rather than making minute to minute adjustments.”

“We don’t have a crystal ball, right? So we cannot tell you what the next tweet is, what the next executive order might be, what the next comment coming out of leadership in Congress might be,” he said, adding that “really falling back on values, mission, objectives is super important.”

Curb Your Expectations

Public affairs consultants said that advocates need to get used to a new reality: You’re not going to get everything you want – or even most of it.

Krayton said that his firm is “thinking a lot about strategic triage.” In other words, he said organizations need to be thoughtful and intentional about what priorities they actually pursue.

“Now it’s even more challenging to try to get everything that you want. A lot of our clients and a lot of folks who have business before regulatory bodies or the executive branch or legislative branch in Washington have a variety of interests. And in an ideal world, we’d be able to get a lot of it – 90 percent of it, 80 percent of it 50 percent. Whatever it is.”

That means that organizations have to learn to prioritize, Krayton said.

“What we’re really focusing on are the things that are absolutely mission critical, and stripping that down and saying: okay, what can we go back to the well on? What can’t we go back to the well on?” Krayton said. “I think picking spots now is extraordinarily important as we’re thinking about advocacy plans.” 

Rethink Messaging

With the rapid pace of change in Washington, public affairs pros said that advocacy groups should be reconsidering how they get their messages out. 

Sean Senters, a vice president at Targeted Victory, said that it’s more difficult now for organizations to break through the noise in an increasingly fragmented media environment. But, he added, there’s a bright side: “It creates a lot of really cool opportunities to expand your messaging scope.”

“You’re not just competing with other organizations, associations, candidates. You’re competing with every part of culture out there,” Senters said. “How are you going to capture somebody’s attention and how are you going to create content that people will resonate with?”

It’s not just how organizations are messaging, but who’s doing the messaging, Glickfield said. In today’s Washington, the messenger is “as important as the message itself” when it comes to advocacy,” she said.

“Now is a good time to do some capacity building, really cultivate your advocates and champions and think through how can we get better messengers that are really authentic,” she said.