Legislative Forum can be a whirlwind of training, networking, and, most of all, meetings with your elected leaders on Capitol Hill. Typically, the number-one question we get as everything winds down is “If I can do anything when I return home, what do you recommend that I do?”
Despite the excitement you may generate at Legislative Forum and your best intentions to continue advocating from home, it’s all too easy to push this task to the back burner and not think about it until next year’s session. We all know how it goes. You attend a great conference in Washington, visit with your congressional delegation, and feel really good about your day spent advocating for park and recreation issues. You are energized to get home and get to work on all your new ideas. Then reality sets in, your job takes over, and the other items seem less important. We need to turn this scenario around and make it the exception, not the rule. More true effectiveness is wasted simply through lack of follow-through. By following many of these quick and simple steps, you will go a long way toward building a relationship with your members of Congress and getting the most out of your advocacy efforts.
Here are ways you can keep the momentum moving forward once you get home:
• Send thank-you notes to those you met with through direct emails to staff and letters addressed directly to your members of Congress. Letters to your senators and representatives should be emailed as well and should specifically recognize the staff member you met with, if the meeting was with staff and not with the member of Congress.
• Write an op-ed to the local newspaper highlighting the legislation that will support local park and recreation efforts, asking the community to contact their representative and senators with their support for the legislation. Include the same in your next newsletter.
• Follow up periodically with staff you met in D.C. to find out if the member of Congress has co-sponsored legislation. When the answer is affirmative, thank your representative publicly for supporting parks and recreation in newsletters, additional op-eds, and/or articles.
• Get resolutions passed locally by the city council and county commissioners.
• Invite your congressional delegation and district office staff to local events.
• Invite media personalities to local events.
• Attend congressional town halls to reinforce your message.
• Contact business leaders in your community and ask that they, too, communicate with the congressional delegation to show their support for legislation.
• Look for new partnerships and coalitions with nonprofit organizations and grassroots and educational entities, asking them to also communicate support for legislation.
• Plan a local visit with the district offices for relationship building, not just when you need to ask for something to be done.
• Send copies of articles, op-eds, resolutions that have passed, pictures of local events, etc., to the staff that you met in D.C.
• Provide feedback you receive and send copies of articles, op-eds, resolutions that have passed locally, pictures of local events, etc., to the NRPA public policy team.
• Be responsive to calls to action and legislative alerts that the NRPA public policy team sends out on anticipated votes on important legislative issues. Examples: funding for the LWCF state-assistance program, the Community Parks and Revitalization Act, funding for recreational trails, other transportation policies that support walking and biking, etc.
Anything you can do to stay active and keep your issues in the minds of your congressional representatives will help your cause. Be in touch with them frequently, ask questions, and raise new ideas. Legislative Forum may be NRPA’s biggest advocacy event of the year, but with enough dedicated members, we can make a difference all year round.
Leslie Mozingo is a partner with The Ferguson Group and the lead lobbyist for the firm’s advocacy team on behalf of NRPA.