As your local legislative tracking software surfaces the issues most important for you to track, successful government relations teams build a standard process for reviewing the information to ensure they never miss a piece of critical local government intelligence.
Depending on the type of organization, we have seen our customers find success with a variety of approaches to how they collect and take action on the insights being delivered.
Typically, strategies will fall into one of three approaches:
- Centralized
- Decentralized, or
- Hybrid
Centralized Access and Knowledge Sharing
With the centralized approach, one team member reviews the report each week and shares the highlights with their members, coworkers, or other stakeholders.
This approach is a favorite among statewide or regional business associations that need to inform their membership base about important local legislation in order to have them be advocates in their local government.
Local lawmakers don’t always give a lot of credit to a statewide association appearing for the purpose of trying to defeat or change a proposed ordinance or fee. They’re much more likely to listen to a local business owner talking about how the proposal would negatively or positively impact them and the jobs their business supports.
Government relations teams using a centralized approach often have a process where one staff member with experience in local policymaking reviews the report and flags two or three issues that are worth further research.
They look into those issues to see if they represent a worrisome trend or a worthwhile opportunity, and then they share the highlights with members for their general awareness or to inspire political involvement.
Next, they might add some commentary and context to the items to make sure that business owners who aren’t current on every detail about local politics can fully understand the issue and take action.
Decentralized Access
With the decentralized approach, an entire team accesses the information of the report, and each team member reviews a section of the report that corresponds to their geographic region or topical focus.
The ability for your local legislative tracking software to filter by county [or by keyword], makes it easy for team members to access the same information, but focus on what's most relevant to a particular user.
This approach works well for larger teams with assigned responsibilities or when multiple departments within a company are looking to leverage the database. For example, government affairs teams want to monitor changes to local policies, but business development is interested in spotting new leads or opportunities.
Each user can essentially have their own filtered view of the information and actively review reports without the need to wait for another person to distribute the information.
Hybrid - Decentralized Access Combined with Centralized Research & Knowledge Sharing
The hybrid approach gives everyone in the organization access to set up their own reports and access the database of information so that they can review potential issues and act on opportunities on their own. But ultimately, one person - typically a government affairs director - reviews all items to make sure nothing is missed and the appropriate actions are being taken.
This point person is responsible for making sure:
- The software is catching the most relevant topics for the organization
- The most pressing issues are being assigned or shared with the people that need to take action
- Individuals are getting the the needed insights from the database of local government documents
Successful Government Relations Teams Regularly Review their Legislative Tracking Software Insights
Whether you use a centralized, decentralized, or hybrid approach, most who find success in using a local legislative tracking software build regular reviews of the information into their processes.
The average Curate customer tracks 94 counties in 2 states and can review their reports in about an hour per week.
Our customers tell us that their Curate report has created a structure around their local advocacy and business development efforts that previously felt like a game of Whack-A-Mole.
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