Author: Yemi Adewunmi

  • Grassroots Organizing Tools: Make the Most of Your Legislative Research With Public Tags

    Grassroots Organizing Tools: Make the Most of Your Legislative Research With Public Tags

    Grassroots organizing has become an increasingly powerful force in our democratic society, giving voice to ordinary citizens who may not have the resources or connections of larger advocacy organizations. These movements are often initiated by a small group of people who share a common concern or belief and use community organizing and social media campaigns to raise awareness and build momentum. Grassroots movements have become effective advocates for change, driving progress on issues ranging from climate change to voting rights. However, these organizations face unique challenges, including decentralized communication and limited experience in legislative advocacy. In this blog, we will explore the tools available to grassroots organizers to address these challenges, empowering them to make a meaningful impact in their communities and beyond.

    What Is Grassroots Organizing, and Why Is It Important?

    Grassroots organizing is done by ordinary people who organize and work together to bring about change impacting their own community. These organizations can be local, regional, or national in scope and have proven to be effective advocates for change that wouldn’t be considered without their work. Part of the power of grassroots organizing is that it is a genuinely bottom-up approach to advocacy, where the people most impacted by public policy participate in collective action to influence decision-makers.

    Grassroots movements are often initiated by a single individual or a small group of people who share a common concern or belief and decide to take action. Lacking the resources that larger, more structured advocacy organizations and corporations have, grassroots organizations often focus on community organizing and other forms of direct action to raise awareness and build momentum for their cause.

    In our democratic process, these civil society organizations have become an effective response to issues that are not adequately addressed by existing power structures or institutions. Increasingly, grassroots movements are defining the high-priority political issues of our time, including climate change, public safety, and voting rights. Successful movements are able to use the power and passion of their community to build visibility and momentum around an issue, eventually ensuring that policy leaders are unable to ignore their calls for action.

    Tools for Grassroots Organizing

    Because their organizing is done by ordinary people, rather than professional lobbyists with experience in the political domain, grassroots organizers must leverage technology to reduce any efficiency or effectiveness gaps that exist between them and more traditional, professional advocacy organizations. Often, grassroots organizers leverage technology to solve two challenges that they face: decentralized communication and domain research and awareness.

    These organizations, especially early in their lifetime, usually  have very few, or no, full-time staff working on advocacy. The nature of their origin, often coming from a community, also lends itself to more democratic organization structures and less top-down decision making. This lack of time and distributed leadership can make communication a challenge. Technology to address this challenge must reduce the amount of time they spend recruiting and communicating with members and ensure those communications are effective. 

    Another hurdle that grassroots organizations tend to face is limited experience within legislative advocacy. While the goal of a democracy should be to involve its citizens in the legislative processes, it is often the case that individuals will only have experience interacting and lobbying with lawmakers if they have done so professionally, or if they have grassroots organizing experience. Knowledge gaps and imposter syndrome can be serious threats to morale and motivation within grassroots organizers. If a citizen feels overwhelmed or intimidated by the process to affect change, it will be a greater challenge to engage them. Legislative tracking and research tools can reduce these gaps and empower citizens with the knowledge and confidence they need to focus on their advocacy.

    Networking and Outreach

    Grassroots advocacy organizations overwhelmingly focus on their successes, their collective actions, and their unique power — it can be easy to forget that these organizations are often incredibly large and complex communities. A grassroots advocacy organization like Moms Demand Action, with nearly 10 million supporters, requires powerful communication tools in order to keep their community engaged, and to recruit new advocates. Even smaller, local organizations can benefit from spending less time tracking down volunteers or emailing newsletters. 

    Among the technology that these organizations use are CRM and fundraising management tools like EveryAction, ActBlue and Salesforce, outreach tools like Mobilize or one of the many peer-to-peer texting and calling solutions, and more commonplace communication technology like Zoom, Slack, and social media to keep their community updated on their actions.

    Legislative Research

    For organizations working to affect change in the legislative process, a legislative tracking and research tool is a particularly valuable solution. These tools simplify the legislative process, and ensure that organizers are spared from navigating clunky state websites or studying the confusing web of procedures and actions a bill takes on its path to become law. With a powerful policy intelligence tool, finding, tracking, and impacting the legislation that matters to an organization can be intuitive and efficient, rather than intimidating and time-consuming. 

    Legislative tracking tools couple powerful search engines and user-friendly design with boundless legislative data to ensure that a new volunteer making their first trip to the state capitol has easy access to the same information as a veteran professional lobbyist. Additional features, depending on the quality of the solution being utilized, may include artificial intelligence-driven insights, customizable alerts, or collaboration tools. Read on to learn more about Plural, the best legislative tracking solution for grassroots organizations.

    Tagged Bills for Grassroots Organizing

    A key similarity in the work of most, if not all, grassroots organizations is an intention to communicate with their community about their work, and the issues impacting their community. As mentioned above, the legislative process is opaque to many, and this can make a community less receptive to reports on progress, or calls to action. The “tagged bills” feature withinPlural serves as both a networking and outreach tool and as a legislative research tool, making it a particularly valuable solution for grassroots organizations. 

    Within Plural, users can easily categorize legislation into “tags”. These tags are user-generated, meaning they can serve any organization’s purpose, they can be built and maintained collaboratively, and they allow for teams to efficiently align on the status of a category of legislation of interest. Unlike other policy intelligence tools, Plural prioritizes collaboration by granting unlimited seats. However, public tags can be shared with those without a Plural user account. In this way Plural empowers an organization’s policy team to customize their view of the policymaking process, and to share that view with their community.

    Case Study: Plural for Regional Workers’ Centers

    As an example, let us think of how a regional workers’ center based in Virginia might use a tool like Plural’s tags to assess legislation impacting their community and to engage that community in their advocacy. Throughout labor history, workers’ centers have fought alongside labor unions against certain labor practices. These organizations are often formed by and made up of individuals without access to the collective bargaining process, including immigrant, low-wage, and contract workers, making them grassroots by nature. 

    Our example workers’ center may have just a few full-time staff, perhaps just one working on policy, and a large community of members who both benefit from and participate in the center’s legislative advocacy. The full-time policy worker cannot spend all of their working hours simply tracking legislation, as they may need to do if they were using only a state website. Instead, a policy intelligence tool like Plural would let them set up a series of saved searches and tags to ensure that they automatically captured and categorized all of the legislation pertaining to their community before the legislature. Pulling exports of these tags, or making them public, would allow for this legislative data, including important public hearing dates and bill movements, to be accessible amongst the community, thereby improving their engagement with the work. 

    Workers center advocacy can often focus on raising the minimum wage, especially considering they represent many communities in low-wage jobs. Beginning in 2012, the grassroots Fight for $15 movement has highlighted the fight to raise minimum wage’s through local, state, and federal legislation and has engaged many workers’ centers in the process. Among the tags our Virginia workers center might create and maintain for public access and transparency would be one tracking legislation aimed at changing the minimum wage, an example of which can be seen here: VA Minimum Wage Bills 2023.

    Learn more about Plural’s solutions for your grassroots organization

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  • How Does Congress Make Public Policy: 5 Little-Known Tools

    How Does Congress Make Public Policy: 5 Little-Known Tools

    For the past decade, Congress has been defined by small majorities and partisan gridlock. It is easy to forget that at times during President Obama’s first Congress, the Democratic caucus had a 60-seat majority in the Senate, or that President Obama’s cabinet included several conservative members. More recently, small majorities and a lack of bipartisanship have led to intense standoffs between lawmakers. For instance, during the Supreme Court nominations during President Trump’s administration and the upcoming debt limit fight President Biden’s administration is facing. 

    As these barriers to policy making have taken hold, we have seen Congress become increasingly reliant on little-known tools and procedures that allow them to avoid the Senate’s 60-vote thresholds and legislate with smaller majorities. Knowledge of these tools is crucial to understanding how Congress has passed major legislation, like the Inflation Reduction Act, and what proposals have viability to pass into law moving forward. Here are five tools Congress can use to affect change amidst partisan deadlock:

    The Congressional Review Act

    A path for Congress to reverse federal agency rulemaking.

    The Congressional Review Act (CRA) is an oversight tool that Congress established in the 1996 Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act to grant themselves additional oversight of the federal rulemaking process. The CRA requires federal agencies to report to Congress on any rules they issue and allows members of Congress to file a joint resolution of disapproval in an effort to overturn the issued rule within 60 legislative days of the rule being reported. While most legislation requires 60 votes to pass the Senate, joint resolutions require only a simple majority, making them a useful tool for a party with a slim majority. 

    The CRA has emerged as a popular tool for incoming administrations to use to disallow rulemaking finalized during the previous administration. There have been 20 successful joint resolutions of disapproval, with one passed early in the Bush administration, 16 passed during the Trump administration, and three passed so far during the Biden administration. 

    In eight additional cases, both chambers have passed joint resolutions of disapproval to oppose a rulemaking action taken by a sitting administration. Each has been predictably vetoed. Two joint resolutions of disapproval were passed by Congress and quickly vetoed by President Biden between February and April 2023. The first would have overturned a Department of Labor rule allowing retirement-plan managers to consider factors like climate change in their investment decisions. The second would have overturned a rule expanding environmental protections under the Clean Water Act.

    Congressional Intervention in the District of Columbia’s Legislative Process

    A limited, but powerful, role that Congress plays in the governing of Washington, D.C.

    While the Council of the District of Columbia’s legislative processes mostly align with state legislative processes, it differs significantly in that legislation passed by the D.C. Council must undergo a period of congressional review. Once a bill is signed by the Mayor or the Council overrides their veto, it becomes an Act and is sent to Congress for review. In most cases, Congress then has 30 days during which it can introduce a joint resolution disapproving of the Act. If passed by Congress and signed by the President, the joint resolution prevents the Act from becoming law. 

    Successful Congressional intervention is incredibly rare. In fact, when President Biden signed a resolution blocking a D.C. Council-passed Act that would have rewritten criminal sentencing laws in March 2023, it was the first such action in more than thirty years.

    The Filibuster

    A minority party’s favorite way to block passage of a bill. 

    Although most measures require only the votes of a simple majority to pass the Senate, we often hear of the need for the support of 60 Senators in order for a bill to have a chance at passage. This is because of the filibuster. The rules of the Senate generally allow for unlimited debate on measures, which can only be ended by 60 Senators voting to invoke “cloture”, which limits further debate on the measure to a maximum of 30 hours. The filibuster means that a minority of Senators may prevent a vote on a bill by refusing to invoke cloture and start the process to proceed to a vote. 

    Historically, the filibuster has been used in attempts to block additional war powers during World War I, civil rights legislation in the mid-20th century, and judicial nominations in the 2000s. Reactions to each of these have resulted in the filibuster being weakened in some ways, and simply modified in others. We are left with a filibuster that does not actually require a Senator to speak on the floor to block legislation (as was the case before the 1970’s), and which does have certain exceptions as discussed in numbers 4 and 5 below.

    While somewhat weakened, the filibuster remains an incredibly powerful tool that prevents a party with a simple majority, but not a 60-vote majority, from governing without some participation from the minority party. Recent partisan priorities like the Republican push to repeal the Affordable Care Act and Democratic efforts to raise the minimum wage have been hampered by the use of the filibuster by a minority group of Senators.

    Reconciliation

    An increasingly relied upon procedure to pass congressional priorities with a simple majority. 

    Created by the Congressional Budget Act in 1974, reconciliation is a special parliamentary procedure that allows for certain budget legislation to move through the Senate more quickly and with less support. Debate on reconciliation bills is limited to twenty hours, meaning that the 60-vote majority to end a filibuster that is needed for most legislation is not necessary and the bill can be passed with a simple majority. 

    Restrictions, mostly stemming from the Byrd Rule, limit what proposals can be included in a reconciliation bill. Among other restrictions, the Byrd Rule limits reconciliation bill provisions to only those that impact spending or revenues, prevents any provisions that would increase the federal deficit beyond ten years, and blocks any changes to Social Security. Decisions on whether a reconciliation bill meets the requirements set by the Byrd Rule are referred to the Senate Parliamentarian for interpretation.

    Congress may pass one reconciliation bill per year impacting revenue, spending, and the federal debt limit,up to a theoretical total of three bills. In practice, Congress generally passes at most one reconciliation bill in a year, impacting each of the three topics listed above.

    Twenty three reconciliation bills have been signed into law since the procedure was first used in 1980. An additional four reconciliation bills have passed Congress, but were vetoed by the President.

    The Nuclear Option

    The omnipresent tool of last resort.

    While the 60-vote majority to invoke cloture, end debate, and move legislation forward in the Senate is central to the Senate’s legislative process rules, changing those rules only requires a simple majority. This intricacy means that anytime a simple majority is road blocked by the threat of a filibuster, they do have the option of changing Senate rules to reduce the need for that 60-vote majority. Changing those rules in any fashion is controversial, and is generally referred to as the “nuclear option.”

    Use of the nuclear option has long been debated, threatened, and used as a bargaining chip. It wasn’t truly deployed until 2013, when Democrats removed the 60-vote requirement to invoke cloture and end debate on judicial nominations except for the Supreme Court. This allowed Democrats to overcome Republican filibusters of the Obama administration’s judicial nominations. 

    In 2017, a Republican Senate majority invoked the nuclear option to expand the changes made in 2013 to apply to Supreme Court nominations as well. This move allowed for the Supreme Court nomination of Neil Gorsuch,and later Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barett, to pass with a simple majority.  

    Since 2017, the nuclear option hasn’t been invoked, but both President Trump and President Biden have hinted at supporting its use to allow for certain legislation to pass with a simple majority. Debates over the debt limit, government funding, and abortion rights have all seen the nuclear option considered, but not used, in recent years.

    While these tools can make Congress’ actions harder to predict, follow, and understand, the policies they enact are just as important and impactful to our daily lives as legislation passed through traditional means. Being aware of each way that Congress may affect change is essential to following the modern federal legislative process. 

    Interested in learning how Plural can help unlock powerful legislative insights into Congressional actions and the modern legislative process? Book a demo today!

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  • Recapping America Votes State Summit 2023: Solutions to Supercharge Voter Engagement

    Recapping America Votes State Summit 2023: Solutions to Supercharge Voter Engagement

    Earlier this month, the Plural team attended the America Votes State Summit, a mainstay event in organizing that brings hundreds of state and national experts to Washington, D.C. for two days of strategizing, networking and energizing for the road ahead. Check out Plural team member Sophia Anwar’s recap of the event and hear her takeaways on strategies to supercharge community-led solutions and empower voter engagement.

    Across the country, we’re witnessing a trend that state field organizers have long seen coming: real political fights are happening and being won, or lost, at the state and local level. Attacks on civil rights and liberties, gerrymandering, and other misuses of power are occurring in local elections, including those for secretary of state seats, school boards, and state judge seats. These actions have devastating long-term implications.

    While most advocacy organizations have spent the better half of the last 20 years investing in their DC and federal offices and platforms, they have largely left their states to fend for themselves. Agile and long-term focused organizations have had their eye on the states and acknowledge that the only way to counter this attack is to provide states with resources and long term infrastructural investments.

    The Plural team at the 2023 America Votes State Summit.

    Empowering Community-Led Organizations

    Like clockwork, state and community-led organizations are on their own for the majority of the year. They make the best with the limited resources and volunteer base that’s available to them, requiring them to get creative and pivot to the best practices they live and breathe within their community. Two weeks before the presidential elections, they see an onslaught of funding and support— but are overwhelmed with how and when to deploy those funds effectively. As the votes are counted and the winner is announced, these same hard working organizers find themselves alone yet again.

    How can we break this cycle?

    This answer was posed and discussed throughout the America Votes Summit panels and in conversations across organizations.

    The answer is two-fold:

    1. We need to provide state organizations or state chapters with the capacity building resources they need to be able to succeed and work smarter, to mobilize and share information daily.
    2. Funders of these pro democratic organizations and issues must understand that their money is an investment, just like any other investment. The only way to see success at the ballot box is through long-term investments, not Election Day-specific short term investments.

    Authentic Voter Engagement Strategies

    There is a real debate on how to engage voters. Specifically, how to engage voters holistically throughout the year, and in their local and state elections. Authentic engagement, while the ideal, is easier said than done. Creating and fostering a space for authentic holistic engagement is a full-time job, one that state organizations and chapters are aware of and would love to be able to do, but lack the appropriate tools and resources. Sharing community insights and building genuine stakeholder relationships that can make impactful change calls for a long-term relationship.

    As a platform of community organizers and advocates, Plural understands this call to action and delivers on it, with the ability for community partners to work together, share information and resources. They alone can not be tasked with shouldering this burden everyday — they need resources.

    Investing in Grassroots Capacity Building and Infrastructure

    Investing in long term infrastructure is an extension of capacity building. Long term infrastructure allows state organizations to have the mechanisms in place to be able to execute on effective state strategic plans. The ability to build out a 2, 5 or 10-year plan allows teams to be in a position to accept and absorb the resources that come their way, and to be thoughtful regarding their deployment and returns. The successes we are seeing in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Georgia are the result of years of resource and infrastructural investment. 

    Infrastructural and data advantages cannot be built in the few weeks leading up to elections, and cannot be successful with aimless short-term or one-time funds, regardless of how large the investment. Through thoughtful, focused, and continual investments, donors and funders have the power to give organizations the infrastructural and data advantages necessary to be able to create a vibrant ecosystem of voter and civic engagement.

    Paths Forward: Empowering Grassroots Organizations

    We need to ask ourselves if we are ready to invest our time and resources in a long term relationship with community building. And if we are, the fastest way to do it is through the vehicle of technological tools.

    Community building can not be subject to a specific number of stakeholders or licensing seats. Plural lends itself to a collaborative approach by allowing for an unlimited number of users to share their personal stories and to provide community insights that national organizations do not have access to.

    Interested in learning more about Plural’s solutions for your team? Start a free trial today!

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  • Summarizing Bills With Generative AI

    Summarizing Bills With Generative AI

    So far in 2023, thousands of bills have been introduced in jurisdictions across the country. The sooner people understand them, the sooner they can start advocating for what they care about. Since bills can be long and complex, it’s often helpful to have a summary of the changes the bill is proposing. 

    Let’s take SB 396, “To create the social media safety act; to require age verification for use of social media; and to clarify liability for failure to perform age verification for use of social media and illegal retention of data.” This bill, from Arkansas’s 2023 Session,  regulates minors’ use of social media, like verifying users’ age and requiring minors to have parental consent. The bill is pages long with technical jargon and multiple textual changes. In this case, as for most Arkansas bills, the release does not include a legislature provided summary.

    Given the advancements of Artificial Intelligence in language tasks, we believe Language Models can help us understand bills. Here’s an AI summary for SB 396:

    “In SB 396, the bill proposes the creation of the Social Media Safety Act, which requires social media companies to verify the age of account holders, obtain parental consent for minors, and use reasonable age verification methods, which may include obtaining digitized identification or using other commercially reasonable age verification methods. The bill specifies that social media companies that knowingly violate the proposed act will be liable for damages resulting from a minor accessing a social media platform. The bill also outlines liability for commercial entities and third-party vendors related to the retention of identifying information after access to a social media platform has been granted.”

    Summarizing Bill Texts

    Language Models (LM) are specific generative models trained with big amounts of unstructured text data, with the goal of predicting the next word or the words adjacent inside the text corpus. With enough training data, number of parameters and computing power, these models can perform language tasks at human level and even maintain logical conversations. Language models are at the base of technologies such as ChatGPT, Bard, and others.

    Given the current capabilities of LM and generative AI, we decided to try using it to summarize bills. There’s ample evidence of using LLM to summarize new articles, emails, contracts, and even short stories. Longer texts such as books still present a challenge. Given the success in other fields, we decided to analyze bill texts using common summarization techniques. 

    But it’s not a trivial task! Our first round of testing revealed some barriers and rough edges to this approach. Here are a few examples of our first round of AI generated summaries, with corresponding Policy Expert Evaluations:

    As you can see, while the model is able to summarize some bills successfully, there are other cases where the model confuses statute and bill text, giving an incorrect summary of the proposed bill.

    View original bill texts here:

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    Summarizing Bill Changes

    Using AI and LM to summarize bills may be more complex than it seems. Since bills are mainly proposed changes to current statutes, if we pass the proposed text to a summarization model, it is often not able to differentiate between current and proposed law. However, if we pass only the changes in text, the model won’t have the necessary context to understand what the bill is proposing to change —  for instance, modifying the minimum wage from $12 to $15 may be a single character change.

    After additional research and help from our policy experts, we were able to find a combination of models and prompts that correctly identify most of the changes, with a better understanding of the current statutes and proposed law. Although it’s not perfect, the performance is significantly better.

    Next Steps: Utilizing AI to Improve Policy Analysis

    Despite improved performance, there are still hurdles to overcome. LMs can hallucinate, confidently share wrong answers, and even give biased responses. LMs also have a hard time analyzing very long texts, so large omnibus bills may be out of the question for now. Finally, there’s a lot of room for improvement in the model and prompting area besides this experiment.

    While limitations exist, it’s likely that LMs and generative AI can support and improve policy analysis, as it has been shown in other text based fields. While this remains a hard problem, at Plural, we’re committed to keep exploring the edges of the intersection between AI and public policy.

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  • A Case for the Use of AI in Policymaking

    A Case for the Use of AI in Policymaking

    One of the biggest barriers to people feeling connected to their government is a lack of understanding regarding how government works for them. Public policies (laws, regulations, rules, executive orders) are made through a complex process that involves lawmakers, advocates, lobbyists, community action and data. The policies they create and amend ends up having real impact on real people. Policy shapers use a variety of tools to make decisions about the policy they create, and with the growth of artificial intelligence technology across industries, policy shapers may be considering if they should use it as well. Here are some reasons why they should be curious about AI in improving their policymaking process.

    Why Does Transparency in the Legislative Process Matter?

    You may agree that laws should be created with the interest and support of the communities that are impacted. In a true democracy, every citizen’s voice is to be heard and considered in policymaking. Pluralism, in political philosophy and theory, prioritizes making room for diverse points of view in making decisions for society; it values power-sharing.

    Today, rather than seeing diverse and dynamic conversation about policy, we are seeing critical issues reduced down into one of only two extreme buckets of thought and consideration. What would fix that? We need a plurality of voices to be included in the creation of policy and laws.

    How Can AI Improve Transparency in Policymaking?

    The opportunity exists for the legislative process to become more responsive and inclusive. The technology of artificial intelligence can be applied in any context; what it does is perform tasks in smart and efficient ways by learning from models that it’s given. The more data it is given to learn from, the smarter the technology gets at understanding the data and answering questions. The information that the system is learning can then be given back to us policy shapers and changemakers so that we can make better data-driven decisions in the legislative process. Here are a few examples of how AI can be applied in two policy areas: healthcare and transportation.

    The Use of AI in Healthcare Policymaking

    Understanding the potential impacts of various policies is a key aspect of policymaking. AI has the potential to improve healthcare-related legislation by helping policy shapers: 

    • Analyze health data: AI engines can analyze vast amounts of health data, including public health statistics, to identify patterns and generate insights. This can inform policy shapers on how proposed policy may contribute to health outcomes and other impacts on a community.
    • Analyze healthcare costs: Assessing the cost-effectiveness of health policy and interventions can be streamlined by AI. The use of AI to calculate and model the cost of various scenarios quickly can help policymakers make better decisions about how to write policy.
    • Healthcare policy research: AI can help policy shapers in communities discover which proposed legislation is being introduced and moved through legislatures across the country. Once an advocacy organization or healthcare group is aware of policy that can potentially impact their community, they can take action to help support or block that policy.

    Overall, the use of AI can help policymakers make more informed decisions about healthcare policy by providing accurate, comprehensive information about the health needs of their constituents and the impacts of potential policy choices.

    The Use of AI in Transportation Policymaking

    As with health policy, AI has the potential to improve transportation legislation in a number of ways— here are a few examples:

    • Analyze traffic patterns: AI can help policy shapers make better informed decisions by providing and quickly analyzing real-time traffic data to identify patterns and insights. Policy changes to road infrastructure, public transportation routes, and traffic laws would be written to be more effective for communities.
    • Assess the environmental impact of transportation: By quickly computing complex data, AI could provide scenario modeling for different policy decisions. It could also help automakers figure out how to build their products to meet and optimize sustainability standards, for example carbon emissions. 
    • Transportation policy research: AI can help policy shapers and other transportation policy stakeholders, like manufacturers and drivers, make smarter decisions about which policies to support or oppose. In the US, there are laws and regulations that vary drastically state by state, and AI can help policy shapers understand that better.

    Overall, AI can help lawmakers make better-informed decisions about transportation policy by providing more accurate and comprehensive information about transportation needs, potential risks and impacts, and the potential effectiveness of different policy options.

    What Are the Risks Associated With the Use of AI in Public Policy?

    There are always risks when trying something new, especially when technology is used in a new application. However, the government sector and its related industries are not unfamiliar with using tools and resources to create efficiencies. We can look at the application of AI in the public sector with a little less fear if we consider:

    • Viewing AI as supplementary brainpower – AI allows policy experts and changemakers to think faster and with fuller data, and to have a better picture of the context in which their policy is impacting their cause. We already do this when we rely on reports from think tanks, testimonials, SMEs, etc. in developing policy. AI supercharges our  ability to process data and glean valuable insights used in policymaking.
    • Viewing AI as a tool, but look out for who is building the tool – AI is driven by algorithms designed by product development teams. The power of your AI tool will likely be dependent on the people and the organization that built it. Working with a vendor that you trust and that has a mission-driven approach to utilizing technology for society will likely lead to safer, more diverse and thorough outcomes when processing policy data.
  • The Case for Plural Over Spreadsheets

    The Case for Plural Over Spreadsheets

    In order to effectively engage with the policymaking process, especially at the state level, policy professionals, organizers, and lobbyists need a legislative tracking system that ensures they are well-informed and always up-to-date. The main source of legislative data is, of course, the legislatures themselves. Legislative information offices make physical copies of important materials accessible in-person; however, most tracking systems source their data from the legislature’s website, which is typically outdated, slow and unintuitive.

    Many policy professionals rely on manual processes to ingest basic bill info into a series of spreadsheets, word documents, calendars, and agendas. This can turn into a time and resource burden during the legislative session, when policy teams are already spread thin. 

    It is, however, becoming increasingly popular for professionals in the advocacy space to abandon these spreadsheets for a more efficient and intuitive software solution. Read on to see why, when it comes to software vs. spreadsheets for legislative tracking, there is clear momentum towards using software.

    The Importance of Legislative Tracking

    Whether you are a small contract lobbying shop, a national chapter-based advocacy organization, or a government affairs team at a corporation, legislative tracking is a core function of your work. Effective advocacy on behalf of your organization cannot be done without reliable data, and legislative tracking ensures that you constantly have the data you need. At its core, effective legislative tracking involves three key components:

    1. Top-of-funnel filter – Even if you’re only active in one state, you will likely see 2,000+ pieces of legislation introduced during a legislative session. A top-of-funnel filter must quickly parse this list of bills and identify the legislation that matters to your organization. 
    2. Timely Tracking – Once you have identified the legislation you need to be aware of, it is important to always be aware of where that legislation is in the legislative process, and quickly be updated when there are signs of movement. 
    3. Shareability – No policy work takes place in a vacuum, and you will need to share your work with colleagues, leadership, advocates, and partners. An effective legislative tracking tool makes communicating organization stances, legislative activity, and your impact on policymaking much easier.
    Whether you are a small contract lobbying shop, a national chapter-based advocacy organization, or a government affairs team at a corporation, legislative tracking is a core function of your work.

    Why Not Spreadsheets?

    I have built a few legislative tracking spreadsheets in my day, mostly using Google Sheets or desktop software like Excel. I found those spreadsheets to be effective and deliver value for the organizations I built them for, but I also learned that the effort that is required to build and maintain reliable legislative tracking spreadsheets is costly, and that effort could be better utilized to fulfill other responsibilities of a busy policy role. 

    Tracking policy in this way is inherently manual and opens the door to human error, including missing, inaccurate, or delayed information, which could have significant impacts on your advocacy efforts during a legislative session. 

    Additionally, as policy professionals, our expertise is in analysis and communication, not in building complex data visualizations. A good legislative tracking system does not need to be beautiful, but it should be intuitive, easily shareable, and always up-to-date. Abandoning spreadsheets for intelligent software solutions has become a popular choice to achieve these goals with greater ease.

    The Case for a Software Solution

    Moving to a software solution for your legislative tracking allows you to vastly reduce the amount of time your team spends ingesting data, and to reallocate that time towards more efficient advocacy.

    See below for a comparison of spreadsheets vs. a software solution, such as Plural, for your legislative tracking needs.

    Legislative Tracking with Plural

    Not all software solutions are created equally. Plural is an all-in-one platform with strong user reviews.  Our legislative tracking software was built and is continually advanced with the needs of the advocacy community in mind. Plural grants you all of the benefits of software solutions described above, along with mobile access, artificial intelligence-driven insights, and nationwide coverage to give you consistency across tracking all jurisdictions in a central location. 

    Intuitive Searching

    • Plural’s powerful search tools will be your efficient top-of-funnel filter. Whether you are proactively looking for legislation based on keywords, committee referrals, or sponsors, you will find that you can quickly build a list of bills that matter to you. Additionally, you can save searches to continually run so that, once a bill matches your selected criteria, it is automatically included in your results. 

    Intelligent Legislative Alerts

    • Our  team has more than a decade of experience with scraping legislative data from state websites, so you can be sure you’re  receiving the most accurate data, as quickly as possible. Not only will the up-to-date data you care about always be accessible to you and your team, but our system will also send you alerts about updates to legislation you are tracking. With Plural, you’ll be the first to know about the things that matter: upcoming committee hearings,new amendments, and more. 

    Team Collaboration

    • We take collaboration seriously at Plural. So seriously that, unlike other software solutions, we offer unlimited seats for your colleagues and collaborators. We are passionate about building features, like the ability to mention a teammate in a comment on a bill, that encourage as many of your partners to use the tool as possible.

    In addition to providing a more effective approach to legislative tracking, Plural has legislator and committee pages, an engaging UI, and more features that will upgrade your approach to policy.

    Experience the Power of Plural

    Move beyond clunky spreadsheets and expensive legacy tools and unlock advanced searching, intelligent tracking, and seamless collaboration with Plural. 

    GET STARTED WITH PLURAL
  • How to Improve Your Stakeholder Engagement

    How to Improve Your Stakeholder Engagement

    Advocacy efforts are most powerful and effective when all voices surrounding an issue come together and speak one unified truth. However, finding common ground amongst advocates may not always be possible. In these situations, the best way to discover points of alignment and find a path forward is through stakeholder engagement. 

    Stakeholder engagement is the cornerstone of a well-designed government relations strategy. It involves creating a strategic plan to identify, engage, collaborate, and communicate with key individuals or groups that may be impacted by or influential towards your advocacy priorities. Understanding and utilizing an effective strategy can set your advocacy goals up for success and help avoid any potential headaches along the way. 

    In this article, I’ll discuss the who, what, why, and how of an effective stakeholder engagement strategy along with some additional tips I’ve found useful in the field of government relations.

    What is Stakeholder Engagement?

    At its most basic level, stakeholder engagement is the process of identifying, developing and maintaining relationships with specific individuals or entities that are impacted by or have influence over the issues or goals that are important to your organization.

    Understanding the groups that have a stake in your organization and their priorities, needs, and capabilities will aid in the development of shared advocacy goals and opportunities to collectively work toward achieving them.

    Why is Stakeholder Engagement Important?

    Stakeholders can have a dramatic impact, for better or worse, on your organizational goals and the issues you care about.In some cases, stakeholders can deliver more impact than your organization could ever hope to have on its own.

    Some key benefits of developing a robust stakeholder engagement strategy for your organization include proactively identifying shared goals, common threads of understanding, and pain points within their stakeholder class. Stakeholder engagement strategies also help organizations  develop a holistic approach to advocacy that brings every available voice to the table.

    An effective stakeholder engagement strategy will result in all parties to the cause singing from the same sheet of music. Think of your organization as the conductor and each stakeholder as a member of the orchestra. You must bring out the best in each group and help them put their best foot forward at the right time to be an effective advocate for the issues as a collective group.

    Who are Stakeholders?

    Generally, stakeholders are anyone who has a stake in an organization — be it a financial stake (say a stockholder or an employee),  a stake in the outcomes produced by the organization, or maybe even a personal interest as a fan or devotee of the organization’s cause. In some cases, your stakeholders will be the best messenger of your cause and could also be the most impactful people when it comes to moving the needle forward. Understanding the needs, wants, and capabilities of your stakeholders is pivotal to the success of your organization and a crucial part of a successful government relations strategy. Building relationships and nurturing lines of communication with your stakeholders will give you more insight into your issue area from multiple vantage points, allowing you to develop  a more robust and nuanced advocacy approach. 

    For the most part, your stakeholders sit on a spectrum directly drawn from the impact your goals will have on their personal and/or professional lives. As such,  the outcome you seek defines those you must engage throughout the stakeholder engagement process.

    In many cases, the goals of your organization will define your stakeholders. Working backwards from the end result you seek can help illuminate the stakeholders you must engage. Ask yourself questions such as: 

    • What is the specific desired outcome? Passing legislation, repealing regulations, winning a campaign?
    • Who will most effectively help achieve these goals?
    • Who is best situated to prevent success if not engaged properly?
    • When is the most impactful time to engage specific sets of stakeholders?

    These questions are a good place to start, but every situation will require an additional set of specific questions you must ask yourself to build out a map out your stakeholder class and further hone your overall strategy.

    How to Map Your Stakeholders

    In my experience with government relations work, I’ve come across a number of ways to map out stakeholders. I’ve found it helpful to break down stakeholder groups into tiers based on level of influence and decision-making power and, further, subgroups within each tier based on the extent to which the stakeholder will be impacted by the expected outcome. This exercise illuminates two key elements that are helpful in putting together an advocacy strategy: first, the reach of a stakeholder’s potential influence on the desired goal; second, their motivation or potential motivation toward taking action to achieve the desired goal.

    Example: Stakeholder Mapping in New Fiction, USA

    As an example, let’s say our desired goal is to pass legislation in the town of New Fiction to increase the number of stop signs near schools.

    The most influential stakeholder  on this issue would likely be anyone who has a direct say or vote in determining the outcome — the chair of the city’s transportation committee, council members on the committee, and the mayor of New Fiction. Next, is who’s likely to be impacted the most — students, schools, their neighborhoods, and council members who represent districts with the most schools.

    It’s at the crossroads of influence and impact that we see a fourth impacted group, council members representing districts with schools. This group has access to the most influential individuals on this issue, as well as a say in the process themselves. Therefore, they should be our most sought after and targeted stakeholder.

    Want to get started on your own stakeholder mapping? Download our free, fully-customizable stakeholder mapping visualization tool today!

    DOWNLOAD NOW

    Engaging Key Stakeholders in Strategic Planning

    Engage Before

    Before beginning the planning process, it can be useful to get a sense of the goals and priorities you share with your key stakeholders.This can be accomplished either through polling, interviews or surveys and in person meetings with one or more of your stakeholder groups. Mapping your stakeholders will likely illuminate which groups should receive more intensive engagement, such as a face-to-face meeting and ongoing communication, or a one-time survey.

    The information gleaned throughout this process should guide your internal strategic planning process and help to ensure all your bases are covered regarding your stakeholder class.

    Engage During

    Once you have a plan in place and have mapped out your stakeholders, a communication strategy is necessary to ensure important and useful information is shared with your stakeholders. This strategy should create a two-way communication structure that will allow your organization to provide and receive pertinent updates and allow your stakeholders to deliver any feedback. Periodic  check-ins, briefings, and even happy hours can be useful tools to facilitate discussion.

    It’s important to remember that each group of stakeholders will require their own unique mode of communication to most effectively meet their needs and to ensure they are properly engaged in this process.  For instance, stakeholders such as the community organizations that you partner with and the lobbyists you hire should probably not be on the same weekly check-in. These two entities serve separate purposes and use different approaches to achieve their desired outcomes. If there is a specific reason they should be receiving the same information, host a separate special briefing. Generally speaking, the method of engagement for each of your stakeholders should be unique in order to meet their respective needs.

    Engage After

    Once your strategic plan is complete, it’s time to share your findings and receive last minute stakeholder feedback before advocacy begins. Debriefs or large gatherings of your stakeholders can be a great way to disseminate this information. Holding a second round of smaller meetings with key stakeholders where you can dive into the information with a bit more detail may also be a good idea, depending on the complexity of your advocacy issues or goals.

    Ongoing Stakeholder Engagement

    As you and your team execute your strategic plan, remember to take advantage of opportunities to continually  develop your stakeholder relationships through as many modes as possible. This includes, but is not limited to: events, check-ins, information exchanges, and feedback discussions. These interactions will provide ample opportunities for your organization to find new avenues for advocacy and deepen the bond between you and your stakeholders, which will ultimately increase trust – the secret sauce of stakeholder engagement. 

    Along this same line, continue to evaluate your stakeholder map as individuals and groups will evolve from year-to-year, and even month-to-month. The advocacy landscape is ever-changing and effective engagement can only be done with up-to-date information. Outdated Information leads to ill advised assessments and poor advocacy outcomes. It’s imperative to keep a close eye on the viability and accuracy of your stakeholder map along with your organization’s strategic plan. 

    Finally, be flexible and keep your options open. It’s best to have multiple or overlapping stakeholders with influence in key areas of your advocacy issue areas. Elected officials and their staff come and go, and stakeholder groups may shift their advocacy focus or level of involvement. Always be prepared to manage the risk of a potential gap in bandwidth and continue to cultivate relationships within your issue purview. 

    Ready to supercharge your stakeholder engagement? Download our free, fully-customizable stakeholder mapping visualization tool now.

    DOWNLOAD THE TOOL

    Orlando Jones is the Deputy Director for Government Relations at the Secure Elections Project.

  • Supporting Diverse Leadership in Public Policy and Advocacy

    Supporting Diverse Leadership in Public Policy and Advocacy

    In honor of Women’s History Month, we asked our clients at Mississippi Votes and Equal Justice USA: Why does diverse leadership and representation matter in public policy and advocacy? Read on to see their responses, as well as learn more about barriers to diverse leadership and ways to support a new generation of leaders.

    In recent years, there’s been growing recognition of the importance of diverse leadership, particularly women’s leadership, in public policy and advocacy work. Women and other historically marginalized groups bring unique perspectives and experiences to the table, and their leadership can help to create more inclusive, equitable policies and programs.

    What are the benefits of women’s leadership in public policy and advocacy work?

    One of the key benefits of women’s leadership in public policy and advocacy work is that it helps to amplify the voices of underrepresented groups. Women, particularly women of color and members of the LGBTQIA+ community, have historically been excluded from positions of power and decision-making roles, and their perspectives and experiences have been overlooked in policy development. By bringing more women into leadership roles, we can ensure that a wider range of voices are heard and that policies are developed with the needs of all communities in mind.

    Research has shown that women tend to approach leadership differently than men, and these differences can be particularly beneficial in the realm of public policy and advocacy. In general, women tend to be more collaborative, inclusive, and empathetic in their leadership styles, which can help to build consensus and create more equitable policies. 

    Another important benefit of women’s leadership in public policy and advocacy work is that it can serve as a model for future generations. When girls and young women see women in positions of power, they are more likely to believe that they too can achieve their goals and make a difference in their communities, breaking down gender stereotypes and empowering young women to pursue leadership roles in a variety of fields, not just policy and advocacy.

    Barriers to Diverse Leadership

    Despite the many benefits of women’s leadership in public policy and advocacy work, there are still significant barriers that prevent women from stepping into these roles.

    One major barrier is the lack of representation of women in politics and other leadership positions. Women make up just 28% of the U.S. Congress and only 33% of state legislatures. This lack of representation can create a self-perpetuating cycle, as women may be less likely to run for office or pursue leadership roles if they do not see other women in these positions.

    Another barrier is gender bias and discrimination. Gender bias often leads to women being underestimated and undervalued, making it more difficult for them to advance into leadership roles. Women also face challenges in building professional networks and finding mentors, as many industries and organizations, particularly government and public policy, are male-dominated. Additionally, societal expectations and stereotypes about gender roles can lead to women being viewed as less assertive or decisive than their male counterparts, making it more difficult for them to assert their authority and be taken seriously as leaders.

    Empowering Women’s Leadership

    Empowering women’s leadership in public policy and advocacy is crucial for achieving gender equality and ensuring that women’s voices and perspectives are represented in decision-making processes. Here are some ways to promote and support women’s leadership in public policy and advocacy:

    1. Encourage women to pursue careers in public policy and advocacy: This can be done by promoting gender equity in education, providing mentorship and networking opportunities for women, and ensuring that workplaces have equal opportunities and are free from discrimination.
    2. Create spaces for women’s leadership: This includes establishing and supporting women-led organizations, creating opportunities for women to lead within existing organizations, and establishing quotas for women’s representation in decision-making bodies.
    3. Provide training and resources: This includes training on leadership and advocacy skills, providing access to information and resources, and creating opportunities for women to learn from experienced leaders.
    4. Amplify women’s voices: This includes promoting women’s leadership through media and public speaking opportunities, creating opportunities for women to share their stories and experiences, and ensuring that women’s voices are represented in decision-making processes.
    5. Address structural barriers: This includes addressing systemic barriers such as gender-based discrimination, unequal access to education and employment opportunities, and gender-based violence.
    6. Engage men as allies: Men can play an important role in promoting women’s leadership by being allies and advocating for gender equity and women’s rights.

    Overall, promoting women’s leadership in public policy and advocacy requires a comprehensive approach that addresses systemic barriers, promotes education and training, creates opportunities for women to lead, and engages men as allies.

  • Recapping Austin Unified Jam 2023: Solutions to Increase Civic Engagement

    Recapping Austin Unified Jam 2023: Solutions to Increase Civic Engagement

    Over the weekend, the Plural team attended Austin Unified Jam, a celebration of activist culture. Each year, Unified Jam brings together local and national voices to talk about the work they’re doing, learn from each other, and strengthen the organizer community. Read on to learn Plural team member Sophia Anwar’s takeaways from the event. Interested in learning more about Plural? Book a demo with Sophia today!

    Civic Engagement During COVID-19

    At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, there was an outpouring of civic engagement. Americans, regardless of their demographics or socioeconomic class, were suddenly more engaged than ever. Where is that outpour of engagement today? What aspects of daily life restrict the ability of people in communities across America to engage? Prohibitively expensive childcare, long work hours, a lack of transportation, exhaustion, defeat? Unified Jam panelists brought this question to the forefront and tackled it in interesting ways throughout the event.

    The Plural team at Unified Jam on March 11, 2023. From left to right: Shawntera Hardy, Yemi Adewunmi, Damola Ogundipe, Carrie Fisher, and Sophia Anwar.

    The Digital Landscape of Civic Engagement

    According to the panelists, one solution to improve civic engagement is technology. The events of 2020 forced every organization and company to adapt to a virtual environment. While there was certainly a learning curve to overcome during the beginning of the virtual era, across the country, people found ways to stay connected. This connection allowed those who were previously barred from engagement to jump on a Zoom call and get started.

    The 2008 presidential campaign put digital on the map. Today, there is no civic or political engagement that occurs without a digital presence. With the plethora of social media and technology platforms, how do you build an authentic voice and utilize digital tools to reach your goals? At Plural, we recognize that tackling systemic issues or attempting to overhaul years of policy is not something that can be shouldered by one person alone. It takes a community. Community building and coalition building is a tried-and-true tactic. It’s true for our representatives in Congress as they build a majority, it’s true in our cities as we show up and represent our voting bloc, and it’s true in state houses across the country as buses pull up for lobby days with their state legislators. But community and coalition building takes time that not every organization has.

    AI as a Tool for Community Organizers

    Through the recent spur of AI technology, manual efforts to pull public data can be done in a few clicks, freeing time to strategize and work through solutions. AI can be a great tool for community organizers, allowing them to reach every member of their community all year round while also gathering timely, accurate, and accessible information, work that used to take extensive time, money, and effort.

    A New Generation of Leaders

    Another rallying cry that was voiced throughout the event was the need for authentic, diverse leaders. It’s easy to applaud the folks who are using nontraditional means to engage a wider audience, often becoming viral sensations in the process through TikTok and other social media platforms. What are we doing to support this next generation of leaders? How do we lift the voices of not just one, but many leaders who have the resources and tools to stay engaged and create change? The answer came down to leadership pipelines, supporting movement leaders, and providing tools for communities to sustain themselves.

    Key Takeaways from Unified Jam 2023

    We are a nation full of rich stories and lived experiences. Our experiences and triumphs are a part of our narrative. In the extreme polarization of today’s issues, what’s missing is the human component. We are sold stories of the other without ever knowing that the other is our neighbor. Finding connection and channeling it as our political voice will help us achieve unity. We need to listen to our storytellers, and use their gifts to cut through the noise.

    At Plural, we want to help you tell your story and help you ensure that the voices of your community are being heard at the table where decisions are being made.

    Are you ready to learn more about the power of Plural for community organizing and civic engagement?

    GET STARTED WITH PLURAL
  • How to Write a Public Policy Brief

    How to Write a Public Policy Brief

    Government Affairs professionals are often experts not just in how public policy is made, but also in the issues impacting their organization. With this dual expertise, Government Affairs teams find themselves explaining the legislative process to their internal teams and explaining organizational domain knowledge to legislators. Whether communicating internally or externally, a policy brief can be a valuable tool to concisely relay information and influence decision-making. 

    Read on to learn how to write a policy brief and download a free customizable policy brief template.

    What is a Policy Brief?

    Policy briefs are concise, written documents that provide policymakers with a clear understanding of an issue and suggest policy options based on research, analysis, and evidence. A reader should finish your policy brief with a clear understanding of the problem and an informed perspective regarding potential courses of action. 

    An effective policy brief will describe a challenge for policymakers to address, critically summarize the research into this particular challenge, outline policy options available, and, often, make a policy recommendation. And it will do it all in under 1,000 words, hence the term brief! 

    Planning a Policy Brief

    Before starting to write a policy brief, it is important to understand the purpose and intention of what you are creating. Policy briefs are generally reactive, making the intention of the brief quite clear: an upcoming referendum that will require your organization to take a public stance on a controversial issue may create the need for a brief outlining your options. Even when your purpose is clear, it can be helpful to summarize it in a sentence or two at the top of your draft so that it remains top-of-mind while you write your brief. 

    With the purpose of your brief established, it is also important to understand the audience that will be reading it. Most policy briefs should be directed to a few decision-makers that are responsible for addressing the issue at hand. 

    Understanding these factors will inform the decisions you will make about the brief’s length, level of detail, and format. For example, a brief aimed at summarizing the Governor’s budget for your detail-oriented CFO may be longer and text-only, while a brief outlining the impact of universal free school lunches for a busy education committee chairperson may rely on graphs and figures that quickly get their attention.

    Policy briefs are concise, written documents that provide policymakers with a clear understanding of an issue and suggest policy options based on research, analysis, and evidence.

    Crafting a Policy Brief

    The content of a brief will, of course, vary based on your topic. Regardless of their topic, the most engaging policy briefs make use of persuasive language, graphs or figures summarizing supporting statistics, and section headings that allow your reader to quickly find the information they need. 

    A convincing policy brief will include the following components:

    • Title – A compelling title that clearly states the topic to be covered will make your complete brief more memorable to its audience. 
    • Executive Summary – In one or two paragraphs, or in a short bulleted list, clearly communicate the issue at hand, its importance, and your recommendations. 
    • Background Information & Research – Outline the scope and impact of the problem. Where possible, cite credible sources and highlight the importance of the issue as it applies to your audience. If there is specific knowledge required to fully understand the significance or importance of the issue, provide straightforward context and information without using jargon or terminology that the audience may not be familiar with. 
    • Policy Options – With the impact of the problem established, outline any current efforts that seek to address the problem and any additional proposals that have been offered or are being considered. Citing credible sources and providing analysis of the impact of the policy is a great way to provide valuable  additional information for the reader.
    • Policy Recommendation – At this point, it’s time to deliver a broad policy recommendation to your audience. The previous components of your brief should support your recommendation, so your audience will be well-prepared to receive your conclusion. Again, it’s important to cite statistics, analyses, and sources that support your position. 
    • Sources & Further Reading – For readers who want to explore more, a section linking to the helpful sources you found in your research can be incredibly valuable, further establishing you as a thought leader on that issue.

    Ready to get started? Download our fully-customizable policy brief template!

    DOWNLOAD NOW

    Reviewing Your Policy Brief

    As with any piece of professional writing, it’s important to review your policy brief to ensure  it meets the purpose you set out to achieve, is appropriate for its intended audience, and that your  writing is clear and concise. Here are a few practices we recommend employing to  ensuring your brief is ready to be shared:

    • Try summarizing your brief in a 20-second “elevator pitch”. If you are unable to quickly explain the main points of the brief, it’s likely that the brief is not focused enough. 
    • Ask a friend or colleague that is not familiar with the topic for feedback. If your brief does a good job of explaining the issue at hand, even a layperson with no context should be able to understand the general messages that you are delivering. 
    • Spend the time to review and clean up your formatting. While it can be tempting to rush through formatting once your brief is written, it’s important to remember that how your brief lookswill make an important first impression. Ensure that your brief is on your organization’s letterhead, all text is presented in consistent and appropriate font, and that any images or charts are positioned correctly.

    Using a Policy Brief

    A policy brief is a dynamic document that can be used for a number of purposes. Beyond simply emailing your document to your audience (which is still valuable!), here are some other ways that policy briefs can be used in your work:

    • As a handout/outline for a presentation – A policy brief can serve as a useful outline for a presentation. It can also be helpful  to leave for your audience to review after a presentation. 
    • In aligning leaders’ talking points – In conversations with the public or the media, it’s important that your organization’s leaders deliver consistent messaging. A policy brief can serve as the basis for a decision your organization made, making the brief an important starting point for developing talking points.  
    • As a source of truth in your organization – A well-written policy brief will not only aid policymakers in their decisionmaking process, it can also be a reliable document for your colleagues to understand your organization’s position when related issues are considered in the future.
    DOWNLOAD OUR POLICY BRIEF TEMPLATE
  • Proving Your Worth: The Value of Government Relations Teams

    Proving Your Worth: The Value of Government Relations Teams

    Government Relations (GR) professionals often find themselves explaining their day-to-day or defining their occupation generally. When meeting non-GR folks or at family gatherings I’m consistently asked the same question: “What is it that you do again, exactly?”

    I’ve even experienced this with colleagues and teams  that have worked alongside GR for years.

    If you’re explaining, you’re losing — right?

    The Importance of Government Relations Teams

    For those of us in the trade, the value of government relations is crystal clear, especially as an increasing number of industries and interests find themselves having more interaction with local, state, and federal government entities. 

    In the midst of the political and legislative uncertainty, government relations departments at the very least: 

    • Make sense of the nonsense by identifying the most trustworthy and accurate tea leaves for analysis
    • Outline the array of legislative possibilities to come and the optimal path(s) that must be navigated to achieve our goal(s)
    • Manage the needs and expectations of our allies and partner organizations
    • Keep leadership informed and ahead of legislative outcomes, armed with the most accurate and timely information to inform their decisions

    I have found one of the most valuable and useful tools to achieve each of these items outlined above is bill tracking software. But not just any bill tracking service will do. Throughout my career so far, I have used just about every tracking service out there, but none have hit the mark like Plural (formerly known as Enview). 

    Plural for Government Relations Teams

    The timely and accurate legislative updates matched with the ease of use with Plural are phenomenal – it’s like using Facebook or Instagram but for bill tracking. Most important for my team are the collaboration capabilities, and the platform’s available options to customize the tool to the needs of our organization.

    These two items have been a game changer and added so much value and impact to our work. 

    When we signed on with Plural, formerly Civic Eagle, in 2019, bill tracking was an occasional pesky task that usually trailed off halfway through session and would rise from the dead at some point after Sine Die when leadership asks where we landed on our priorities. 

    Thanks to Plural, bill tracking is now a central part of our department’s organizational operation, encompassing collaboration between multiple departments, informing decisions on the allocation of resources, and helping us illustrate the national landscape of state-based legislative sessions with specific examples and hard numbers from the more than 1,000 bills we track each year.  

    Defining Your Team’s Value with Collaboration and Customization

    Of course, nothing in this business proves the value of GR more than outcomes. Plural has allowed us to increase our ability to engage on legislation by multiple folds. When tracking more than 1,000 bills across the country each year, the ability to create custom functions within the platform allowed us to narrow that massive, often overwhelming pile of legislation to just the most viable and impactful bills, allowing us to focus our attention on the pieces of legislation with the most effect and act accordingly.

    Plural has without a doubt met our bill tracking needs with ease, providing opportunities for us to robustly engage on legislation across multiple states. However, its collaboration and customization features have really been the game changer, going beyond our expectations and helping us demonstrate our value.

    I have seen first-hand how, for most, GR Departments occupy a nebulous space in the legislative process.  Being couched between interest groups, trade associations, consultants, lobbyists, legal departments, and lawmakers can muddy the waters even further, leaving GR professionals searching for opportunities, examples and sometimes even the words to define their value. With Plural, that’s a problem of the past — we’re able to cut through the noise with ease and robustly define our value.

    Orlando G. Jones, Jr. is the Deputy Director of Government Relations with the Secure Elections Project, dedicated to advancing pro-voter policies at the state level that modernize the voting process and ensure that every American can have their voice heard at the ballot box. A skilled government relations professional with over a decade of experience in various advocacy arenas, Orlando is a former children’s health lobbyist, U.S. Congressional House and committee staffer, and has held positions on successive presidential campaigns. Orlando graduated from Howard University with a BA in History and Philosophy and a JD from NIU College of Law.

  • Civic Eagle Is Now Plural

    Civic Eagle Is Now Plural

    Same mission, more data, better public policy outcomes.

    In the English language, the definition of plural is “more than one.” We believe that government works best when people work together — and have access to the most robust data possible. 

    According to Damola Ogundipe, CEO, “It’s time that our brand reflects our current and future state. The public policy professionals that shape the future will use the latest technology to empower many voices, hence the name Plural.”

    Plural shares a radical vision — improving democracy through technology. Since its launch, the software has evolved from public policy tracking to also include robust data and features like tagging and collaborative workspaces. Plural also uses AI to identify similar legislation and bill language in adjacent jurisdictions to help in our users’ research. 

    In 2020, we welcomed OpenStates.org into our portfolio. Aligned with our mission, OpenStates.org brings an invaluable vibrant community of technologists focused on civic data projects, and will continue to serve as a public resource for the greater community. Legacy organizations collect data and exclusively sell it to professional policy advocates. So why do we make it so accessible? 

    According to our CTO, Jesse Mortenson, “Our vision is not limited to top notch bill tracking for policy professionals. Our vision is a future where people and data drive public policy. Open civic data opens the door for everyone to drive policymaking conversations.” 

    Our vision is not limited to top notch bill tracking for policy professionals. Our vision is a future where people and data drive public policy. Open civic data opens the door for everyone to drive policymaking conversations.

    Jesse Mortenson

    CTO, Plural

    Why the name Plural?

    “We set out to develop an identity that best reflects our vision for broader and more effective engagement in democracy, better public policies, and ultimately, better quality of life for people everywhere,” says Yemi Adewunmi, COO. We explored the themes and attributes of that vision to hone in on names, symbols, and messaging that would best represent our vision.

    At its core, the Plural flag is a symbol for how our technology can empower many voices to create a stronger democracy. The shapes within help signal this cumulative effect, as well as the resulting collaboration between people, technology, and data. The angles convey movement, specifically the charting of a new path for democracy to move forward. 

    What’s next?

    Since launching, we’ve worked with hundreds of policymakers, nonprofits, government relations teams, law firms, coalitions, and associations execute on policy agendas and bring transparency to civic engagement, and there is so much more on the horizon. You can expect to see many improvements over the coming months, including:

    • More data and access to information that teams need to influence policy and create change. Plural will offer clear insights into committee activity and more choice in how to be notified.
    • Advancements in artificial intelligence to take rote mechanics out of the difficult work of policymaking, and creating powerful new insights into the policy landscape
    • New innovative ways to dynamically share work with partners and communities – connecting people together and strengthening advocacy. 

    We help you shape public policy so you can shape the future. Search, track, and collaborate on bills that matter most. That’s the power of Plural.

    The Future of Public Policy is Now

    Gain the edge you need to elevate your work and shape policy.

    DOWNLOAD NOW

    Learn more and start shaping policy with Plural.

    To learn more, book a demo with our team and we can show you how to easily see, share, and shape policy with smarter data and artificial intelligence.

    GET STARTED WITH PLURAL