Many nonprofit associations rely heavily on local, story state and federal government representatives and their legislative activities to stay relevant. Whether nonprofits need funding, or a change in laws or regulations, the survival and viability of nonprofits is sustained by managing and influencing that governmental activity. In this article, we take a look at why grassroots software for success.
How Government Relations Software Can Boost Advocacy
As any executive director will tell you, managing legislative expectations can be a full-time job. The amount of data relevant to a nonprofit can be overwhelming and difficult to track and organize. Associations must have at their fingertips a wealth of information including names and contact information for important members of Congress, bills drafted pertinent to your mission, and email information for supporting constituents and contacts. As such, government relations software is a key ingredient to the success of your advocacy and government relations efforts.
Knowing and taking advantage of political relationships are often the key to impacting the political process. A grassroots software solution permits your supporters to systematically record and categorize relationships between themselves and legislators. You can quickly access people who have relationships, when action is needed, using these supporter relationships to get your message across to specific legislators.
With Government relationship software providers you have many options (with or without your Membership Software integration) to address this area of need for your organization.We can help your organization find the exact kind of intuitive interface your association requires to obtain the following 8 benefits:
The ability to maintain an up-to-date database of all members of Congress, their staff and state legislators and their staff.
The capability to provide zip to district matching data sets .
The control of linkage by geocoding the address to census block group
The ability to manage constituent contacts by matching address information with their appropriate legislators. Government relations software allows you to organize and email your contacts easily.
The ability to send professional email blasts with a selection of pre-designed templates. After you send an email, pull comprehensive reports on such things as bounces, click throughs, open rates, and unsubscribes.
The ability to track bills and votes that are important to your nonprofit.
The ability to organize meetings and events seamlessly with easy-to-use private and group calendar functionality. Create reports based on attendees, notes and other relevant event documents.
The ability to filter congressional and state legislative news pertinent to your association
Your end result is a more powerful database for your government team members that can be used for engaging supporters to contact legislators. Plus, the legislator relationship data enables you to be more strategic in locating people who can reach a specific legislator.
We believe that government relations software is not one size fits all. With this fact known, we take a consultative approach in our efforts to mutually explore with our clients the shared outcome of a solution that truly meets our customer’s needs.
For additional information on our approach to the software selection process for government relations needs of your organization please contact us. Until next time, keep SmartThoughts in mind.
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