For years, companies and organizations that Quorum has worked with have had a “subscription” person. Sometimes, it’s the person who just happens to be the most tech-savvy person in the office. Sometimes, it’s the office admin. Other times, it’s the person who has an existing relationship with the software provider.
But over the last two years, I’ve noticed an interesting trend: more government affairs teams have dedicated operations team members, and some organizations even have a whole government affairs operation team.
It makes sense — if you look around the rest of the enterprise, you’ll find operations functions for sales, customer relations, product, human resources, finances, and so on.
What Does The Government Affairs Operations Role Do?
So what do these operations teams do? Here are a few examples:
Supporting the Public Affairs Tech Stack
The first part is just like their predecessors: their job is to support and enable the work the rest of the team is doing. They manage all government affairs technology: the federal engagement system, the state legislative tracking platform, grassroots advocacy tools, PAC management software, etc. While Quorum and others work hard to make those tools easy to use, any platform takes time to learn, set up, and operate, which falls under the responsibility of the operations function. They act as the point person for vendor relationships, including contract renewals and exploring additional features and functionality.
Managing Government Affairs Budgets
In addition to technology, the government affairs operations role can manage the team’s budget. Since they are already managing the software budget, it makes sense to put them in charge of other line items like lobbying contracts, sponsorships, PAC and political donations, travel, and hiring. This has historically been the responsibility of the head of government affairs, but I know many leaders who have made an effort to delegate these responsibilities.
Department Analytics and Reporting
The third — and most interesting — part of a government affairs operations function is providing advanced analytics and insights into the work of the team. I first saw this when meeting with a Fortune 100 company five years ago. Their government affairs department had an analytics team that could do sophisticated dialogue mapping and analysis of their stakeholders — using both Quorum and third-party data. Their analysis enabled them to categorize stakeholders into groups based on the issues they cared about and their level of engagement.
I also met with a head of government affairs last summer who had an operations person doing robust analytics on the statements their team was hearing from officials. In one example, they uncovered a statistically significant increase in the use of a specific word from a key official. Even though it wasn’t published in a press release or news story, they now knew this issue would be a key priority for this official. Thanks to these insights, the government affairs team was able to change their messaging and lean into the issue with this official.
Teams in the US can also use analytics to look at how competitors are spending PAC dollars and who they are contributing to. This can help identify overlap and opportunities with competitors.
Demonstrating ROI
Return on investment is another area where advanced analytics comes into play. While this technically still falls under analytics and reporting, it is important enough that I think it deserves its own section.
People have spent tremendous energy working and expanding on ROI methodologies. Technology is now at a point where teams can provide significant insights into the monetary value of their efforts. Having someone core to the function’s work uncovering those insights can be very helpful.
I’m reminded of a head of government affairs who puts the top three priorities of the CEO into Quorum and has the team track every meeting interaction and tag how they advanced those top three priorities. At the end of the year, they go to the CEO and say, “You gave us X millions of dollars; here’s how we advanced your top 3 priorities priorities.” As you can imagine, the CEO loves it.
Each year, a national non-profit we work with produces a massive report showcasing their legislative work across all 50 states. The report shows their success across states, analysis of more competitors, the status of the bills they are tracking, and much more. The report helps the organization understand where their efforts are working, where they are falling short, and where their competition stands. As you can imagine, their third-party funders love this information because it shows the ROI of their donation.
Finally, I’ve seen organizations provide insights into how relationships change over time and their ability to improve relationships with stakeholders. The last blog I shared talked about setting up your stakeholder engagement strategy for 2024. If you read that and said, “Wow, this is amazing, but that’s gonna be a lot of work!” Well, the government affairs operations team would be the person to execute that work. Ideally, they would be able to show impressive graphs of how you started with relationships with only 50% of Capitol Hill, for example, and now you have relationships with the remaining 50%. Additionally, you can show the increase in lawmakers who actively support your issues and are willing to take action on your behalf. This gets really interesting when you apply this process across federal, state, and local levels.
The government affairs operations team helps connect the dots and make these ROI insights possible.
Hiring a Government Affairs Operations Team Member
If you have gotten this far and agree with the above you may be asking, “This sounds great. What do I need to do to hire one of these folks?”
Domain Expertise
First, I think it is always helpful for someone to have domain knowledge and expertise and be interested in the political system as the concepts will just come faster.
Tech-Savvy
Second, you want someone who is very tech-savvy — someone who loves using new technology and figuring out the bells and whistles. I often ask interviewees to describe why they are tech-savvy and to give me examples. You’ll find that tech-savvy individuals are excited to talk about the newest technologies they’ve been using in their personal and professional lives and you can see it sparks joy in them.
Strong Analytical Background
The third big piece that you’re looking for is someone with analytical expertise — an Excel wizard who can do more advanced analysis, whether it be in Python, R, Stata, or another tool. One of my favorite interview questions for this is early on to ask a candidate if they had to do a given task, what would they prefer: Microsoft Word or Microsoft Excel. You’ll want the person who prefers Excel and can just dive right in. You can then ask more advanced questions as to their understanding of Excel — most commonly used formulas, for example, to differentiate between a common Excel user and an advanced user.
Government Affairs Technology Experience
Finally, you can also look for someone who has experience with any of the leading government affairs technology platforms out there — whether it be Quorum or something else. But this is a “nice to have,” not a must-have. A tech-savvy person will find it easy to learn and get up to speed on the Quorum or other platform quickly and our customer success team can help.
Government affairs teams are advancing, and with that comes new skills teams need. If you’re looking to have an even greater impact, and show it off, consider a government affairs operations hire.
