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Challenge: Prove to Advocates Their Actions Matter

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the 116th Congress passed multiple relief bills, but the fitness industry struggled to receive enough funding to keep their industry afloat. To counter this, the GYMS Act, a $30 billion fund for affected businesses in the health and fitness industry was filed but never garnered enough support to pass. When the 117th Congress gavelled in, the GYMS Act was filed again. The International Health, Racquet & Sportsclub Association (IHRSA), already an advocate for fitness industry inclusion in the 2020 COVID relief packages, knew their advocacy base of fitness industry professionals could help get more co-sponsors signed, increasing the likelihood for bill passage. IHRSA needed a way to mobilize and expand their advocacy base beyond their member base to build the National Health & Fitness Alliance (NHFA), a coalition of fitness professionals that includes fitness equipment manufacturers, gym franchises, and small boutique fitness studios. Jake Landry, Public Policy Assistant at IHRSA used Quorum Grassroots to create a public dashboard to act as the home base for NHFA’s GYMS Act advocacy. The dashboard includes the real-time status of the bill, the number of cosponsors, a live feed of advocate actions, and provides steps advocates can take to build a larger coalition and report on bill progress to their base.

Solution: Use Quorum Dashboards to Create a Public Advocate Accountability System

When building the dashboard, Landry included components that motivate advocate participation and report advocate progress to their coalition in real-time. Once the dashboard was live, Landry presented IHRSA’s advocacy to recruit fitness industry professionals outside of IHRSA’s member base to grow their coalition. Screenshot of the NHFA GYMS Act Dashboard in Quorum  

Outline Steps for Advocates

While building the GYMS Act dashboard, IHRSA started with an outline of actionable steps for advocates situated front and center. This outline lowers the barriers to action for all advocates —providing step-by-step directions for both new and returning advocates. IHRSA's outline of steps an advocate can take in Quorum's software.

Encourage Friendly Competition

IHRSA strategically leaned into the fitness industry's love of competition by creating a live feed of advocate actions. IHRSA challenged coalition members in each state to race to get their representatives signed onto the bill as cosponsors first. The dashboard reports on GYMS Act update progress in real-time, allowing state advocates to see their wins as soon as they happen. Landry built in multiple ways to visualize progress to foster competition including feeds of most one-click messages sent by advocates in each state, most personalized messages sent in each state, top legislator targets, and more. To view the widgets IHRSA uses to incentivize competition and educate advocates on key legislators to target, click through the tabs below. [post_title] => IHRSA’s Advocacy Dashboard Drives 30,000 Emails to Congress and 123 New Co-Sponsors for Key Bill [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => ihrsas-dashboard-drives-key-bill [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2023-02-23 15:24:10 [post_modified_gmt] => 2023-02-23 15:24:10 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.quorum.us/?post_type=resources&p=5206 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => resources [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [queried_object_id] => 5206 [request] => SELECT wp_posts.* FROM wp_posts WHERE 1=1 AND wp_posts.post_name = 'ihrsas-dashboard-drives-key-bill' AND wp_posts.post_type = 'resources' ORDER BY wp_posts.post_date DESC [posts] => Array ( [0] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 5206 [post_author] => 23 [post_date] => 2021-05-25 21:43:27 [post_date_gmt] => 2021-05-25 21:43:27 [post_content] =>

Challenge: Prove to Advocates Their Actions Matter

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the 116th Congress passed multiple relief bills, but the fitness industry struggled to receive enough funding to keep their industry afloat. To counter this, the GYMS Act, a $30 billion fund for affected businesses in the health and fitness industry was filed but never garnered enough support to pass. When the 117th Congress gavelled in, the GYMS Act was filed again. The International Health, Racquet & Sportsclub Association (IHRSA), already an advocate for fitness industry inclusion in the 2020 COVID relief packages, knew their advocacy base of fitness industry professionals could help get more co-sponsors signed, increasing the likelihood for bill passage. IHRSA needed a way to mobilize and expand their advocacy base beyond their member base to build the National Health & Fitness Alliance (NHFA), a coalition of fitness professionals that includes fitness equipment manufacturers, gym franchises, and small boutique fitness studios. Jake Landry, Public Policy Assistant at IHRSA used Quorum Grassroots to create a public dashboard to act as the home base for NHFA’s GYMS Act advocacy. The dashboard includes the real-time status of the bill, the number of cosponsors, a live feed of advocate actions, and provides steps advocates can take to build a larger coalition and report on bill progress to their base.

Solution: Use Quorum Dashboards to Create a Public Advocate Accountability System

When building the dashboard, Landry included components that motivate advocate participation and report advocate progress to their coalition in real-time. Once the dashboard was live, Landry presented IHRSA’s advocacy to recruit fitness industry professionals outside of IHRSA’s member base to grow their coalition. Screenshot of the NHFA GYMS Act Dashboard in Quorum  

Outline Steps for Advocates

While building the GYMS Act dashboard, IHRSA started with an outline of actionable steps for advocates situated front and center. This outline lowers the barriers to action for all advocates —providing step-by-step directions for both new and returning advocates. IHRSA's outline of steps an advocate can take in Quorum's software.

Encourage Friendly Competition

IHRSA strategically leaned into the fitness industry's love of competition by creating a live feed of advocate actions. IHRSA challenged coalition members in each state to race to get their representatives signed onto the bill as cosponsors first. The dashboard reports on GYMS Act update progress in real-time, allowing state advocates to see their wins as soon as they happen. Landry built in multiple ways to visualize progress to foster competition including feeds of most one-click messages sent by advocates in each state, most personalized messages sent in each state, top legislator targets, and more. To view the widgets IHRSA uses to incentivize competition and educate advocates on key legislators to target, click through the tabs below. [post_title] => IHRSA’s Advocacy Dashboard Drives 30,000 Emails to Congress and 123 New Co-Sponsors for Key Bill [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => ihrsas-dashboard-drives-key-bill [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2023-02-23 15:24:10 [post_modified_gmt] => 2023-02-23 15:24:10 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.quorum.us/?post_type=resources&p=5206 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => resources [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) ) [post_count] => 1 [current_post] => -1 [in_the_loop] => [post] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 5206 [post_author] => 23 [post_date] => 2021-05-25 21:43:27 [post_date_gmt] => 2021-05-25 21:43:27 [post_content] =>

Challenge: Prove to Advocates Their Actions Matter

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the 116th Congress passed multiple relief bills, but the fitness industry struggled to receive enough funding to keep their industry afloat. To counter this, the GYMS Act, a $30 billion fund for affected businesses in the health and fitness industry was filed but never garnered enough support to pass. When the 117th Congress gavelled in, the GYMS Act was filed again. The International Health, Racquet & Sportsclub Association (IHRSA), already an advocate for fitness industry inclusion in the 2020 COVID relief packages, knew their advocacy base of fitness industry professionals could help get more co-sponsors signed, increasing the likelihood for bill passage. IHRSA needed a way to mobilize and expand their advocacy base beyond their member base to build the National Health & Fitness Alliance (NHFA), a coalition of fitness professionals that includes fitness equipment manufacturers, gym franchises, and small boutique fitness studios. Jake Landry, Public Policy Assistant at IHRSA used Quorum Grassroots to create a public dashboard to act as the home base for NHFA’s GYMS Act advocacy. The dashboard includes the real-time status of the bill, the number of cosponsors, a live feed of advocate actions, and provides steps advocates can take to build a larger coalition and report on bill progress to their base.

Solution: Use Quorum Dashboards to Create a Public Advocate Accountability System

When building the dashboard, Landry included components that motivate advocate participation and report advocate progress to their coalition in real-time. Once the dashboard was live, Landry presented IHRSA’s advocacy to recruit fitness industry professionals outside of IHRSA’s member base to grow their coalition. Screenshot of the NHFA GYMS Act Dashboard in Quorum  

Outline Steps for Advocates

While building the GYMS Act dashboard, IHRSA started with an outline of actionable steps for advocates situated front and center. This outline lowers the barriers to action for all advocates —providing step-by-step directions for both new and returning advocates. IHRSA's outline of steps an advocate can take in Quorum's software.

Encourage Friendly Competition

IHRSA strategically leaned into the fitness industry's love of competition by creating a live feed of advocate actions. IHRSA challenged coalition members in each state to race to get their representatives signed onto the bill as cosponsors first. The dashboard reports on GYMS Act update progress in real-time, allowing state advocates to see their wins as soon as they happen. Landry built in multiple ways to visualize progress to foster competition including feeds of most one-click messages sent by advocates in each state, most personalized messages sent in each state, top legislator targets, and more. To view the widgets IHRSA uses to incentivize competition and educate advocates on key legislators to target, click through the tabs below. [post_title] => IHRSA’s Advocacy Dashboard Drives 30,000 Emails to Congress and 123 New Co-Sponsors for Key Bill [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => ihrsas-dashboard-drives-key-bill [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2023-02-23 15:24:10 [post_modified_gmt] => 2023-02-23 15:24:10 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.quorum.us/?post_type=resources&p=5206 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => resources [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [comment_count] => 0 [current_comment] => -1 [found_posts] => 1 [max_num_pages] => 0 [max_num_comment_pages] => 0 [is_single] => 1 [is_preview] => [is_page] => [is_archive] => [is_date] => [is_year] => [is_month] => [is_day] => [is_time] => [is_author] => [is_category] => [is_tag] => [is_tax] => [is_search] => [is_feed] => [is_comment_feed] => [is_trackback] => [is_home] => [is_privacy_policy] => [is_404] => [is_embed] => [is_paged] => [is_admin] => [is_attachment] => [is_singular] => 1 [is_robots] => [is_favicon] => [is_posts_page] => [is_post_type_archive] => [query_vars_hash:WP_Query:private] => a17deafb6366baf0ca09dfff74ab900b [query_vars_changed:WP_Query:private] => [thumbnails_cached] => [allow_query_attachment_by_filename:protected] => [stopwords:WP_Query:private] => [compat_fields:WP_Query:private] => Array ( [0] => query_vars_hash [1] => query_vars_changed ) [compat_methods:WP_Query:private] => Array ( [0] => init_query_flags [1] => parse_tax_query ) )
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Case Study

IHRSA’s Advocacy Dashboard Drives 30,000 Emails to Congress and 123 New Co-Sponsors for Key Bill

IHRSA’s Advocacy Dashboard Drives 30,000 Emails to Congress and 123 New Co-Sponsors for Key Bill

Challenge: Prove to Advocates Their Actions Matter

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the 116th Congress passed multiple relief bills, but the fitness industry struggled to receive enough funding to keep their industry afloat. To counter this, the GYMS Act, a $30 billion fund for affected businesses in the health and fitness industry was filed but never garnered enough support to pass.

When the 117th Congress gavelled in, the GYMS Act was filed again. The International Health, Racquet & Sportsclub Association (IHRSA), already an advocate for fitness industry inclusion in the 2020 COVID relief packages, knew their advocacy base of fitness industry professionals could help get more co-sponsors signed, increasing the likelihood for bill passage. IHRSA needed a way to mobilize and expand their advocacy base beyond their member base to build the National Health & Fitness Alliance (NHFA), a coalition of fitness professionals that includes fitness equipment manufacturers, gym franchises, and small boutique fitness studios.

Jake Landry, Public Policy Assistant at IHRSA used Quorum Grassroots to create a public dashboard to act as the home base for NHFA’s GYMS Act advocacy. The dashboard includes the real-time status of the bill, the number of cosponsors, a live feed of advocate actions, and provides steps advocates can take to build a larger coalition and report on bill progress to their base.

Solution: Use Quorum Dashboards to Create a Public Advocate Accountability System

When building the dashboard, Landry included components that motivate advocate participation and report advocate progress to their coalition in real-time. Once the dashboard was live, Landry presented IHRSA’s advocacy to recruit fitness industry professionals outside of IHRSA’s member base to grow their coalition.

Screenshot of the NHFA GYMS Act Dashboard in Quorum

 

Outline Steps for Advocates

While building the GYMS Act dashboard, IHRSA started with an outline of actionable steps for advocates situated front and center. This outline lowers the barriers to action for all advocates —providing step-by-step directions for both new and returning advocates.

IHRSA's outline of steps an advocate can take in Quorum's software.

Encourage Friendly Competition

IHRSA strategically leaned into the fitness industry’s love of competition by creating a live feed of advocate actions. IHRSA challenged coalition members in each state to race to get their representatives signed onto the bill as cosponsors first. The dashboard reports on GYMS Act update progress in real-time, allowing state advocates to see their wins as soon as they happen.

Landry built in multiple ways to visualize progress to foster competition including feeds of most one-click messages sent by advocates in each state, most personalized messages sent in each state, top legislator targets, and more.

To view the widgets IHRSA uses to incentivize competition and educate advocates on key legislators to target, click through the tabs below.

IHRSA's Advocacy Dashboard Widgets

Provide an Easy Advocate Experience All on One Page

The dashboard includes educational resources and actionable steps all in the same place, leading to increased engagement rates.

Within the dashboard, there is an informational quick fact section about the GYMS Act for advocates to read and reference when writing to or speaking with members of Congress.

Alongside this informational widget are links to take varying levels of action — one-click social media post templates, emailing representatives, and logging interactions — so advocates can take action as soon as they learn about the GYMS Act from the same page.

Each action is a trackable metric that boosts a state’s rank in the competition. From sending one-click prewritten letters to phone calls, to meetings with members of Congress, IHRSA’s metrics track both grassroots actions as well as individual interactions with members of Congress so his team can properly report and track their advocacy efforts.

“
“In the first week after we launched our dashboard, the New Jersey Fitness Alliance was already so engaged and so excited about the opportunity to get their state to have the most actions. They got seven of their 12 co-sponsors in three weeks. An incredible number of representatives in New Jersey signed on in an incredibly fast amount of time. It was after we presented dashboards to them that they got really excited about it and ran with it.”
Jake Landry, Public Policy Assistant at IHRSA

Sharing the Dashboard to Build Broader Coalition

When the dashboard and advocacy campaign launched, Landry hit the road pitching the dashboard and advocacy strategy 20 times in two weeks to fitness industry executives to grow their advocacy base, and promote the newly created National Health & Fitness Alliance. Landry presented to CEOs of gym franchises, fitness equipment supplier partners, and peripheral executives who may not receive direct help from the GYMS Act but would indirectly benefit from fitness industry relief.

Casting a wider net to build a broader coalition meant Landry could activate constituents of more target representatives. With the dashboard auto-updating, Landry knew every time he presented he was showing real-time data of the bill’s status and the number of actions.

“The response to presenting the dashboard was really good,” Landry said. ”It puts it for people in black and white: ‘Here’s how we’re doing,’ ‘Here’s a step you need to do’, ‘Here’s something we need to work on more,’ ‘Here are results from the campaigns.’ And the fact that it’s all live results and when someone logs in an interaction with a member of Congress and it shows up on the dashboard 30 seconds after they do it, that’s really a good feedback loop and people get really excited about it. It’s been a really huge thing for our industry.”

Impact: 30,000 Grassroots Emails Sent to Congress in Three Months

Before their GYMS Act advocacy campaign, IHRSA’s advocacy efforts were one-off, responding to pieces of legislation state by state as they came up. IHRSA’s innovative use of Quorum’s dashboard feature made their advocacy stronger, faster, and more effective. Once IHRSA saw the response and impact the dashboard had in their ability to mobilize their industry, they decided to make advocacy a permanent, core tenet of the association.

“Brought on by the pandemic last year, our whole organization decided to take a kind of conscientious step towards advocacy and having that be a central pillar of the organization.” Landry said, “The dashboard really was a byproduct of that organizational shift. We were looking for ways to share more data, be more open, and report our advocacy efforts out to our members and potential members in the future. I think the dashboards were the perfect tool to help aid that organizational shift.”

With 30,000 emails sent to Congress, 123 current co-sponsors in the House, two co-sponsors in the Senate, and 557 logged interactions with members of Congress (and counting) the amount of momentum and action garnered through IHRSA’s advocacy strategy are promising. “We’ve had participants in those campaigns in all 50 states, which is not something we’ve had before,” Landry said.

To see the bill’s current progress and view their dashboard in action, visit IHRSA’s National Health & Fitness Alliance site.

Use Quorum dashboards to drive advocate action and grow your coalition