At the beginning of the pandemic, associations quickly encouraged their members to contact Congress to help their respective industries, yielding millions of emails and thousands of phone calls to lawmakers urging emergency funding and legislative assistance. With so many groups still vying for legislative attention, the question remains: How can you and your members stand out from the crowd?

Simply put, advocacy as we know it has shifted and may never return to what it once was. Campaigns focused on volume alone just won’t cut it when it comes to influencing elected officials.  However, by utilizing creative methods to amplify your members’ voices, associations can cut through the noise and impact policy outcomes. The National Apartment Association (NAA) used the following advocacy methods throughout the pandemic to engage members and drive the rental housing policy conversation.

In-district advocacy efforts. With the Capitol closed to the public since early 2020, in-district advocacy has become an even more important way for members to get in front of lawmakers and educate them on the issues that matter to your organization.

NAA started its At Home Program in 2021, focusing on the August recess to schedule and hold meetings with Congressional offices across the country. Thanks to our network of affiliated associations, our advocates were able to hold over 80 meetings with members of Congress in-district within a very short period. These meetings helped inform key offices on critical issues facing the rental housing industry and gave our members an opportunity to serve as a resource to their lawmakers on important policies.

Social media advocacy. Whether making a timely post or perusing their feed to get updated on the happenings of the day, legislators use social media to inform them of what the public is feeling and talking about. Leveraging social media is a critical element to include when building out an advocacy campaign. Your members will find this to be an easy way to get involved, and it is a great supplemental strategy to help influence legislators.

For your organization to cut through the noise and have Congress notice your efforts, you need to empower your members to advocate for your industry.

In 2021, NAA created its Influencer Program to increase our social media advocacy. NAA curates policy-related content for individual members (influencers) and our affiliated associations to post on various social channels to educate elected officials and the public on the issues facing our industry. Only having started the program halfway through 2021, it still led to an organic reach of over 700,000 individuals and 1.3 million-plus organic impressions. Already in 2022, NAA has seen the organic reach of the program surpass 600,000 individuals and over 2 million organic impressions.

Leverage traditional media. A study done by the Congressional Management Foundation found that 80 percent of senior congressional staff agreed that a constituent-written letter to the editor (LTE) was directly influential to the decision-making process in Washington. Having your members submit LTEs on issues that your organization cares about is a great way to move the needle on a policy issue. Nothing can motivate a member of Congress quite like seeing an important issue come up in their hometown newspaper.

NAA’s Letter to the Editor (LTE) Program started in 2021 to help get key messages in front of congressional offices. NAA worked closely with our members to draft these LTEs, making sure that their first-hand experience with the issues came through in the article to help educate lawmakers on how constituents in their district were impacted by a particular policy. In 2021 alone, nearly a dozen of our LTEs were picked up by media outlets in targeted congressional districts where our members shared their stories and support for legislative remedies.

Build real relationships. If pandemic advocacy has consistently reiterated one thing, it’s that cultivating relationships with members of Congress and their staff is paramount. Your members are experts in their field and lawmakers rely on constituents to inform them of what is going on in-district. In short, to be successful in advocacy endeavors moving forward, empower your members to build these crucial relationships.

The Key Contact Program is NAA’s “grasstops” program focused on helping our members grow relationships with their elected officials. Throughout 2021, NAA focused on revitalizing the program by creating incentive tiers, producing educational materials for members to learn how to go about forming these relationships with legislative offices, crafting thorough program expectations, and building out the network to over 140 individual key contacts who cover more than 150 congressional offices across the country.

Advocacy has shifted, possibly forever. For your organization to cut through the noise and have Congress notice your efforts, you need to empower your members to advocate for your industry. Using the above strategies can help you build lasting relationships with Congressional offices and impact policy outcomes that can benefit your industry and its members.