Inviting Elected Officials
To Section Meetings
Looking for a hook to draw members to your meetings?
Looking for a way to influence legislators in Washington or your state’s
capital?
IEEE's Rock River Valley chapter was - and they did. At a recent section
meeting, the north Illinois section invited their Congressman, Rep. Donald
Manzullo, to dinner. Section members ate with the Congressman and then spoke
with him for over an hour. Not only was attendance great, but the event gave
section members an ideal opportunity to discuss their concerns about job
losses with the Chair of the House of Representative’s Small Business
Committee. As a result section members were energized and interest in IEEE
increased throughout the engineering community.
If you think the Rock River Valley section had great political contacts,
think again. No one in the section had met with Congressman Manzullo prior
to their dinner, and the section had never interacted with a politician
before this event. And no, the section didn’t give the Congressman any
campaign contributions. They gave him something better – time with his
voters. There is no reason your section can’t do the same thing.
Organizing an event with members of Congress is easier and happens more
frequently than you might think. Most politicians are eager to speak with
their constituents, and will jump at the opportunity to do so. Section
meetings offer a perfect setting for politicians to reach out to their
voters – and a perfect setting for IEEE members to reach out to their
elected officials. Plus, these meetings make great recruitment tools for
broadening your section’s membership.
Organizing an event with a politician is fairly easy, but it does take a bit
of planning. The following are suggestions to help you get started.
- Inviting Your Legislator. Send their office a one-page
invitation letter describing both the event and your section. Follow-up
with a phone call a few days later. Once you have a dialog with your
legislator’s office, it will take some time to find a suitable date, but
be persistent. The Rock River Valley section sent their invitation in
November for a February meeting.
- Planning the event. Politicians are very busy. They don’t
have time to listen to section business. Either set aside an entire
meeting for the legislator or carve out an hour or so for the Legislator
at the beginning of your meeting, and then let him or her leave. Allow
time for the legislator to speak to the group, and answer questions if
they wish. Dinners and lunches work great. Before they will agree to
attend, your legislators will want an idea of what your members want to
talk about. Consider building the event around a policy problem that
affects your local community, such as employment or R&D funding, to give
the meeting structure and to allow your legislator to better prepare.
- Publicizing the Event. Invite all of your section members,
but reach out to the greater engineering community as well. One of the
benefits of IEEE is government representation, so use your event to
recruit new members. You may also want to notify the local press about
your event. Stories in your local paper will raise the profile of your
section and further excite your members. Be sure to tell your legislator
prior to the event if you have invited the press.
- Seizing the opportunity. Once your event begins, take
advantage of the opportunity to explain your views on issues of concern
to you and your members. That’s why your legislator came – to hear what
his/her voters think. So speak up.
Your legislator’s office can be very helpful in working with you to plan
a successful event. They do dozens of these meetings every month, and so are
very good at working with community groups. When thinking about your event,
consider the following:
- Don’t surprise your legislator. Politicians like events to be
predictable, and there is no reason yours should not be. His or her
office should be aware of everything that will happen at your event well
before the event begins.
- Don’t attack your legislator. Use this opportunity to build a
friendly working relationship with a person who is in a position to be
of great help to your members. Polite criticism is fine, but this is
should be a positive event for everyone, including your legislators.
- Consider contacting other engineering groups in your community to
co-sponsor your event. Not only will this save money, but it will help
attract more engineers. Politicians think in terms of votes, so the more
votes you gather the more likely they are to attend.
- Your event needs to be about the politician so long as they are in
attendance. Make the politician the center of attention for as much of
the meeting as possible.
- Don’t schedule your event just before an election. Not only are
candidates very busy between September and November in election years,
but campaign finance laws make meetings more complicated during these
months. If you do invite a candidate to speak right before an election,
you must also invite his or her opponent to speak at the same event or
one similar. It is easier to wait until after the election and then
invite the winner.
- The best times to hold your meetings are during Congress’ August and
winter recesses. The winter recess lasts from late October or early
November through mid-January. Congress’ busiest times are generally
February through May and September through October. It will be difficult
for your federal legislators to find time during these months.
- Consider applying for PACE funds to help pay for your event. Consult
your PACE representative for details.
The process, as you can see, is fairly simple and hundreds of different
civic groups arrange these meetings every year. There is no reason your
section can’t be among them. Visits from politicians can excite your members
and generate attention for you, your section and the IEEE in your local
community. It can also help build a relationship with legislators who will
be voting on legislation that affects the engineering profession.
IEEE-USA can help you organize one of these events. Contact Russ Harrison
at (202) 785-0017 or
r.t.harrison@ieee.org for more advice and assistance.
[ Table of Contents ]
Last Updated: 9
August 2004
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