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Advocacy Planning Work Group
Thursday, May 16, 2014
Washington, D.C.
Final Report
Work Group Purpose
To develop a political advocacy strategic planning component to assist local and state associations that want to include political advocacy as one of their association’s strategic initiatives.
REALTOR® Party Program Experiences
Work group members reported on some of the REALTOR® Party programs that they engaged in since the last meeting in Baltimore including the following:
- Requested an association member voting file to identify nonregistered voters (Mid Shore Board, MD)
- Endorsed three candidates for local elections that won; requested Placemaker Grants (Greater Scranton Board, PA)
- Requested three diversity grants (Metro Tex Association, TX)
- State staff is writing Independent Expenditure requests for local associations; sharing best practices to impact homelessness; working with the local Families In Transition (FIT) group; planning a homeless summit to share best practices (Florida Association)
- Working with state association on Independent Expenditures; identified a local race and leveraged funds into IE (Association of Palm Beaches, FL)
Meeting Activity
Work group members broke out into three teams to address the following components of the required core standards:
- REALTOR® Mobilization (Vote) – How does the association achieve member mobilizations in the political sphere at the local, state, and federal levels of government?
- RPAC (Act) – How does the association raise hard and soft dollars for use in elections?
- Advocacy (Invest) – How does the association elect REALTOR® champions and participate on ballot initiatives that impact property rights and ownership issues?
Following the breakouts the teams reported on various actions and strategies that associations could employ to incorporate advocacy initiatives into their association strategic plans (pages 7-9). With the output from these teams, work group vice chair Dave Phillips drafted an advocacy goal with corresponding objectives and actions that can serve as a template to help associations in their strategic planning efforts (pages 3-6). This template will be considered for inclusion in the NAR Core Standards for REALTOR® Associations strategic planning train-the-trainer sessions.
Work group members agreed that associations should be encouraged to consider REALTOR® Party resources that are available at the state and national levels, as many of these resources can complement and support local initiatives.
Work Group Members
Theresa Hatton, RCE, CAE, Chair
Dave Phillips, RCE, CAE, Vice Chair
Isaac Chavez, RCE
Sheila Dodson, RCE
Lance Evans, RCE
John Fridlington, RCE, CAE
Dionna Hall
Allan Hetkowski, RCE, CAE
Chris Kyler
Vilma Lopez
Bill Martin, RCE
Brenda Roney, RCE
Doug Rotthaus, RCE, CAE
Sharon Sample, RCE
David Sanders
Claire Shahzad, RCE
Clint Skutchan, RCE
Ryan Tucholski, RCE
Marti Veto
Brittnie Welsh
Debbie Wilkens
Liaison
Sharon Keating
Staff Executives
Chip Ahlswede, RCE
Gerry Allen, RCE, CAE
Bill Malkasian
Cindy Sampalis