Public Policy Communicators NYC Group

Next week on Wednesday, October 29th, I’ll be heading to the first meeting of the Public Policy Communicators NYC Group at Public Agenda.

The idea behind the meeting is to begin an informal group of New York area communications professions focused on public policy to meet once a month over lunch to network and discuss topics of interest to the group. There’s clearly a need for these kinds of discussions amongst public policy communicators here in New York so that we can network, share successes and discuss tactics that could inform our work. As Public Agenda noted in its invitation for the lunch, New York City probably has more individuals working to affect public policy than any other city besides Washington. Hopefully it will be a great group of communications executives in foundations and nonprofit organizations; the list of people that expressed initial interest is great!

It’s my understanding that the first meeting is going to be pretty informal with time for introductions. We will, at some point, begin to address questions such as “Are you planning on reaching out to the new administration and new congress in your work?” And the ever important question for private foundations, “How do you advance your issues without lobbying?”

One issue I hope that we will address as a group includes figuring out a way to get the attention of the public and/or appropriate audiences since it can be true that a lot of public policy work ends up on a shelf collecting dust with little impact.

Know of anyone you think would be interested in attending next week’s meeting? If so, click here for information on how to attend.