For companies facing complicated issues such as a reorganization, new or changing priorities, or a shift in job responsibilities, our staff can identify, document and share the public affairs industry's most successful approaches to these challenges.
Our consultants will conduct customized research that might use data and interviews from peer organizations and compare those with data and interviews from your own organization. The result might be issues and insights you had not recognized, as well as suggestions for improving your organization - at a fraction of what major management consulting firms charge.
Examples of recent projects include:
Public Affairs Departmental Benchmarking Report
A Council member commissioned a benchmarking study examining how leading companies manage their public affairs activities - particularly state, federal and international government relations. The Council focused on companies operating in the healthcare, retail/distribution and other comparable industries, as well as similar?sized companies in other sectors.
The Council worked to: 1) analyze the public affairs department's mission, organizational structure and key activities; 2) deploy a questionnaire to obtain similar information from peer companies; 3) conduct interviews of survey respondents regarding the working relationships between state and federal government relations, the Washington office and international public affairs; and 4) synthesize the results into a report.
Click here for the report (pdf).
Corporate Social Responsiblity Benchmarking Report
A member commissioned the Council to conduct a custom benchmarking study examining how leading multinationals in similar industries, and of similar size, manage their corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts. This work focused on philanthropic giving as well as community relations activities.
The Council undertook the following activities: 1) Review current literature about how large multinationals are managing their corporate social responsibility activities. 2) Deploy an online questionnaire to assess elements of CSR programs among a select group of companies, focusing on budgetary and financial management; staffing; key components and activities of CSR programs and the scope and amount of funding.
Click here for the summary report (pdf).
Social Media Benchmarking
A trade association had received a mandate to expand its use of social media and communications tools in its management of public affairs. To avoid over- or underutilizing resources, the association asked the Council to conduct a Custom Benchmarking analysis of how other associations use social media. Council staff created a questionnaire to assess budgeting and staffing, as well as the mix of tools (including blogs, microblogs and social networking sites) associations use as part of their public affairs toolkits. Based on this information, the Council recommended tactics to help the association make best use of these new tools.
Click here for a summary report of data collected for this project (pdf).
Association Issues Audit
When a technology trade association discovered that members were dissatisfied with its lack of legislative victories, Consulting Services examined how the association managed its issues. What consultants discovered was that there was no method for getting members to agree on which issues should be priorities. Our consultants interviewed about 15 association staffers, as well as members, and surveyed associations with similar budgets and mandates. With this information, we could recommend new management approaches - such as prioritization graphs and organizational changes - to help the association identify and develop agreement on which issues were most important and why.
Click here for a summary report of data collected for this project (pdf).
Government Relations Opportunity Assessment
A financial institution was concerned that the scope of its public affairs activities at the federal and state levels was insufficiently broad to accomplish its public affairs goals. To understand how its activities compared to those of its peers, the institution asked the Council to benchmark budgets, staffing and other resource levels, as well as key activities in government relations, grassroots and other areas. Using data contributed by a group of peer companies, the Council created a benchmarking report which the client's public affairs team used to identify and evaluate potential new activities for the department.
Click here for a summary report of data collected for this project (pdf).
