Nonprofit organizations come in all types and many of them have government affairs reps that stay busy at the statehouse and congressional levels where the really big policy decisions are being made. So why would they want to know in advance what is showing up on local public meeting agendas? For several reasons:
Grass roots advocacy and influence: Knowing if there are local agenda items that help or hurt a specific nonprofit can help them better prepare to advocate for issues that align with their mission. At the local level, they can mobilize support from their members, stakeholders, or the community to address specific agenda items.
Strategic Planning: By seeing trends on upcoming votes and discussions at the local level, nonprofits can strategize their overall initiatives, align their programs with these trends, and adjust their outreach efforts accordingly.
Collaboration Opportunities: Early awareness of local agenda items can allow nonprofits to identify opportunities for collaboration with other organizations, government entities, or community leaders who may be involved in the local meeting discussions.
Resource Allocation: Nonprofits can allocate their local resources (time, staff, funding) more effectively by knowing when and where to focus their efforts based on the agenda items that they discover before the vote happens.
So now that we have identified several reasons why a nonprofit should monitor local government meeting agendas, what’s the best way to do it? Of course, many local governments offer email subscriptions or alerts for public meetings, but if the nonprofit is monitoring more than just a few local public meetings, they could be overwhelmed with work by trying to manually review each agenda for topics that may be important.
Of course, a better way would be to subscribe to a local government monitoring service that alerts the nonprofit when topics show up on an agenda that may affect them. By doing so, nonprofits can effectively stay informed about public meeting agendas and take proactive steps to influence outcomes at the local level and stay on track with their overall mission.
Voterheads offers one of the most affordable, user-friendly, and robust systems available for the purpose of monitoring local public meetings anywhere in the United Sates. Because that is all we do, we are very very good at it. Request a demonstration and free trial. No credit card required.