Policy Wins

Fresh from the Conference Floor: Advocacy and PAC Insights from the Public Affairs Council Events

We're taking a quick break from our Small Teams, Big Impact series to bring you this one — and trust us, it's worth it. Patrick Kalie, Quorum's senior engagement & event marketing manager, spent time on the ground at two of the Public Affairs Council's biggest events this year: the Advocacy Conference and the National PAC Conference. He talked to a lot of people. He took notes. And now he's sharing what he actually heard. The short version? AI has officially crossed over from "I'm playing around with it" to "this is our number one operational priority." But that's just the beginning. Patrick also gets into why younger employees aren't giving to corporate PACs (and what's actually working to change that), why sending a flood of advocacy emails at the wrong time can backfire, how some teams are using authentic advocate stories way beyond just the "take action" button — and why Gen Z turns out to be surprisingly hyper-local. If you work in government affairs or public affairs, this is the kind of ground-level intel that's hard to come by.

How Small Public Affairs Teams Can Stay Ahead of Every Relationship

Most public affairs teams know who their power players are: the committee chair, the agency contact, the coalition partner who can actually move things. The real problem is everyone else. The staffers doing the actual drafting. The mid-level regulator who doesn't matter yet. The aligned group you've met twice and never followed up with. Those relationships don't disappear — they accumulate into a quiet liability that surfaces at the worst moment: when you need something from someone you haven't spoken to in a year. In this episode, Tommy Zei lays out a practical framework for getting ahead of that problem. He breaks down how to build a stakeholder map that's actually useful in the field (not just a strategy deck artifact), what interaction tracking is really for — and why most small teams skip the one habit that separates teams with institutional memory from teams that start over every cycle. Plus, how to run outreach that punches above your team's weight without sacrificing the personal touch that makes it land. If your relationship management only kicks in when you need something, this episode is for you.

Small Team, Big Impact: Build a Tracking System That Holds

Most small public affairs teams don't have a tracking problem — they have a prioritization problem. In the kickoff of our "Small Team, Big Impact" series, Quorum onboarding consultant Tommy Zei explains why lean teams often feel buried by alerts and how to fix it by separating passive monitoring from active tracking. Learn how to build a two-tier framework that automates a broad "awareness layer" while keeping your "decision list" focused on the high-stakes bills and rulemakings that actually require action this week. Beyond official filings, Tommy breaks down how to "track the conversation" by spotting policy shifts in social media, newsletters, and committee hearings before they become headlines. Discover the three essential questions your team needs to answer to stop the manual triage and build a system that works for you, not the other way around. It’s about doing more with less by ensuring your human judgment is spent on strategy, not just skimming data.

Prove Your Impact, Skip the Data Dump

Your leadership doesn't want a link to 500 bills. They want to know what it means and what to do about it. Yet most public affairs teams spend the majority of their time gathering data and almost none of it communicating why it matters. In the final episode of this six-part series, onboarding consultant Tommy Zei breaks down how to turn your tracking, tagging, and monitoring into executive-ready reports that actually prove your impact. Learn why static spreadsheets are killing your credibility, how visual dashboards can tell the story of your work in five seconds, and the "Rule of Four" framework every strong brief should follow. Whether you're building it manually or with AI, if your reports feel like data dumps, this episode is for you.

Monitoring the Preamble: How to Spot Policy Shifts Before a Bill is Filed

If you only track official bills, you’re missing the "why" and "when" of policy. In this episode, Tommy Zei explores "upstream" monitoring — tracking the press releases, caucuses, and social media posts where the early warning signs actually live. Learn how to conduct a "digital audit" on new committee faces and why silence from a veteran legislator is often a strategic signal you can’t afford to ignore.