Your Advocates Are Your Army — Grassroots Strategy for Lean Teams

Your Advocates Are Your Army — Grassroots Strategy for Lean Teams

A one-person public affairs team with five hundred engaged advocates isn't a small team. It's a force multiplier. In the final episode of the Small Team, Big Impact series, Tommy Zei brings in fresh research from the Beekeeper Group — a study of over one thousand constituents — to show why lean teams are sitting on more influence than they realize. Learn why waiting until a critical vote to build your advocate base is already too late, how to design campaigns that remove friction and actually drive action, and why the "action" isn't the finish line — it's the starting line. Your advocates are ready. This episode shows you how to ask. For more on the research featured in this episode, check out the Beekeeper Group's Future of Advocacy report. [https://beekeepergroup.com/thought-leadership/future-of-advocacy-report/]

How Small Teams Keep Leadership Informed Without Making It a Second Job

For small public affairs teams, reporting isn't just about the quarterly deck — it's about making sure leadership never learns something important before you do. In this episode of Policy Wins, Tommy Zei explains how lean teams can build a communication rhythm that keeps executives informed, demonstrates impact continuously, and turns reporting from a dreaded task into a natural byproduct of good workflow. Part of the Small Team, Big Impact series.

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.