Grassroots are crucial to any cause

Feb 1, 2024

As your new public policy manager, I am so excited to join the NNA team. Depending on how things go in Washington this year, we could make some headway on critical issues like postal reform and tax breaks for newspapers and their advertisers.

There is also an effort in play to bring more federal ad dollars to your local papers from departmental advertising for public information campaigns.

We have a talented team in place in DC working hard to promote issues that are important to our community newspapers.

However, there is another element to advocacy that often goes unnoticed or is deemed unimportant …grassroots. It is vital to our efforts that NNA members have relationships with their legislators back home. They listen to you. You are our boots on the ground.

I understand that you are incredibly busy running your publications and want you to know that getting involved in our grassroots efforts should not take a large amount of your time. We’d like to count on you to make phone calls to key legislators on occasion and keep your eyes peeled for communications from us that alert you to an email campaign to urge a vote supporting our efforts.

The key to effective grassroots is to use pre-existing relationships with your members of Congress and the Senate so that when you contact them about an issue, they know who you are and value your perspective as a business owner in their district.

If you are interested in being part of the Congressional Action Team of NNA or just want to help out when needed, please contact me at lisa@nna.org. You can also sign up to be part of the CAT at https://bit.ly/49I27R7

I look forward to working with you.