Posts tagged ‘third party advocacy’
Influencing the Influencers: The importance of third party advocacy
Strategic communications are most effective when the message is delivered by someone else. This system of causal influence is the driving force behind partnering with third party advocacy groups to build awareness around an important issue.
Developing messages and media training your spokespersons to deliver them is certainly effective, but when a third party advocacy group corroborates your company’s stance on an issue and disseminates your messages to target stakeholder groups, it lends invaluable credibility to your organization.
For example, one of our clients recently partnered with CancerCare, a nonprofit organization that provides support services for anyone affected by cancer, to raise awareness about advances in the treatment of rare cancers. By partnering with a respected third party advocacy group on this issue, the client was able to gain credibility among the physician and patient communities, provide educational materials without infringing on regulatory issues, and deliver information that may not otherwise have resonated. With this model, we were able to leverage CancerCare’s resources and reputation to build awareness about a disease that was of major significance to our client. In turn, CancerCare obtained valuable resources to provide educational sessions and materials to their members, in fulfillment of their mission.
There are several steps to consider when developing advocacy partnerships:
- Recognize the issue – Select one or more issues that are significant to your organization.
- Identify possible partners – Based on the scope of the issues you seek to address, identify a third party with relevant background and experience.
- Research! – Once you’ve developed a list of possible partners, conduct an extensive investigation to learn of any existing or past partnerships the organization may have which may be a conflict of interest or may overshadow a partnership with your company. Also consider any negative elements that may affect the organization’s media presence.
- Reach out – Contact the third parties to determine interest and feasibility of partnerships. Remember that building partnerships takes time, so develop them early. For example, third party relationships can be of critical importance during a crisis, but establishing them beforehand allows the third party expert to speak on your company’s behalf without the perceived biases associated with company-issued statements.
There are lots of examples of successful – and perhaps not so successful – third party partnerships out there. Can you think of any? What made them a success or failure?
By Mia Scott and Melissa Hurley, Ricochet Healthcare Team
Ricochet Public Relations Launches D.C. Public Affairs Practice
This week has been an especially exciting one for all of us at Ricochet. On Monday we named Valerie Carter
as Vice President of our Washington, D.C., public affairs practice. Valerie is a 20-year veteran of the public affairs and government relations fields. In the nation’s capital, she will provide a variety of public affairs services to our clients, which include but are not limited to: grassroots and grasstops organizing, coalition building, third party advocacy and congressional outreach.
Valerie began her career at the pharmaceutical company Merck & Co., where she held positions in both public affairs and government relations for 15 years. She managed Merck’s grassroots programs, the Merck PAC as well as Merck’s congressional education and outreach initiatives. In 2005, Valerie managed the government affairs office for the Project Management Institute (PMI), the world’s leading not-for-profit membership association for the project management profession, with more than half a million members. At the PMI Valerie was responsible for strategy and implementation of government advocacy and outreach initiatives with Congress and federal agencies.
Not only because of her extensive experience in Washington, D.C., is Valerie uniquely qualified to lead our public affairs practice. She also has unparalleled expertise across two of our core business units – healthcare and industry — and her insight and experience in D.C. will be a real asset to our clients by helping them to establish a strong presence in the Beltway and thought leadership on vital public issues.
All of us here at Ricochet are thrilled to have Valerie on our team. Her experience and skills will be an important and significant addition to our existing portfolio of expertise. We are certain her leadership will give us the opportunity to grow as a public affairs agency in the Beltway and beyond.
If you would like to learn more about Valerie Carter and the services we offer in D.C. as well as in our New York office, please visit our Web site. Should you have questions for Valerie or about our new practice in the Beltway, feel free to post them as comments to this article or send an email to the webmaster at info@ricochetpr.com.
Written by Patrick Bartosch
