K Street Cafe

In January, 13 new Senators and 93 new U.S. Representatives will arrive in Washington, D.C. for the 112^th Congress.  The House’s freshman class is the largest in over 60 years.

The sheer volume of Congressional newcomers creates an opportunity for organizations to rethink their advocacy strategies.  Connecting with new Members will require the right message and the right tactics.

Over the next few weeks, K Street Café will feature a discussion on how advocacy organizations can create an effective grassroots plan for 2011.

A few things to look forward to:

- Insights from the Congressional Management Foundation, the organization that guides freshman Members during their first 90 days in office.  CMF will explain the resources it provides to Members on setting up offices, obtaining committee assignments, selecting technology vendors, and hiring core staff members.

- Analysis from Ken Ward, CEO of Fireside21, a company that produces Web-based tools for constituent communications.   As someone who regularly works with Capitol Hill offices, Ken will explain how new Members set up their processes for handling incoming communications.

- Advice from savvy grassroots professionals on how their organizations plan for Congress’s biannual overhaul.  Jennifer Karr from the American Medical Association will share how the AMA is gearing up for 2011.

We look forward to hearing your thoughts on how you are planning for the new Congress.

I am happy to announce that K Street Café was awarded a Certificate of Excellence for the blog category in the 2009 Bronze SABRE Awards.  This is a great honor and we are delighted to be recognized.

The goal of K Street Café is to educate and equip public relations and government relations leaders to become more effective at impacting public policy through the sharing of communications advocacy best practices. The introduction of K Street Café turned many heads in the public affairs world, generating coverage in Inside the Beltway publications like The Hill, The Politico, Roll Call and National Journal.

I hope that you have enjoyed the many insightful posts that our contributors have provided since our launch in September.  We look forward to bringing you more insights in the future.