Political Posts and Your Organization

The days of the comment card are over. Now, if you want to praise someone you hop on Yelp, TripAdvisor, or Facebook and give them a review. More often however, it is the negative reviews that draw attention. Nowadays it can seem difficult to say anything without offending someone. This can be extremely challenging when it comes to the posts for your organization, because most likely at some point you’ll talk about politics as well.

Politics are unavoidable for downtown organizations. There are always zoning variance requests, minimum wage increases, maintenance ordinances and any other number of legal and political matters that are directly related to your mission of revitalizing your district. This isn’t a bad thing, it is the reality of downtowns all across the county. Many of the organizations are funded through special taxing districts – another subject everyone loves to talk about! However, ignoring those topics will not further your cause and will likely hurt your organization. So how do you post about potentially divisive topics and remain non-partisan?

Let’s start with the basics. First and foremost, your organization should have a social media policy for employees and volunteers. This is an important, often overlooked, tool for organizations. It can help define what types of posts, comments, etc are being made and by whom.

We suggest avoiding any political topics that do not directly affect your organization. This can be a challenge at times. You may have a strong personal belief about an elected official. Perhaps you see the benefit of the new school referendum and want to support it. Maybe there is a debate about an issue that you are truly passionate about. These are all reasons to get involved individually, but organizations are probably best left out of these conversations. When you remove yourself from these issues, it will make it that much more impactful when your organization does weigh in on something that is important to your mission.

You probably have an idea already about the issues that are relevant and important to your organization’s mission. That’s great. The next step is to discuss those internally. Work with your Executive Committee and staff to prioritize what topics are the most important to your organization, how you see the issue, and how you believe it is best to convey those thoughts. This is a great way to engage your organization’s key volunteers such the Executive Committee. Don’t be afraid to debate the issue internally, it will likely lead to stronger arguments for your organization. You can also back up your arguments with data like Return on Investment and other key metrics (remember to use Maestro to make your reporting easier)!

Don’t forget to prioritize! Even focusing on just the issues that are relevant to downtown and your constituents, there are so many that will come up that you may not (and probably should not) weigh in on each one of them. Decide where you can comprise for the greater good of your organization. This allows you to skip over some of the small things to make a bigger impact on the things that are the most important to your mission.

Finally, and probably the most important, is to develop a good relationship with your City officials. We all work with our City leaders, but making sure they are engaged with our organization is key. Invite them to board meetings, visit with them over coffee, attend City meetings, whatever it takes to make sure you have a strong relationship with everyone from the elected officials that will cast the votes to the department heads that will carry out the work. The more engaged you are with them, the more you’ll be included in planning meetings, conversations, and decisions about the issues important to your organization.