Members of the Recording Academy meet with the Office of Congressmen John Lewis (D-Ga.) in 2017 Credit: https://twitter.com/GRAMMYAdvocacy/status/854769017856421888
As we start off the fly-in season on Capitol Hill, we wanted to share the experience of one our customers using the Congress Plus Fly-in Manager. When we set out to build the fly-in manager 4 years ago, we interviewed a number of organizations. We made two key discoveries that shaped the way we built our solution. First, every organization manages their fly-in differently to fit the specialized needs of their members and participants. Second, many organizations use difficult to manage systems (often involving Excel or Google Docs, sometimes both) or rely on expensive consultants to manage everything. Based on this feedback, we created an affordable solution that can be customized to fit the needs of an organization.
It is this solution that helped the Recording Academy improve the way they orchestrate their fly-ins. Each April, the Recording Academy brings nearly 100 music creators and Academy leaders to Capitol Hill to meet with lawmakers and discuss current music legislation. Before working with us and like many others, the Recording Academy arduously coordinated meetings with more than 100 congressional offices using Excel. As a result, putting together agendas was often a manual process. Starting in 2015, the Recording Academy used the Congress Plus Fly-in Manager and according to Michael Lewan, Director of Government Relations at the Recording Academy, “[the fly-in manager] has been a tremendous life-saver over the last few years.”
Our solution has helped at each step of the way when coordinating their GRAMMYs on the Hill Advocacy Day. First, the software matches up attendees to their lawmakers based on their address and creates meetings based on that information. Next, the Recording Academy sends an email from the system to schedule their meetings. The software keeps track of the scheduling status of the meeting automatically. Attendees have access to their agendas in advance via a customizable mobile web app. For day of materials, the Recording Academy produced agendas including meetings and other events with a single click. The agendas allow you to include information about the legislator and talking points. If last minute scheduling changes occurred, they could update attendees immediately via text message.
We enjoy helping organizations like the Recording Academy to manage fly-ins that range from 20 to nearly 1,000 attendees. It has been used to coordinate events with more than 500 meetings with lawmakers and related events. It is versatile enough to accommodate the needs of any organization. Contact us if you would like to learn more about how we can help with your advocacy day.
