Why Community Relations is Vital to Political Campaigns
As the midterm elections approach, we will see campaigns start or ramp up their efforts. There will be increased fundraising events, increased attack ads, and the general influx of ads about why a candidate should have your vote. While these certainly can sway the outcome of a race, there is one aspect of political campaigns that tends to slip the mind of voters: community relations. Whether it is people phone banking or canvassers knocking on doors, they are the unsung heroes of a campaign and help establish a relationship with the candidate and their community.
What is Community Relations
Public relations is an umbrella that covers many subsets such as government relations, corporate relations, community relations, etc. In general, you are building a relationship or maintaining a reputation in the world of public relations. Whether you go into crisis communication or find yourself maintaining a corporation’s reputation, every subset overlaps with public relations, and you might find yourself wearing more than one hat. Community relations is “the various methods companies use to establish and maintain a mutually beneficial relationship with the communities in which they operate.” It is also the bedrock of any client, nonprofit, and for-profit organization.
Maintaining and improving the relationship between your organization and the community can ensure both word-of-mouth advertising and more people coming to you for services. People, especially voters, latch onto those that try to establish a connection with them. They become stakeholders in what you do. Every little thing that you do impacts your community in some way, and voters have the choice of voting for you again or voting you out. This is why having strong community relations is beneficial to a political campaign.
The Proof
During the 2020 election year, I was able to intern with a campaign and have conversations with voters during my time canvassing. While there were a few voters that did not want to talk with me about the candidate, there were quite a few that wanted to talk. Some conversations lasted for more than ten minutes and ended in a handshake. There were some communities that had never been canvassed before, and the residents would tell me how appreciative they were about having someone come and talk to them.
The key to a successful campaign is a good field and communications team. These teams are the ones that are constantly connecting potential voters with the candidate or representing the candidate constantly. Campaigns are always looking for PR pros to help guide them to a win on Election Day. As we approach the midterms, now is the perfect opportunity to get involved if you have a passion for politics. There are plenty of organizations such as the Great Lakes Political Academy, the American Civil Liberties Union, Clean Water Action that you can get involved with. You can even get involved with a campaign directly as an intern or volunteer! Let’s show them what young PR pros can do!
About Stephen
Stephen is a senior this year pursuing a degree in Advertising & Public Relations with a minor in Philosophy. Stephen is currently interning for Farmhaus Cider Co. as a taproom intern, where he applies his community relations experience and works on their newsletter. This is his first year on the GrandPR staff where he will serve as Community Outreach Coordinator in the fall.