Services
Federal, State and Municipal Lobbying
Government touches your business in a multitude of ways:
- Government directly impacts your business’s operations – from location to taxation to environmental regulations to employee relations. We develop lobbying strategies for dealing with legislation and government regulations.
- Government generates business. They purchase products and services from the private sector. We will identify opportunities for doing business with government entities.
- Government provides incentives to attract businesses to an area, offering many tax breaks and grants for a variety of businesses and economic development initiatives. Our knowledge of government will help your business identify these opportunities.
- Elected officials represent your customers. Including them in your plans will enhance your relationships with the general public. We will introduce your business to public leaders.
- Many businesses support the local community. We will help your business develop a plan of action to enhance the results of your community relations efforts.
Chalkstone Strategies will help build and maintain strong relationships for you with local, state and federal lawmakers and government officials.
Legislative Services
- State of the art bill tracking system to monitor legislation
- Bill analysis and public policy interpretation
- Budget and fiscal analysis
- Development of position papers, letters and legislative alerts
- Legislative advocacy in direct communication and negotiation with legislators and staff
- Direct communication and negotiation with key regulatory officials and the Governor’s offices
Regulatory Services
- Monitor proposed regulations of key agencies and departments and advise clients affected
- Negotiate with regulators and submit language in rulemaking procedures to protect clients’ interests
- Provide written and oral testimony before regulatory bodies
Grassroots Campaigns / Coalition Building
Chalkstone Strategies has vast experience helping businesses look for ways to take full advantage of their political capital, creating and helping coalitions to energize their members to fight adverse legislation, and aiding clients who come under attack from local civic organizations. Whatever the circumstance, we help develop the appropriate political involvement and outreach strategies that complement a public policy initiative.
Our successful grassroots and coalition strategies help shape and identify groups that will best help your initiative. We organize these groups and then mobilize them to work with federal, state, local and provincial decision makers on your issue. This method is quite successful because for federal, state, local and provincial decision makers, this means having constituent support for an issue, position or approach.
A grassroots initiative depends on delivering the right message to the right decision makers. Our firm develops the message, adapts it to a variety of audiences and manages the various media needed for effective communication. Grassroots and coalitions add more power to your public affairs punch. We mobilize employees, shareholders, vendors and customers in order to build broad-based political support. Our firm is experienced at helping initiatives by identifying creative partnerships, and by using our political judgment to advise our clients on when to take the lead in advancing a coalition agenda.
Our strategic action plans are tailored to meet clients’ needs. Chalkstone Strategies provides grassroots and coalition approaches that leverage the most value for our clients.
Public Relations / Crisis Management
Chalkstone Strategies offers practical media services and advice to our clients throughout New England. Whether the need is a simple press release or the staging of a major news conference, our firm is well qualified to manage in a variety of media outreach activities.
Developing a solid media strategy is fundamental to any public affairs effort. Chalkstone Strategies has the tools and knowledge to help our clients get the word out about an important business development, or craft a message that generates interest with the reporters and editors who cover the Northeast. We can coordinate your company’s media relations efforts by arranging news conferences, pitching stories, or conducting public opinion research to help you make the most of your positive media opportunities.
The effort to reach out and create news can be a challenging and time-consuming task. Our ability to identify and target key reporters is the result of work we constantly perform to maintain an accurate and extensive database of names and information. Just as important, our long-standing relationships and contacts provide an added edge in dealing with late breaking news and managing events that impact the credibility and image of an organization.
Crisis management is also a primary concern for any business organization, large or small. We help our clients prepare for media crises by crafting written contingency plans and conducting in-depth media training programs for key executives. We have experience in planning and executing communication strategies that will mitigate damage and enhance clients’ public images in times of crises.
Other services that can be employed as part of an overall media strategy include internal and external communications audits, press kit preparation and distribution, editorial writing, public service and talk show placements, media tours and events, feature placements and media monitoring.
Political Campaign Management
Chalkstone Strategies has vast experience managing political campaigns. Our capabilities include a broad range of economic, social and domestic issues. We have managed high-profile issues and have worked quietly on behind-the-scenes projects. We have experience working with successful campaigns for candidates ranging from US Senators to Governors to state legislators to town council races. In addition, we can work with you in both the creation and development of a talented team of experienced professionals who will work together to implement each aspect of the campaign.