Dear NCPLA Membership,
As my term as NCPLA President comes to an end, I wanted to take a moment to thank each of you for your membership and your contributions to the North Carolina lobbying community. I also thought it was important to communicate with the membership on a few things the Board of Directors has been busy working on this year. It is a great opportunity as well to remind you if you haven’t already to register to attend tomorrow’s NCPLA Annual Meeting!
Although COVID-19 continues to present challenges and has limited in-person interaction much more than most of us hoped, we tried hard to make the best of the circumstances and maximize virtual platforms this year to reach NCPLA members.
The year began with the 2021 legislative session bringing new staff leadership in the corner offices, so we hosted a virtual “Meet the Chiefs” event to provide NCPLA members with an opportunity to hear directly from Brian Fork and Neal Inman. We also hosted L.T. McCrimmon and her team of legislative liaisons for our first “Meet the Liaisons” event. Both sessions drew significant interest and laid a strong foundation for the year.
We also once again fulfilled a need and made lots of legislative assistants happy with the production and distribution of NCPLA’s Lobbyist Directory. Likewise, on the communications front, we are currently in the process of updating and upgrading the NCPLA website to provide better functionality, accessibility, and content. We also had a successful 2021 version of “Kicks for Cause”, raising $1,000 for Donate Life North Carolina and awareness for their cause in honor of the multiple NCPLA members who have benefited from organ transplants.
Perhaps most importantly for the long-term health and sustainability of the organization, we recirculated an all-member survey to hear from you how we can improve the value proposition of NCPLA. We then turned those survey results into action by conducting a strategic planning session where we focused on which key initiatives to put our time, energy, and resources into. We know you will be pleased to learn that NCPLA is committed to providing better representation, benefits, and services to our members. We are committed to fulfilling the aspirations of our new mission statement: “NCPLA serves our members by providing education, networking and advocacy for the lobbying profession while promoting the highest ethical standards in North Carolina.”.
There are two primary areas of emphasis for the Board of Directors going into 2022 and beyond. Although these goals may seem like nothing necessarily new or unique, our overall determination was that we would be best served to focus on a few core things essential to our members and do them very well. The two primary goals are:
We have tremendous opportunities in front us as an association and I am very honored and humbled to have had the chance to represent you as President this year. This organization could not be in better hands as I turn the reigns over to Maeve Gardner for 2022. Maeve, who will be supported by Vice President John Hardin, incoming Secretary-Treasurer Whitney Christensen, and the full NCPLA Board of Directors, is poised to take NCPLA to a new level next year.
Let’s all thank them for their leadership and commit to helping them be successful on our behalf!
Best regards,
David
David McGowan, NCPLA President
NCPLA was founded in 1998 to instill core values of integrity, honesty, and professionalism among the lobbyist community and pass along those values to the next generation of lobbyists. NCPLA Members agree to abide by the NCPLA Code of Conduct