We work with clients to engage with and advocate to key stakeholders
Leaning on decades of political and public affairs experience, we understand the intersection of politics, legislation, regulation and bureaucracy.
“We combine politics, policy and positioning to help organisations advocate to key decision makers and stakeholders.”
Public policy, social activism and public opinion have the potential to impact your organisation’s operations and objectives. York Park Group provides strategies to identify and engage key decision makers, create and leverage relationships and to position your advocacy needs to the political landscape of the day.
We help clients build meaningful and lasting relationships with stakeholders across communities, across government and across industry.
Our services include strategic advice, stakeholder mapping and engagement, landscape analysis, intelligence and insights, submissions development, research and polling, policy development and campaigns.
Our Approach
We believe the key to effective advocacy is about finding mutual ground while understanding each other’s objectives – where they align and differ and creating a pathway forward for a favourable outcome. This requires adapting the approach for each stakeholder, considering who they are, their likely response or reaction to key issues, preferred engagement style and a clear objective.
Effective advocacy understands and utilises the relevant advocacy methods to get the best outcome. York Park Group works with each client to develop a specific process that aligns with the opportunity or challenge, which can include:
- Information gathering workshop: A structured discussion to understand their organisation, their objectives, past engagement, status of relationships and any additional documentation required.
- Advocacy and engagement strategy: A strategy tailored to the client’s overarching objective, including analysis of the political and social landscape, a positioning narrative and key messages, and a recommended delivery methodology.
- Engagement: York Park Group provides ongoing advice either as a strategic consultant helping the client enhance their relationships or as a third-party representative.
Our methodology is refined to our clients’ needs. The best process for our client is the process that delivers against their objective strategically, efficiently and discreetly.
York Park Group Policy and Advocacy Statement
York Park Group’s strength is in providing our clients with strategic advice behind the scenes to help them engage with key decision makers directly and with most impact.
For clients where we feel we can act as an appropriate advocate, we register ourselves on the relevant Lobbyist Register, and act as their lobbyist. These clients always align with our values, we have an established relationship or its in the client’s interests for us to represent them in certain instances.
In advocacy, lobbying is a tactic; our strength is in the quality of the strategy and ability to align your organisation’s objectives with the government’s, and to navigate the external environment to deliver a suitable outcome.
FAQs
What is Issues Management?
In most cases, organisations have time to prepare for an issue, and to potentially mitigate or minimise any reputational damage that may result. Managing any issue should include not just the operational response, but also a comprehensive communications plan which considers the range of scenarios that might unfold.
Some of the questions to ask when preparing an Issues Management Plan should include: What’s happened? Who do you need to tell? What can or do you need to tell them? When will you tell them? How will you tell them? How will they respond or react?
What is the difference between an issue and a crisis?
Issues can generally be prepared for and managed. An issue becomes a crisis, when the planned becomes unplanned. In a crisis, you may need to make decisions or share information without having all the facts available; things are unfolding and need to be managed in the moment.
Can all issues – or crises – be prepared for?
Broadly speaking, yes. For every organisation, there will be a range of potential risks that can generally be identified: physical incidents, cyber incidents, employee incidents, organisational incidents etc. The specific details will vary, but the nature of the incident can broadly be predicted and prepared for.
Ensuring you have an up-to-date Crisis Communications Plan is critical, which clearly sets out processes, stakeholders, messaging, and template materials.
When should we engage communications experts to manage an issue?
As soon as possible. Preparedness is key to effective issues management and minimising reputational damage.
Contact Us
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Reputation Management
We work with clients to build, maintain and manage reputation
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