Facts About PACs Podcast
The Facts About PACs Podcast is the #1 PAC podcast in America. The show is produced especially for the members of the National Association of Business Political Action Committees (NABPAC). Each weekly episode includes a recap of the association's latest activities, actionable intelligence for the employee-funded and business trade association PAC community, and an interview with a featured guest. Show host Micaela Isler is the President and CEO of NAPBAC.
Facts About PACs Podcast
Ep 41 Inside Insuring America PAC with Bridget Sewell of American Property Casualty Insurance Association | 4.15.21
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Today we’re joined by a leader with so much experience in the association PAC space. Bridget Sewell from the American Property Casualty Insurance Association joins the podcast for a candid conversation about how the events of January 6th impacted Insuring America PAC and what they've done to remain on track.
You can join the fight to defend employee funded and association packs by texting NABPAC, the 5288 Text method and data rates may apply.
SPEAKER_01Welcome back to the Fact About PACT podcast. This show is brought to you by NABAC, the National Association of Business Political Action Committees, and I'm your host, Michaela Isler, NABAC's Executive Director. Today we're joined by a leader with so much experience in the PAC space. Bridget Sewell from the American Property Casualty Insurance Association will be with us in just a few minutes to talk about how APCIA and Insuring America PAC are staying on track in 2021. Adam Belmar, Bridget Sewell is someone I know well. She's a member of our executive committee here at NABAC. We've worked together before at APCIA, and I can't think of a PAC professional with more insight to share with our audience than her.
SPEAKER_00The American Property Casualty Insurance Association is a powerful force for the industry, Michaela. And Insuring America PAC has been a leader in best practices for a long time. I am curious to hear what Bridget and her team have learned from their 2020 experience and how it's informing their 2021 strategy.
SPEAKER_01You know, Adam, APCIA, like so many of our members right now, is balancing the realities of work from home with a very real transition back to in-person events soon. Hybrid is something starting to happen more too. So I'm looking forward to that conversation.
SPEAKER_00So, Michaela, on the NABPAC activity front, we do this every episode. We chronicle what we're doing at NABPAC with the membership, for the membership. We had a really important event this week with our members. In addition to the full briefing on the PAC survey that we toplined here on this podcast two weeks ago, we heard from a great panel of PAC managers about how their programs have been handling the scrutiny since the attack on the Capitol on January 6th and what the return, first um, to giving looks like.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it really was an incredibly helpful discussion and one that the membership really showed up for. I want to thank Amy Adams for moderating, but I also want to thank all of our speakers who came on and talked about the path that they have taken over these last three months. It's been it's been intense. But you know, Adam, it's April 15th as we take this episode. And while the IRS has given individuals more time to file their federal taxes, the Federal Election Commission has made no such allowances for PACs. The mandatory filing deadline for Q1 activity has come.
SPEAKER_00The transparency that comes with public disclosure, Mikhaila, is something we have been talking a lot about this year on the podcast. And the vision that comes from a whole new crop of journalists who are tracking political giving is actually a great thing. Because the more reporters have to do their homework and help to explain to their audience the accountability that comes from FEC oversight, then an even more broader audience is getting familiar with the facts about PACs.
SPEAKER_01You are correct, my friend. Employee funded and business association PACs remain the most transparent and regulated form of political giving. So are you ready to go, Adam?
SPEAKER_00Oh, yes, I am. The Facts About PACs podcast is produced especially for the members of the National Association of Business Political Action Committees. In every episode, we recap this week's NAP activities, share actionable intelligence and best practices for all while connecting the PAC community. And today's episode of The Facts About PACs is brought to you by Access Marketing Services. Access provides full service creative marketing solutions backed by the industry's best data, polling and engagement strategy to ensure you reached the right people the right way with the right message.
SPEAKER_01Thanks, Adam. And now I'm so excited to welcome my good friend Bridget Sowell from the American Property Casualty Insurance Association and Insuring America PAC to the podcast. Thanks for joining us, Bridget. Hi, Mikhail and Adam. Thanks for having me. So Bridget, as a former insuring America PAC donor, tell us a little bit about what your PAC operations have looked like so far this year, and really how have the post-election events impacted your overall program?
SPEAKER_02So I think I started off 2021 like a lot of other PAC directors. I was energetic about a new cycle. I had a new fundraising goal, a new PAC chairman. I was ready to move past the chaos and the crisis that 2020 was. And then January 6th happened. So we took that time directly after the January 6th event to really pause and hear from our members. We did learn that the views of our members were a lot like the views of the country, very, very diverse. So we thought it was prudent for ATCIA to stop, ask questions, and really hear from the members because ultimately, whatever decision we were going to make was up to the members. We do have a very robust governance process. APCIA has a great foundation of governance that's been in place for quite some time now. And we really relied on that process to help steer us and make those decisions. There was very little question about who was going to make the decisions, how the decisions were going to be made because of this really robust and transparent member-driven governance process. But very quickly, as the governance process worked its way, we learned that we could not disengage, we could not disarm. It was pretty good marching orders for me as the PAC director. It was very clearly stated how to move forward. My PAC board was such an engaged group of people right now. They're CEOs from our member companies. I've never seen them more engaged on a topic in my 10 years of working at APCIA. They had really good, thoughtful conversations on how to move forward, passionate but very positive on ensuring America PAC. And multiple times throughout those conversations, they reinforced that what we were doing was right. We were on the right track. We were giving to the appropriate members. We had the governance in place. It was all member driven. And they wanted us to stay true to those governance processes in that track.
SPEAKER_00Bridget, what can you share with our audience about APCIA's giving criteria and how that gets reviewed and at what frequency?
SPEAKER_02Many, many years ago, the CEOs on my PAC board wanted to ensure that we really were giving to the right people. And that's when these giving criteria, these guiding principles were instated probably 12 years ago at this point. We've built off those and grown those over the years. And very frequently do we revisit them to make sure we're still in line with the overall association's mission to make sure that our giving is aligned with our goals. We have a committee of members that revisits it probably once a year. During these conversations that we had with our PAC board, these CEOs that were going to ultimately be the decision makers in this process, we did revisit it. They really didn't want to go down the values path, to be honest. I know a lot of other PACs did make the decision to add in some criteria on different values or morals, but our CEOs were very passionate, not because the values aren't important, they are, but they see APCIA as the trade association. And our mission is very clear. Our mission is to promote and to protect the property casualty insurance industry and let the companies handle the values and message that to their employees. But they really felt strongly that we need to stay on course, we need to stay on track. We cannot disengage and we need to be stay focused on the property casualty insurance industry. I will also say that we do have a scorecard. So we score every single member of Congress. We rate them of how pro-PC they are. That also has grown over time and matured over time as we've grown our program. It was a nice reassurance for myself and ATCIA staff to know that what we were doing and have been doing is appropriate and is what the members ultimately want. And I think it also helps because all of this that I'm talking about, the scorecard, the guiding principles, it's all what members put in place. So it's nice as staff to just have that reinforcement that what we're doing is what they want us to be doing. And ultimately that's our biggest priority. It's keeping the members happy and engaged and making sure that we're on the right track for their businesses.
SPEAKER_01Bridget, I've been so impressed with the process that you all have put in place over these last several months. CEOs have taken a lot of criticism because they were seen as sort of laying down the law and they were going to stop and pause contributions. And what I appreciated so much about APCIA CEO, David Sampson, is he really took the model of running the trade association and applied it to the review of your PAC operations. And I just think the leadership starts at the top. And I know this was a very difficult time for him, for all of the staff at the organization. And so being able to apply those same governance models to your PAC operations, I think has served you all very well.
SPEAKER_02Thanks, Mikhail. And I couldn't agree more. The leadership that our CEO, David Sampson, has shown has been remarkable through this whole thing. And I do agree that letting the governance process work the way it should be has made, I think, all the difference in the world for us. There's no rash decisions, there's no one person making the decisions. It was a very comprehensive, thoughtful process. And I think now at the end of the day, we've pretty much satisfied most of the members. Of course, we'll have some members that aren't happy. You can't make everyone happy all the time. But I think we can confidently say that we're in a good spot and our members support that. And I think that's all due to his leadership and the fact that we did let that governance process, member input, run its course and actually work the way it should work.
SPEAKER_01Well, and speaking of your members and their engagement as an association PAC, you have to work so closely with all of your member organizations when it comes to fundraising. Interested in hearing if that process of getting back on track and soliciting your members is on point for the year.
SPEAKER_02So I have started soliciting. I do work very closely with our member companies because of the prior approval process that we have to go through. And I'm happy to report that the folks who have consistently supported the PAC over the years are going to continue to do so this cycle. So that makes me excited. That makes me uh makes me happy. I will say that we're a little down cycle over cycle. I track participation on a weekly basis. So where I am today compared to that same time frame last cycle, and I'm $50,000 down right now. So not much at all. I have a tremendous amount of outreach happening this quarter. So I'm confident I'll make up that gap in the coming weeks here. I do know where I am at every given moment, though, because I do have to report my fundraising numbers, participation numbers up through senior leadership, which then gets reported to our entire executive committee on a weekly basis. So I'm constantly tracking that and it does help me stay focused. But I'm confident that I will pick up for the last time. So I wanted to not be completely tone-deaf, you know, through that whole process.
SPEAKER_00So one of the things that PAC managers have been saying to all of us from our post-election conference to the webinars that NAPPAC has hosted in 2021, Bridget, is that you know what, enough with the Zoom already. I mean, I know that being remote requires us to interface this way. But when you're thinking about what you've learned in 2020, did you guys figure out how to do virtual better? And how is that informing the tactics and the strategies that you're going to implement in 21 for the stuff that isn't going to be in person but continues to bring donors and everyone together with lawmakers? What does that look like for you? How do you do it? How are you doing it better?
SPEAKER_02So, as Michaela knows from being a former APCIA member, we have a lot of in-person conferences. One of our, I think, greatest benefits of our membership of being a member are our in-person conferences. We have an HR conference, we've got a legal conference, we've got a government affairs, we've got a little bit of everything, you know, depending on what you what your area of expertise is. So we had to pivot quickly last year. And one of the first events that did get canceled was my federal DC fly-in. So we had to pivot very quickly on how to figure out how to do that in a virtual setting. I had some lessons learned from 2020, and I think also taking what I learned from that event plus what we've learned as an association overall, and then also just it's everyone's been in a year of virtual. Everyone is, like you said, there's just Zoom fatigue. So taking that all into account as I'm planning for the 2021 virtual fly-in, which is a month away, um, I had to be really aware of what program I was going to be creating and how much time I was going to have my members sit in front of a screen. I think Mad Pack did a great job during the post-election conference this past winter on breaking up the sessions and not having people sit too many hours in front of the computer. And I that's what I also tried to do as I'm as I'm planning for this conference next month. Less is more. That's what we're we're doing here at APCIA with this conference. Short session of engaging speakers, an interactive session to hopefully get people, you know, a little bit awake and not like they're just being talked at the whole time. And really just keeping the materials that we're creating for the conference short, high-level, crisp, very digestible. I think at APCI sometimes we've gotten in the habit of over-preparing the members and having so many meeting prep materials. And I'm really trying to cut back on that in this virtual world. We do have plans to move into an in-person event, fingers crossed this fall. Uh, our members are eager to get back. One of the best parts of these in-person conferences are are the networking opportunities for our members, and they really are eager to be back in person, face to face. And I know as a fundraiser, it's a lot easier to fundraise and ask for money when I'm looking at someone in the face. It is so easy to ignore my phone call. It is so easy to just not reply to my my email. But when I'm looking at you face to face at a cocktail party, it's a lot harder to say no. Not only efficient, it's effective, it's my the best way that for me to fundraise. So I am personally looking forward to get back for that networking opportunity and you know, to do my job more efficiently and effectively.
SPEAKER_01Well, there's no one better in getting someone in a room and asking them for not only uh to give to the PAC, but actually to give more money to the PAC. I've watched you do that very effortlessly. Thank you, Michaela. We both know the property and casualty insurance industry is such a critical and fundamental piece of our overall economy. And it is also an industry that is extremely regulated at the state level. And that means that your advocacy and education communication really can't afford to be sidelined, not even during a pandemic. And so, how much harder has it been for APCIA and Ensuring America Pact to remain effective during this work from home period and to see a return, as you talked about earlier, to in-person events in 2021? I think we're built for times like this, to be quite honest.
SPEAKER_02You know, there's a fire in a state capitol every other day that we have to put out. You're, you know, the the state government relations teams are working tirelessly around the clock. And you can plan as much as you want to plan, but there's a new problem, new crisis every single day in our industry. Whether it's the wildfires out west or flood down south or a tornado, um, it we can't plan. Although we like to think, you know, we're in the security business. We try to prevent the catastrophes from happening, but we can't control them. They pop up, and then we are there to help recover and have, you know, give our members, policyholders, peace of mind. Um, but we haven't been able to have the luxury of trying to figure out how to work from home and still be effective. We had to pivot fast, we had to remain effective. Our membership needed us more than ever. They were looking to us as the association to help navigate all of the different bills and litigation and everything that they were facing in the states. And our membership participation skyrocketed during COVID, to be honest. Our website hits, I mean, off the charts. Our member calls, we would get, you know, a couple people joining calls in a typical year. Hundreds and hundreds of members were joining our calls to hear about the latest and greatest in the COVID world, how ATCIO is working for them, what we were doing on an advocacy front for them. So it was harder in the sense of not having that in-person connection, but at the same time, we are built for this and we have been able to pivot and do just as good a job advocating on behalf of our memberships, I think. And also, we've heard a lot of feedback from our members to reinforce this. Our CEO gets emails every day that he shares with the staff on what ATCIA is doing for our members and how appreciative they've been. Um, so that also helps keep us motivated. But it's nice to know that they have our back and we are there for them. Uh, the CEOs, like I mentioned earlier, love data and this, you know, across the association, they ensured that we stayed on track with our goals uh in this in this virtual world. It was just never an option. They didn't they expected us to hit our goals.
SPEAKER_01Well, Bridget, such great information. I'm I'm so proud of you and everyone at APCIA for leading the way. Thank you for sharing your experiences and insights with everyone listening. Please give my best to the team and the family over at APCIA. And I really hope that you'll come back and join the podcast again sometime soon. Absolutely. Thanks for having me. And thanks to everyone listening and sharing the number one PAC podcast in America. The Facts About PAC podcast is dedicated to promoting the most transparent and regulated form of political giving and the amazing professionals who lead their employee funded and business trade association PACs. Until next time, stay safe, stay engaged, and please keep moving forward.
