Advocacy Day 2024

210 members registered for Advocacy Day 2024, NANA's largest turnout for the event since it began. Attendees ran the range from solo government-relations staff at small associations to general counsel teams from national federations, hosted by the Mid-Atlantic chapter at NANA's Washington headquarters.

Director of Public Policy Simone Radcliffe opened the day with a briefing on the issues NANA's policy team was tracking that spring, followed by message training aimed at first-time Hill visitors. Obadiah Fenwick, executive director of the Chesapeake Watermen's Cooperative Association, spoke on why a three-person co-op still sends someone to Washington every year: "A small association's story is the one a staffer remembers, because it's the one they haven't heard twenty times already."

NANA's policy team had booked 96 meetings across House and Senate offices by the morning, grouped by state delegation so members from the same district could travel together. Members carried a one-page leave-behind prepared by the policy team; NANA supplied the folders.

Meetings ran in two blocks, morning and afternoon, with a working lunch back at the conference center for members to compare notes between rounds. By the afternoon report-back roundtable, several delegations described staffers asking follow-up questions on postal costs and volunteer liability — both live NANA policy files that spring.

The conference center sits ten minutes from Reagan National by Metro, and shuttle buses ran between the venue and Capitol Hill throughout the day. The day closed with a reception at 4:00 p.m. and a written summary sent to all registrants the following week.

Advocacy Day draws government-relations staff, general counsel, and executive directors who want a direct hand in NANA's federal advocacy rather than a briefing after the fact. Members are asked to register at least a month ahead so the policy team can build state-delegation meeting blocks; walk-up registration on the day itself is not accepted, since Hill offices confirm appointments in advance.