Advocacy Day 2025

The Mid-Atlantic chapter hosted its annual Advocacy Day at NANA's Washington conference center on April 16, 2025, drawing members for a morning briefing followed by a full day of Hill meetings. Cobbleridge Broadcast recorded the morning sessions for members who couldn't attend in person.

Director of Public Policy Simone Radcliffe opened with a briefing on the policy files NANA's team was tracking that spring — tax-exempt status, lobbying disclosure, and postal costs among them. Emeka Nwosu-Hart, vice president of government relations at the Coalition of Family Farm Lenders and co-chair of the Mid-Atlantic government-relations working group, joined for message training, drawing on his own coalition's experience building relationships with committee staff over multiple visits.

NANA's policy team had booked meetings across House and Senate offices by the time the morning briefing ended, grouped by state delegation. Members carried a leave-behind covering the spring's active policy files.

Meetings ran in two blocks with a working-lunch debrief between them. At the afternoon report-back roundtable, Radcliffe and Nwosu-Hart collected follow-up questions from staffers for the policy team to track — without predicting the outcome of any pending bill.

The conference center sits ten minutes from Reagan National by Metro, with shuttle buses running between the venue and Capitol Hill throughout the day. The day closed with a reception at 3:00 p.m.

Advocacy Day is aimed at anyone whose association has a stake in federal policy, not only staff with a government-relations title — several first-time attendees each year are executive directors bringing a board member along for their first Hill visit. Registration closes a month ahead so the policy team can confirm delegation meetings before members travel.

Members whose associations have an active federal grant or postal-dependent mailing program are especially encouraged to attend, since staffers on both topics tend to remember a constituent's specific numbers longer than a general policy position.