State of Associations Quarterly: 2025 Q2

The sixth brief in the State of Associations Quarterly series looks at federal advocacy activity: how many member organizations engaged in at least one federal advocacy action in the past year, and what separates a first-time participant from an association that sends the same staff member to the Hill every spring.

Drawn from the same benchmarking survey behind State of Associations, the brief finds that participation clusters heavily around a handful of recurring events — Advocacy Day chief among them — rather than spreading evenly across the calendar, and that organization size predicts participation less than whether an association already has a designated policy or government-relations staff role, even a small or shared one.

The brief also tracks what happens after a first Hill visit: whether a first-time participant returns the following year, and what predicts a lapse in an organization's advocacy engagement once it starts.

Published by NANA's research team as part of the brief series.