OGR General Manager

Dear Kim,

Welcome to the Office of Government Relations! Congratulations on making it through the hiring process, I was really impressed with your qualifications. You’ve entered a position that has a tremendous ability to make change to the lives of your peers, the university you study at, and the community you live in. I hope you’re excited! This transition document is both the combined efforts of myself and the predecessors that created this position.

This is the second year of the General Manager position, so in your role you will be breaking new ground on a redesigned ASUW system for external advocacy. You will oversee a new office geared towards advocacy on all levels of outside government (local, state & federal), with new dedicated local and state legislative advocates. You will be responsible for ensuring the effectiveness of the OGR, managing the staff, and aligning the OGR’s mission to serve the purpose of the ASUW and the greater student body.

I focused much of my work on coalition building between all ASUW entities and related organizations. I hope you do the same. Advocacy work takes a long time and works quietly – much of your work will not be as sexy or quantified as your staff or peers in ASUW. Ignore any work olympics, what you’re doing is INCREDIBLY important in ensuring that OGR becomes an inclusive and accessible hub for information and opportunities. Historically, there has been a divide between OGR and JCC – which I find odd, because our goals are advocacy. This is the result of perceptions between establishment and activism. Don’t let this become 2018-2019’s story. Bridge the gap, there is so much opportunity to do great things with the Commission Directors.

This is the original intent of GM: having a dedicated managerial position will be able to better equip the OGR to do the following:

• Better coordinate and streamline the actions of the four other employees of the OGR (for example, helping the LPC work with the state liaison, or have the local liaison work with the OC)
• Better inform the board of directors and on campus stakeholders into the actions of the OGR.
• Increase our ability to advocate on the local level by dedicating an employee to local legislative and other government advocacy.
• Dedicate an employee to any possible future federal level advocacy.

I’d add the following:

• Serve as the liaison/face of OGR to the rest of the ASUW community and build relationships
• Oversee all paperwork, budgets, contracts, etc.

In your position, you will take on many of the largest challenges facing the ASUW. As the same time, you will also serve as one of the students’ loudest voices, with the ability to create change matched by only a few other students on campus. If you ever need clarification on the role, or just someone to talk through your day to day activities, please feel free to reach out to myself or Alex Wirth (2016-17 Director) or Tyler Pichette (2016-17 Assistant Director). Happy advocating!

Crystal Chindavongsa

asuwogr1@uw.edu

Huskiesrule2017

Because the role of OGR changes quarter-to-quarter, your week will look slightly different depending on where you are in the academic year. Here’s a basic rundown of what should be occurring every week.

• Staff meeting, with all staff members present, as well as the Director of University Affairs and the office’s SAO advisor, and any other relevant parties.
  • The staff meeting can range from 30-90 minutes, depending upon workload. I’d suggest blocking out 60-90 minutes as standing time. Create an agenda the night before the meeting & tell your staff then if you anticipate the meeting being shorter. Creating an agenda is important to ensuring everyone’s time is spent well and the conversation isn’t one that doesn’t regard all staff.
• Check-ins with staff members to make sure the office is on track to achieve quarterly goals.
  • I held 30 minute check-ins with each of my staff – to determine goals, set checkpoints, and see areas where you can step in. These are generally more relaxed. They were helpful when delegating loose ends and being aware of workload/stress levels
• Check-ins with other ASUW parties (the board of directors, diversity commissions, the ASUW senate, other higher ed advocates)
  • I would set a weekly standing check in with: Director of University Affairs, Director of Diversity Efforts, ALL diversity commissions, Student Senate, potentially president (DLA might cover)
• Visit 131 – pop in there as much as you can, even to just say hi. Chat about upcoming events and try to find ways to collaborate or support.
• Helping carry out your own goals, as well as support other staff members in their day to day activities
  • this is especially applicable with programming events, outreach and policy work.
• Intern & Lead Meetings, no other staff needs to be there. You can decide if you’d like to do one on one with intern/leads (might be helpful in the beginning) + team, only team, only one-on-ones, combining with last 15 mins of staff, etc…. Up to you!

Fall

• Create application, outreach and recruitment plan for OGR Interns and Specialized Leads. You oversee all personnel in the office. Both of these bodies are new as of this year. You’ll want to hire them ASAP (use google survey for apps, do relaxed interviews)
  • The interns are: policy (works with DLA, LLL), marketing (works with OC) & programming (works with LPC). You can rewrite them as you see fit. Generally, they focus most of their work with the staff member but you ensure that the relationship is going smoothly, they’re meeting deadlines, working towards their goals, etc.
    • Tip: have interns work in the office, make them feel apart of the team.
  • Specialized leads are: JCC liaison and 2 Senate. The liaisons take minutes for those meetings (Senate usually switches off) and report to you. It’s helpful to know what’s going on in Senate and JCC. There’s a lower commitment here vs. interns. We want to reshift this so that leads can speak for OGR to a degree (informing of events, etc). Your j0b is to see how we can reformat that. I’d also suggest transforming the 2n d senate lead to whatever you see fit.
• Convene and vice-chair the Legislative Steering Committee and to develop the State Legislative Agenda.
  • Work alongside your OC to continuing outreach for seats on the LSC. This past year, there has been a taskforce that proposed recommendations. Use this as your guide for recruitment and conducting meetings.
• Attend and lobby the ASUW senate to pass the State Legislative Agenda
  • This may be the DLA – chat with them.
• Assist the LPC in planning a successful legislative reception, particularly by helping coordinate with the OC to create a successful turnout and by coordinating with the state and local liaisons to secure the attendance of decision-makers and speakers.
• Work with the state liaison to develop outlines of advocacy goals for the legislative session
• Work with OC to help develop a strong, active Engage UW committee. This is our volunteer committee – you’ll want to really create a database that has policy interests (for phone banking, etc)

Winter

• Work closely with Director of Legislative Affairs to ensure Olympia advocacy is progressing. Create a communication plan that’ll allow for weekly contact.
• Provide guidance and assistance for Local Legislative Liaison as they liaison Seattle/King County officials in line with legislative agendas. (make sure you always use liaison, not lobby, per constitution)
• Provide guidance and assist LPC in planning and executing Huskies on the Hill Lobby Day
• Work with WSA Chapter Chair and Executive Director to assist WSA in state advocacy efforts and potentially pursue the STAR System funding. not applicable 2018-2019

Spring

• Continue to support Director of Legislative Affairs and Local Legislative Liaison in support of their advocacy efforts.
• Provide support and assistance to LPC with regards to ASUW Spark Idea-A-Thon (or another event, depending on what you all decide to do in the spring).
• Identify other potential partners for spring events.
• Help Organizing Coordinator with the Voter Institutionalization Plan.

• Your SAO advisor (Coop) will be very helpful resource, always go to her for questions. She’ll be at all staff meetings.
• Rene with SAO is also a great resource. You should meet with her.
• Your Personnel Director, the Director of University Affairs, and the Director of Finance and Budget will also be great assets for helping you and answering questions.

This is the second year that your job has existed, so there aren’t a lot of loose ends, but a lot of opportunity for you to be self-motivated and really define the position moving forward. It’s important to fill the leadership and management gap that the office has lacked in years past.

• Continue with JCC/OGR Coalition Building
• Work with OC to update OGR website with opportunities, resources – it’s a bit outdated.
• Check in with diversity directors about DACA/Undocumented policy – we worked on this a bit this year, educational campaign would be a great idea

-Your position is being created in order to deal with what has been a perceived lack of managerial presence in the OGR in year’s past. Often, there has been a lack of oversight on important lobbying, projects, or events being undertaken by OGR staff. It is important to keep regular tabs on how events logistics are coming together, the status of lobbying in Olympia and Seattle, and the progress of voter registration drives or the development of Engage UW. By keeping track of your team’s progress, you can help them identify opportunities for partnerships and also offer needed help.

-As General Manager, you will serve as the Chief of Staff of the office. You are tasked with overseeing the staff and their weekly operations, promoting a positive, healthy team environment, and serving as a resource to the staff when they need you. It is important that you provide the rest of the staff with the support that they need to be successful without micromanaging. As stated above, weekly staff meetings are a must to keep tabs on what everyone is working on. I would also encourage you to meet at least once a quarter with each staff member individually so you can provide individualized support and resources.

Crystal:

When the position was created, there were different expectations about what it entailed. This year, everyone reported to me, except when it came to lobbying matters – in which the DLA would report to President. There have been changes – I would double check the job description, but from what I understand, you report to the DLA and the rest of the staff reports to you. Read more on the constitution or ask Rene if you’d like to know more. It’s a unique situation.

-Working with the Director of UA and the Speaker of the Student Senate, assembling the Legislative Steering Committee is one of the first things (and most important things) you will do as General Manager. However, this is the effort of you, the DLA and UA. The purpose of the Legislative Steering Committee is to bring together a diverse group of individuals from different groups on and off campus to developh a state legislative agenda, that will guide your advocacy efforts in Olympia, and well as in King County and with the City of Seattle. The Legislative Steering Committee is comprised of 19 total people, listed below.*** Some are voting members, while others (OGR, SAO, Administrative Assistant are non-voting). As General Manager, you are the vice-Chair of the Legislative Steering Committee.

Voting: President, Director of Community Relations, Director of Internal Policy, Director of University Affairs, Vice-Speaker of the Student Senate, GPSS Representative, 2 Student Senate Elected Delegates, 4 At-Large Appointments

Non-Voting: OGR Staff (General Manager, Director of Legislative Affairs, Local Legislative Liaison, Organizing Coordinator, Legislative Programming Coordinator), SAO Advisor, Administrative Assistant

*** this has since changed, see the recommendations for a more updated version of how LSC will run.

It is important to note that these meetings are subject to the Open Public Meetings Act. As such, you must run using parliamentary procedure and need an Administrative Assistant to take thorough notes of the proceedings. As vice-Chair, you, DLA and UA are tasked with developing the application for the 4 at-large positions (Catalyst Survey, do this very quickly), coordinating the election of the student senate delegates with Senate Leadership (have them elect this at their first senate meeting of the year), and coordinating the appointment of a GPSS delegate with somebody from GPSS leadership.

The legislative steering committee will consume a lot of your time during fall quarter. First, focus on developing a state legislative agenda. Your Director of Legislative Affairs will be a great resource for helping with this, given their relative knowledge with regards to state policy. It is important to note that after the committee  finishes the agenda, it must pass through Senate as well as Board (this will take 2 weeks) so try to finish the state agenda AT LEAST 2 weeks before Leg Reception. I would advise basing the legislative agendas off last year’s leg agendas located on the website, breaking into committees, developing new language and position statements, and then going over everything in full committee. 2017, it took 4 meetings of about 1.5 hours (one meeting a week) to develop the state agenda.

The Washington Student Association is a coalition of the public 4-year institutions in Washington State, developed for the purpose of facilitating a unified voice in state politics on matters relating to higher education. Each school pays membership dues to the organization, which supports one or two paid employees (an organizing director and an executive director) an office in Olympia, and meetings where representatives from the schools vote on political matters, set agendas, and deal with other misc. items. As the head of the OGR team, you are the voting member in this meetings, which occur roughly monthly at a member university.

The WSA is extremely useful as a resource for state relations, as it allows the OGR team to amplify their voice with students from other schools, and provides the state relations director with more resources in Olympia. However, it is important that ASUW does not become subservient to the WSA’s legislative agenda, which is generally more focused on a statewide higher education perspective than a UW-specific one. Remember, the OGR lobbies on behalf of the UW lobbying agenda, and only lobbies for the WSA agenda where it aligns with the OGR mission. This means that when the WSA agenda is being set for the year, the OGR should work to insert as many ASUW initiatives as possible into the agenda, and discourage items that are not on the ASUW agenda.

In recent years, the dues paying process for the WSA at UW has been a major issue. During the founding of the current iteration of the WSA, the ASUW agreed to pay a disproportionately large share of dues, leading to a debt crisis that culminated in the 2014-15 year with a debt repayment plan and due cap at $15,000. The WSA UW chapter (a separate entity from ASUW but heavily linked) relied on paying those dues through the STAR system, which requests voluntary donations from students during registration, however in the 2016-17 year, the WSA and ASUW failed to get enough signatures to renew the program (every 4-years the STAR status must be renewed with 15% of the student body’s signatures) and also did not get enough revenue from the program to pay full dues regardless. This year, we’ve initiated a fundraising drive through the USEED program, a crowdfunding program, and are also considering requesting dedicated support from the ASUW general budget.

***This information is helpful to know, however not relevant as the star system process occurred this year.

The OGR works with a variety of other stakeholders in its advocacy that the incoming GM should be aware of. Some, but not all of these are listed below.

• The UW administration’s external relations team (including local, state, and federal relations)
• UW IMPACT (The lobbying team for the UW alumni association)
• UW School of Medicine (They have one lobbyist who works on medical school issues)
• RSOs (The have included but are not limited to WashPIRG, USAS, Young Democrats, College Republicans, ONE at UW, and others)
• The Washington Bus (for voter registration purposes)
• Neighborhood Councils (for our participation in HALA and the new renter’s commission.

The GM would be the primary representative of the OGR to the board. Engendering a good and productive relationship with the board of directors is an important part of creating an effective and well-integrated OGR. Here’s a small list of important relationships to build with the board as a whole and individual members.

• The Board: This should be regularly reported to and followed, as the current board does not have a member, voting or ex-officio, that can speak with any authority on legislative issues. This means that your presence at board meetings or awareness of board proceedings will be the main way the board sees the ASUW’s external activities. Having an effective communication channel here can help the board offer resources they might not know they could use otherwise.
• The President: The president should not only be close to you, as the general manager of OGR, but also to State Relations and Local Relations, in a way that they can be expected to communicate regularly and beyond normal office hours. The president is your & DLA main source for guidance on difficult issues that shouldn’t be left solely to the OGR to decide, and could also be a louder voice in communicating with legislators.
• The Vice President: The Vice President role has increasingly become human-resources based, and you can expect to work with them on personnel and organizational issues. If you have changes in mind for the OGR, they might be the person to go to.
• The Director of University Affairs: The official liaison between the OGR and the board, the UA is charged with relations between the ASUW and the UW administration, and will be at staff meetings. The DAA should be kept extremely aware of the activities of OGR, and should be an affirming voice at the board table. Many of the activities the OGR is involved with also involve the administration, and you will partner with the UA on a variety of issues.
• The Director of Diversity Efforts: Establish weekly meetings. Outreach to a variety of communities within and without the ASUW structure is imperative to advancing holistic, equitable policies for students. Keeping the Director of Diversity in the loop on important issues, and including the communities they liaison with in all substantive discussions, is very important.
• The Vice Speaker of the Student Senate: As Vice Speaker, this board member is ex-officio, but speaks for senate at the board table. Since Senate can bring legislative directives and other changes to the OGR or its actions, being aware of the senate and corresponding with the Vice Speaker is a good way to keep in the loop on this branch of the ASUW.
• The Personnel Director: As the GM of the office, you will be expected to deal with personnel matters in the OGR. This will mean liaising with the personnel director for entity level personnel matters.
• The Finance Director: You will work with this board member for the ASUW budget and any other financial asks from outside the normal budget.
• Director of Community Relations, Campus Partnerships and Internal Policy: While there are no written connections between you and these board members, they could be useful to partner with on various projects the ASUW might undertake.
• Communications Director OCOMM: They’ll run awesome marketing campaigns and provide great graphics and posters. You & OC will be running the Husky Stories campaign and will be working closely with OCOMM

I will discuss this with you in person, but below are some frameworks for successfully interacting with JCC. This was my number one priority, as I hope it is yours as well.

Essentially, what’s crucial is for both JCC and OGR to educate each other on how we can work together. Examples are: DLA lobbying for their issues, events and programming, policy and bill tracking on state and local issues, event support, networking opportunities, trainings and education with all things civic engagement, etc. There is a huge opportunity to pioneer a new relationship, this isn’t an extensive list, so add more. It’s important to have an understanding of ogr’s capabilities and inform JCC. There isn’t a precedence, so some directors will not enough think a collaboration is possible.

Here’s a timeline for fall Q:

GM will meet w each director + JCC initially to educate on what OGR can do.

Set biweekly check ins for brainstorming what the needs/goals/etc are of each office and creating at least 1 solid action item for the year.

This was implemented loosely this year, there was a unique situation where the OC and myself started later and we missed some opportunities. Nevertheless, I did daily check ins with 131 and developed relationships with all the offices. There were times where we provided bill tracking, updates, etc.

GM will be the main interface that’ll connect JCC with other members of your staff, like local liaison or state lobbyist for instance.

Other things to establish:

• keep JCC a healthy level of educated about what goes on in OGR, especially when it concerns their constituents
• ensure more than just a minimal level of recruitment for events and opportunities
• establish check in methods for tracking and streamlining policy research – especially with legislative interns and current overlaps
• and most importantly, build trust.

This is just how the current DE and I see the relationship moving forward, it’s up to you though!

Feel free to reach out to me at any time! 2062257032.