When Tracy Taylor attended the Public Affairs Council's National Grassroots Conference two years ago, she had one big challenge on her mind:

How could she increase attendance at the annual fly-in day that her company - the Natural Products Association -- hosts each year?

While attendance at the company's "Natural Products Day" had been growing, that growth had slowed. Taylor, senior vice president of public affairs and strategic initiatives at the company, needed new ways to get people on board, especially first-time attendees.

After attending a few conference sessions and talking with peers at the 2007 Grassroots Conference, which was held in St. Petersburg, Fla., Taylor hit on an idea:

Scholarships.

Perhaps the company could award someone a modest, fixed amount to offset the cost of coming to D.C.. Perhaps it could be more elaborate -- such as finding a large member willing to subsidize a small member's travel expenses in exchange for sponsorship recognition.

"For relatively little money, especially compared to print outreach, I learned that by offering scholarships we could all but guarantee another attendee at our event," said Taylor, a Council board member who will again attend the National Grassroots Conference, being held in St. Petersburg this Feb. 4-7.

Taylor's experience illustrates the practical things one can take away from the annual conference, which aims to help companies get their employees involved in petitioning government about the companies' interests.

"We teach professionals how to get everybody involved," said Rikki Amos, the Council's associate director of political involvement programs.

Among the topics the conference typically examines are: How to convince a company's decision makers to invest time and money in grassroots efforts; how to sustain a grassroots program so it's not just crisis-driven; and how to train employees to petition lawmakers, and to do it ethically.

Last January's conference in Key West, Fla., convinced Anna Wagner of Eastman Chemical Co. to survey her 3,000 professionals to gauge their interest in political involvement.

"In less than 24 hours, we've received positive replies from almost 500 employees saying they'll be happy to be active in reaching out to legislators on public policy matters that are important to Eastman," Wagner said. "I learned a lot at the conference ... that should help us re-energize our grassroots organization."

"The Grassroots Conference is one-stop shopping for public affairs professionals at all levels who are either looking to enhance their program, or build one from scratch," said Willem O. Rijksen, another Council board member who is vice president for public affairs at the American Insurance Association.  "I've found the conference's speakers to be first rate practitioners who offer practical advice on how to improve one's efforts.  Moreover, the conference serves as an annual check-up on how you're doing compared to best-in-class grassroots programs from around the country.  It's one heck of a motivating force."

This year, Amos says, several Council members have discussed training their workers to be advocates not just at the government or regulatory levels, but also in their neighborhoods and homes. For instance, employees of pharmaceutical companies - who tend to hear complaints about the high cost of prescription drugs - can be trained to explain to everyone from lawmakers to relatives what actually goes into making a drug. In short, they can learn how to be "a defender of the industry and their company," Amos said.

All told, Amos said, coming back from a Grassroots Conference is "like coming back with a laundry list of ‘ah ha' moments, with a Rolodex of people who really understand what you do and with ways to not reinvent the wheel when you have very little time and resources to create something from scratch."

National Grassroots Conference