Tip Sheet: Strategic Planning for Public Affairs
January 2026
Strategic planning for public affairs is a critical tool to set up your function for success. The process helps foster a collective identity, purpose, direction and destination, allowing you to step back from the day-to-day of your role and focus on the future. What are the strategies and tactics to get there? What metrics will you use?
To start, you want to make sure your colleagues working outside of public affairs are aware of and support what your function is trying to achieve. It can be a great opportunity to refine roles and responsibilities. The fundamental goal is to evolve the function to be the most proactive, forward-facing business resource it can be. However, be mindful of these guardrails when it comes to strategic planning for public affairs:
- Don’t confuse strategic planning with other key public affairs processes like issues management, stakeholder engagement or issue strategy development.
- Plans are three years maximum. You can’t plan for every scenario (and shouldn’t try to).
- Engage many stakeholders in the process.
Phases of Strategic Planning for Public Affairs
Informing
Before making any decisions, consider what internal information you need to gather to inform the process and strengthen your plan. Common processes include:
- Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis
- Internal stakeholder survey and listening sessions
- Benchmarking: industry, peers, similarly sized organizations by revenue or employees, leaders in the field, competitors or best in class
- Determining return on investment to showcase the value your team brings and delivers
Planning
Once you’ve gathered the necessary data and insights from key stakeholders, you’re ready to start formulating your strategic plan. As planning gets underway, questions you want to ask yourself include:
- What’s the state of the external environment?
- What’s the business situation? Has there been a recent merger, acquisition or upheaval in the industry?
- How does my strategic plan align with our organizational strategy, goals and objectives?
- How can I best showcase public affairs’ role in organizational success?
Your strategic planning process should align with your organization’s broader business objectives, whether that’s freedom to operate, cost avoidance, market opportunity/advantage, brand image/reputation or a combination. Done well, this shows the value of public affairs in achieving business goals.
Make sure you’re stating the major objectives of your public affairs function throughout. And note, these objectives should be general statements of what you want to achieve, not how you plan to get there. You can also identify strategies to accomplish each objective.
Measuring and Communicating
If you’re not measuring your public affairs work and reporting on the value of it, you’re not maximizing its impact. There are many ways to measure, but some of the most common are:
- Objectives achieved
- Internal/external customer satisfaction
- Quantitative impact
- Legislative wins and losses
Communicating the value and strategy of your public affairs efforts is crucial, as it can help you garner internal buy-in. Consistent communication is key, and tying a specific issue back to your strategic plan demonstrates focus and value to the organization’s larger goals.
Lastly, overshare your successes! Communicating the work you’re doing, the progress you’re making toward strategic aims, and the value it brings helps embed public affairs into the culture of your organization. Check out the Council’s Measuring and Communicating the Value of Public Affairs report for more tips.
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Your strategic planning process should align with your organization’s broader business objectives, whether that’s freedom to operate, cost avoidance, market opportunity/advantage, brand image/reputation or a combination.
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