Volunteer of the Year Strengthens the Advocacy Community
November 2024
Jessica Cooper was sitting on a flight leaving Key West, and her brain was absolutely overflowing with ideas. She was returning from her first Public Affairs Council Advocacy Conference in 2011 (then known as the Grassroots Conference), and she was so inspired she needed to get her thoughts down, now.
“My notebook was in my bag in the overhead bin and I couldn’t get to it,” she remembers. “So I just kept asking the flight attendant for more and more napkins. By the time we landed, I’d written out an entire issue campaign on airplane napkins.”
When she got back to her office at the American Motorcyclist Association, she laid out all those napkins on her boss’s desk. He laughed and asked her if she could put it into a memo.
Those napkins became the successful “Kids Just Want to Ride” campaign, which Cooper went on to implement. Just 143 days after returning from her first Council Advocacy Conference, Cooper’s campaign succeeded in changing a federal law. The campaign also went on to win a Public Affairs Council Grassroots Innovation Award.
That first conference changed the course of Cooper’s career, introducing her to the community and professional support system that would guide her through the following years.
In return, Cooper has always taken the opportunity to give back — serving on the advisory committee for future Advocacy Conferences, offering ideas for professional development and peer-to-peer learning, and helping other public affairs professionals get the same enriching experiences she had.
To honor her dedication to improving the advocacy profession and to uplifting her fellow grassroots professionals, the Public Affairs Council has named Cooper the 2024 Volunteer of the Year. She was honored in late October at the Council’s annual Fall Board Meeting.
A Taste for Politics
Today, Cooper is the director of national grassroots strategies at the National Federation for Independent Business. It’s a fitting place to work for the daughter of small-business owners. Growing up, Cooper worked for her parents’ businesses, which included an ice cream parlor and a karate dojo.
When she was in college, she took an internship on Capitol Hill and “caught the political bug.” Eager to continue working in politics after college, she worked as a legislative correspondent on the Hill and on campaigns for congressional, gubernatorial and presidential candidates.
“I loved working with people, but I didn’t love the campaign lifestyle,” she says. “So I did some soul searching to think about what was most important to me. I really wanted to continue doing mission-focused work.”
Cooper took a job as the grassroots coordinator for the American Motorcyclist Association, which allowed her to work with advocates toward a shared mission and put her knowledge of Capitol Hill to good use.
The Grassroots Roundtable
As she was starting out as a grassroots coordinator, Cooper found the Public Affairs Council to be an invaluable resource. The free resources and webinars were tremendously helpful to her professional development, and when she learned of The Advocacy Conference, she made the case to her boss to send her.
Not only were the resources invaluable, but so was the community. And as the community grew to have more established senior roles, Cooper knew the Council needed to grow and evolve to meet those needs, too.
“Grassroots didn’t used to be a career path,” she says. “Back then it was always ‘grassroots and…’. Grassroots and lobbying. Grassroots and PAC. Now, there’s more opportunity to just focus on grassroots.”
Cooper came up with the idea for the Council’s new Grassroots Roundtable, an informal working group for midlevel and advanced professionals to share insights and work through their challenges and questions. It also supports their career advancement within the field. The group began meeting earlier this year.
“There was a lot of content for CEOs or entry-level folks,” she says. “But less for those of us in the middle. So far, the conversations have been really fruitful.”
Sharing Her Wisdom
In addition to starting the Grassroots Roundtable and serving on the advisory committee for The Advocacy Conference, Cooper has shared her expertise and wisdom with the public affairs community through numerous speaking engagements and workshops.
She has presented on topics that include increasing political engagement at organizations that aren’t focused on politics; leveraging data tools for lobbying; engaging advocates; building and revitalizing advocacy programs; and, most recently, cleaning up and improving advocacy databases.
Pointing to her professional experience building a data program for NFIB, she explained to a rapt audience while presenting at The Advocacy Conference how data can be leveraged to increase impact. Rather than look at all the data, she stressed finding the right data — the data most likely to help a program succeed.
“After that presentation on data, I received so many follow-up questions,” she says. “I also got several emails from people who wanted to talk through their own challenges. It’s super rewarding to know that your experience can help people with their own challenges.”
Feeling Welcome and Connected
If you’ve been to an Advocacy Conference, you’ve probably received a warm welcome from Cooper.
“I love the advocacy world because of the advocacy community,” she says. “I was welcomed by the Council team in 2011 so warmly that I felt really connected.”
She knows that advocacy can sometimes be a little lonely — often grassroots professionals are working as a team of one. She sees the Public Affairs Council as a convener for the community and has made lasting personal and professional friendships through the years.
“I probably wouldn’t be where I am today without the Council and the community it fosters — both the educational pieces and the network. They showed me what the whole profession can be. I am very appreciative of all that the Council does.”
“
[Cooper] knows that advocacy can sometimes be a little lonely — often grassroots professionals are working as a team of one. She sees the Public Affairs Council as a convener for the community and has made lasting personal and professional friendships through the years.
More News & Resources
Featured Event
THIS is where the Advocacy community convenes. Our can’t-miss event for anyone managing an advocacy function, engaging stakeholders or seeking to advance public policy.
Fort Lauderdale, FL | February 2-5