The NDD United coalition was worried. This was in 2010, and Congress was looking to cut budgets as part of the sequestration process. NDD United represented vested stakeholders of nondefense discretionary programs — a diverse array of sectors that would be hit hard by spending cuts.

The coalition was concerned that if the defense sector got an exemption from spending cuts, the remaining cuts would fall even more heavily on their sectors.

Then something unexpected happened. A representative of the Aerospace Industries Association contacted Emily Holubowich, the head of NDD United at the time. “He was a former colleague of mine,” Holubowich says. “And he reached out to me to say, ‘I think what your coalition is doing is really cool. Can you tell me more?’”

As it turned out, the nondefense and defense sectors had many common goals. “For a lot of these companies, the Department of Defense might be their No. 1 contractor, but then the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the Department of Transportation is their second biggest,” says Holubowich. “It wasn’t just about their bottom line, either. The defense industries understood that cuts to nondefense spending like health or education would impact the nation’s defense readiness.

“We realized it wasn’t one or the other, defense or nondefense, but that we would rise or fall together.”

Soon after that fateful meeting, the trade association joined the NDD United coalition. Not just joined — it became one of the coalition’s best financial supporters and key partners in getting out the coalition’s message.

The newly expanded coalition was successful in advocating for parity across both sectors. To this day, if nondefense spending is cut, defense spending is cut at the same rate, and vice versa.

The alliance made sense in retrospect, but at the time, the defense sector hadn’t been at the top of Holubowich’s list of possible members of a nondefense discretionary spending coalition. Their shared success proved to be an important lesson in thinking about unusual or “out of the box” coalition partners.

“They were an amazing ally. They opened more doors and added credibility to our cause.”

Why Form a Coalition?

Government relations professionals understand that coalitions are powerful organizing tools. When everyone is fighting for the attention of a handful of decision makers, joining forces as a coalition can help pool finite resources while amplifying your preferred policy solutions. Coalitions can demonstrate broad support for a proposed outcome and remind policymakers what’s at stake and who is affected by their decisions.

The makeup of a coalition can speak as loudly as the coalition’s message. The members of a coalition can highlight the economic impacts, health effects, core values or breadth of support for a given policy outcome.

It’s important to think strategically and creatively about who to invite in, and what that demonstrates to lawmakers.

Round Up the Usual Suspects

Once you’ve decided a coalition is a useful tool to advance your policy preference, you can approach the like-minded sectors or organizations that are already working toward the same outcome. These are the organizations that don’t require a hard sell — they’re familiar with the issue and the policies, you’ve been in all the same meetings, and they’re already talking to the key decision makers.

If you’re just getting started, congressional or administrative staff can be great resources to help you map the key players. Meet with a congressional or administrative champion and ask them who they’re hearing from on the issue. Check the lobbying records to see who is working on this issue.

Once you’ve established the core of the coalition, you can move on to the next tier of membership: the organizations that need to be sold a little harder on the issue.

These are the organizations or sectors that support your proposed solution but might be reluctant to devote any time or resources to it because it’s not an organizational priority. To recruit these organizations, you’ll need to be prepared with the reasons for joining and be able to answer hard questions about what it will cost the organization to affiliate with you — both time and money.

It’s worth bringing these partners along if you can, because they help to demonstrate diversity and strength of the coalition. Think about the gaps or weaknesses in your coalition and seek to fill them with these organizations.

For example, for Erin Morton, who runs the Coalition for Health Funding, it’s important to ensure that the coalition’s membership represents health funding recipients from across all relevant federal agencies. Not just the big players — think Centers for Disease Control (CDC) or National Institutes of Health (NIH) — but the smaller agencies like the Administration for Community Living, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration or the Health Resources and Services Administration.

By carefully curating their membership to ensure they’re representing nonprofits that interact with every health-related agency, the coalition demonstrates its expertise in the entire public health sector and speaks with more authority about all the nuances of public health spending.

“CHF advocates for funding across all of HHS,” says Morton. “While larger agencies like CDC and NIH often have more political support, the lesser-known, smaller agencies are just as important to the coalition. We’re not perceived as just caring about one agency over another but rather for advocacy across public health.”

At this point, you’ve gathered the usual suspects. You’re collaborating with the groups that are already working to some extent on your policy solution. You can stop here, or you can dig a bit deeper and reach out to the “unusual suspects” — those unconventional partners that have the potential to add reach and credibility to your issue in unexpected ways.