Policy FAQ #1: How Do We Determine our Agenda?

This is the first in an occasional series of frequently asked questions that we receive from our investors. (Updated from 2021)

Producing our policy agenda — and keeping it nimble enough to react to the rapidly changing political scene — is one of the challenging things we achieve each year. We’re reacting to your needs, pushing our aspirations, and partially predicting the future.

The Upstate Chamber Coalition strives to ensure all of our 8,000 members have a voice in the agenda each year. There are many chambers of commerce and business associations around the country that close the agenda process to all but their biggest investors.

We choose to do things differently.

Beginning in late July and running through early October, our government affairs professionals fan out across the Upstate holding dozens of meetings — Greenwood, Laurens, Clemson, Oconee County, Anderson, Easley, Spartanburg, Greer, and Greenville — to listen to businesses of all sizes about their concerns. We present to government affairs committees, industry groups, and chamber boards of directors. We also hold dozens of individual meetings with legislators and political watchers to gather information about what they’re hearing.

We distill all of those conversations into a 25- to 30-question survey. With so many issues, we can’t fully describe the issues in detail. I acknowledge that as a shortcoming of the process, but after consulting with polling experts (and after all of the input from hundreds of business leaders), we write our survey as a list of potential policy statements that our survey-takers react to. On average, between 800 and 1000 people take the survey each year.

After so many meetings, we have a good feel about the business community’s biggest concerns before we even write the survey. Businesses of all sizes are concerned about availability of talent. International businesses are concerned about trade uncertainty. Small businesses are concerned about growth and how our community is responding to their needs. Everyone is concerned about growth and the impact on quality of life in the Upstate — though they can be on different sides about what to do about it.

What results is an agenda that goes to each of the Upstate Chamber Coalition’s 14 chamber boards of directors and/or government affairs committees. Each chamber in our coalition has a different process for approving the agenda. In Greenville, the agenda is endorsed by the Business Advocacy Committee (which is open to all Greenville Chamber investors) and then approved by the Board of Directors. Spartanburg, Anderson, and Greer follow similar procedures.

We unveiled our 2022 agenda a few weeks ago. We hope you will continue your engagement in 2022. If you support the agenda topics, we need your help enacting them. If you oppose an agenda item, I’m always open to constructive dialogue to make our positions stronger and more inclusive.

If you have any comments or concerns, or if you want to get engaged in our efforts, please email me at [email protected].

In a few weeks, I’ll answer: “How do we decide positions on issues after the agenda is set?”