Mute, claim and create issues
Issues are the marbles in the game. In public affairs everything revolves around issues. The topics on which advocacy takes place or that are linked to interests. These are matters on the social or political agenda. Issues don't just have to be about government policy. They can also affect the course and activities of commercial companies, social organizations and groups of citizens. Issue management is a core task of public affairs.
Many public affairs professionals will recognize it: topics appear on the agenda, disappear, return after a while and then require even more attention than before. Issues can come to an organization and be accompanied by a sense of crisis, an urgency that the organization must quickly address. But issues can also arise gradually and be influenced gradually. Or they can be made.
Issues as a reason for existence
Issues and public affairs are therefore closely intertwined. After all, public affairs focuses on the political, administrative and social environment of the organization and issues arise and develop there. Issues are matters or issues that the organization deals with must or want to in order to create new opportunities, prevent damage or even to survive.
For non-governmental organizations, issues are one of the most important reasons for their existence. For companies, issues often pose threats or opportunities for other goals they set and the activities they develop to achieve them. Issues can directly revolve around the use of advocacy, but they can also influence that use and change the relationships in the game and the positions of participants.
Issue management at home base
With the major role of issues in daily practice, issue management is also an increasingly important part of managing organizations. Issue management starts with the organization as its home base. It is, as it were, internal agenda setting. Effective issue management therefore starts with the selection process in your own organization, once issues have emerged in the monitoring as opportunities or threats.
An organization may feel attacked by an issue and want to contradict or silence it, but an organization can also take an issue into its own hands, claim it or take up an issue in dialogue with other stakeholders and actively work on a solution to the issue. Organizations or groups that raise issues can limit themselves to addressing the problem, but they can also propose a solution.
