Services

Government

Widely acknowledged as one of the most effective government relations firms in Georgia, the Impact team has an extensive record of playing and winning on most of the top policy issues in Georgia. We are known as a firm that is built to tackle the more difficult and complex issues in our state. We’ve repeatedly won top lobbyist rankings from the Atlanta Journal Constitution and others. . However, the cornerstone of our success are the great clients who have entrusted us with some of their most important objectives. Our government relations services include:

  • Development of major policy initiatives and compiling the public policy research needed to support them.
  • Legislative drafting of bills and amendments, often dealing with highly complex matters that need significant structural work in order to move forward.
  • Working successful floor votes to enact, defeat or amend legislation, often maintaining full chamber whip counts providing the status of each vote in real time.
  • Partnering with local government bodies to enact, defeat or amend ordinances.
  • Handling complex executive branch matters ranging from agency regulations to executive orders and gubernatorial vetoes and signatures.
  • Advocating for the inclusion or exclusion of specific funding items and language in the state budget process.
Infrastructure

Impact has built a unique capability around guiding major public infrastructure projects to completion. Our team wrote most of Georgia’s vertical construction P3 law, and includes both a licensed engineer who managed a myriad technical details on major projects and a principal with significant experience in commercial real estate development. Infrastructure issues are unlike traditional legislative lobbying, and they require specialized support. Our team has been purposely built to provide that support, and we have successfully applied our expertise to close major mixed use, industrial, transportation, water, sewer and economic development projects for our clients. Our infrastructure services include:

  • Negotiating with government entities on P3 partnerships
  • Winning state and local incentives in support of job and capital investments
  • Providing engineering and policy development services for water, transportation, industrial and landfill projects
  • Building community support for infrastructure projects, including grassroots and public relations services
  • Helping to mitigate environmental impacts associated with major projects
Perception

In today’s arena, political issues are decided as much by public perception as they are by traditional hand to hand lobbying tactics. If you can’t control what voters think you can’t control what government does. Impact is a best in class strategic management firm in handling major issues with strong political overtones or direct government interaction. Our backgrounds include managing very messy issues in the contexts of Washington politics, Georgia politics, campaigns and corporations. Rather than insisting clients use our resources to achieve their goals in this space, we generally work with other best in class partners in grassroots engagement, media relations, polling, advertising and graphic design. These partners are carefully vetted, custom matched to each project and directly guided by our strategic team. Our perception relations services include:

  • Complex campaign management on corporate matters, including structuring grassroots support for legislative and policy fights, and winning Constitutional Amendment and major local referendum campaigns.
  • Public policy research, including focus groups, dial testing and polling.
  • Design of websites and advertising campaigns in support of major policy initiatives.
  • Crisis communications and media relations around issues intersecting with the policy process.
Business Development

Doing business with government ought to be simple, but the truth is that goal is rarely achieved. Because governments are managing public resources, the process for winning their business is rarely a straight line. Government purchasing policies are complex, and the process for governments to determine what they need to buy in the first place are even more complex. This is particularly true when new offerings – from computing and transportation to public safety and healthcare – are coming into the market and disrupting traditional business relationships. Unlike many competitors, Impact does not specialize in generating meetings. We do specialize in working with sales teams to shape strategic objectives, track progress against those objectives, and bring new business opportunities to close. Our business development services:

  • Development of strategic plans for public sector sales and implementation of tracking systems to monitor progress against those plans.
  • Advice around deal structure, generally by helping match client offerings to the specific needs of public sector buyers.
  • Preparation of RFP responses and conducting mock panel interviews to ensure submissions land as favorably as possible.
  • Competitor activity tracking and research, so clients are aware when competitors are following the rules and when they are not, including filing Open Records Act requests with government entities.
  • Defending and pursuing procurement protests, in partnership with leading local market procurement attorneys.
Capital

On a highly selective basis, Impact and its partners make equity investments in specific young companies that provide products or services that intersect with our specialized expertise. In tandem with investments, we provide hands on strategic advice and partnership development services. For more information on this area of work, please contacts any of our partners.