Your voice is needed for NAFTZ’s Public Policy

One of the core purposes of NAFTZ is advocacy:  Advocacy for the Foreign-Trade Zone Program, and especially advocating for U.S. jobs associated with FTZs.  In early November, NAFTZ released to the entire membership a survey that will help shape and guide our advocacy efforts over the coming year.

This new survey of the membership is admittedly a bit long.  But with the length of the survey comes a number of critical benefits which are focused on the needs of members and their organizations:

• The ability for NAFTZ to better understand which advocacy issues are impacting members the most
• For NAFTZ to better understand what’s most important to each constituency:
  • User/Operators
  • Grantees
  • Service Providers
  • and Others
• The ability to tailor our advocacy efforts to ensure each constituency’s most critical issues are being addressed
• Finally, to know for which issues members want NAFTZ to offer more education and/or guidance.

It’s also important to know that every member response will be kept confidential and viewed by NAFTZ staff only.  Results of the survey will ONLY be presented in the aggregate so that no individual or company will be identified in any reports or results.  For example, we’ll present which issues are most critical to operators or grantees as a group with no specific references to individuals or organizations that completed the survey or their responses.  Staff understands how important this level of confidentiality is.

Every effort has been made to make this survey as easy as possible to complete – without having to look anything up or find information.  For nearly all members, the answers to the questions are already rolling around in your mind.  Comprised primarily of ‘yes’, ‘no’, and ‘on a scale of 1-10’ questions, most members will be able to complete the survey in 20-30 minutes.  If you aren’t familiar with our legislative issues, a brief description of each is provided.  It will be worth this modest investment in time to make sure that your voice and the advocacy needs of your organization are clearly heard and understood.

There is also the opportunity to identify issues not listed in the survey along with any potential or emerging issues members may identify.  The NAFTZ executive committee and board of directors are in the process of a final review of the survey as we make every effort to make this survey as easy to complete as it is comprehensive at the same time.

If you have any questions about the survey or how NAFTZ will use it, please let me know!

I personally want to thank you in advance for participating in this critical survey and helping set the course for NAFTZ advocacy.

Jeffrey J. Tafel, CAE
President, National Association of Foreign-Trade Zones (NAFTZ)

Jeffrey J. Tafel, CAE
President, NAFTZ
jtafel@naftz.org
202-846-1521 (direct)