Stakeholder Management

The Stakeholders workspace provides a centralized location for searching, managing, and organizing legislators, legislative staff, organizations, and custom contacts. It also allows users to associate stakeholders with projects, legislation, and actions to maintain a complete record of advocacy and engagement activities.

This article explains how to search for stakeholders, create and manage custom contacts, and log stakeholder interactions

Searching for Stakeholders

The Stakeholders page provides access to PolicyNote's stakeholder database.

To search for a stakeholder:

1. From the main navigation, select Stakeholders.
2. Enter a name, keyword, or search term in the search bar.
3. Use the available filters to narrow the results by:
   • Legislative body
   • Role
   • Political party
   • Geography
   • Staff title

For example, searching for "Bernie Sanders staff" returns staff members associated with Senator Bernie Sanders, even if individual names are unknown.

From the results, you can view a stakeholder's full profile, including biography, contact information, staffers, committee memberships, and sponsored bills. You can also add them to projects, apply tags, or create an action directly from their contact card.

Adding Custom Contacts

PolicyNote's database covers legislators and staffers, but your network doesn't stop there. You can add your own contacts either one at a time or in bulk.

Adding an individual contact

1. From the Stakeholders page, click + Create Contact in the upper right corner.
2. Under Contact Type, select New Person Contact or New Organization Contact.
3. Fill in the contact's details (name, email, phone, and address) as needed.
4. Optionally, use + Add Organization to associate the person with an existing organization in the system.
5. In the Related Content section, link the contact to relevant legislation, bills, or other stakeholders.
6. Apply any filter tags to make this contact easier to find later.
7. Click Save. A confirmation banner will appear when the contact is created.

Note: Bulk upload only supports people, not organizations. Organizations must be added individually.

Bulk uploading contacts

If you're importing a large list of contacts, use the Upload Contacts button on the Stakeholders page.

1. Download the CSV template from the upload workflow to ensure your columns are formatted correctly.
2. Fill in your contact data. Make sure it's clean before uploading — there's no bulk edit option after the fact.
3. Click Upload Contacts, select your file, and follow the on-screen prompts to map your columns, preview the data, and confirm the upload.
4. After the upload completes, spot-check a sample of contacts to confirm everything imported as expected.

Editing and Deleting Custom Contacts

Editing

PolicyNote doesn't currently support editing custom contacts directly. If a contact's information needs to be updated, delete the existing record and re-add it with the correct details.

Deleting an individual contact

1. From the Stakeholders page, use the search bar or filters to find the contact.
2. Click View Details on their contact card to open the flyout.
3. Click Delete in the flyout.

Bulk delete is not yet available. Contacts must be deleted one at a time.

Logging Actions on Stakeholders

Actions are how you record your engagement (meetings, calls, emails, fly-ins). You can create an action linked to a stakeholder from three places, depending on where you are when you need to log it.

From the Actions tab

Use this when you're starting from scratch and have a stakeholder in mind.

1. Go to the Actions tab and click Create Action.
2. Under "Enter who this relates to and how," hover over Discover and switch the toggle to Stakeholder.
3. Type the stakeholder's name and select them from the list. Add any additional stakeholders.

From the Stakeholders tab

Use this when you're looking up a stakeholder and want to log an action as part of that workflow.

1. Search for the stakeholder and find them in the results.
2. Click Create Action on their contact card. Tthe action will be pre-populated with their information.
3. Add any additional stakeholders or details and save.

From a stakeholder's profile page

Use this when you're already viewing a stakeholder's profile and want to add a touchpoint.

1. From the stakeholder's profile, click the + icon next to the Actions section in the upper left.
2. The action is automatically linked to that stakeholder.
3. To view all previously logged actions for that stakeholder, click the Actions tab on their profile.

Tips for Keeping Stakeholder Data Useful

Log interactions consistently. An action is only valuable if it's actually recorded. Encourage everyone on your team to log meetings, calls, and emails so the history stays complete.

Link stakeholders to legislation. Connecting contacts to the bills and issues they're engaged on makes it much easier to pull relevant stakeholders when you're preparing for a hearing or drafting outreach.

Use tags to segment your list. Tags let you quickly filter to a subset of stakeholders like issue area, relationship tier, or whatever segmentation makes sense for how your team works.

Keep contact information current. Staff turnover is high in government affairs. A quick check after each interaction goes a long way toward keeping your database accurate.