About the Jewish Leadership Council (JLC)
The Jewish Leadership Council (JLC) is an umbrella organisation connecting and coordinating 37 members from the Jewish charitable sector. The work of its members includes religious bodies, youth and care organisations, representative bodies and some with an interest in security and foreign affairs. The JLC helps members work effectively for the benefit of the Jewish community, making connections and collaborating, as well as developing leadership in the community.
Challenges
Russell Langer is the JLC’s Head of Policy and Research, working within an external affairs team of five to engage with political stakeholders in Westminster, devolved government, and local authorities across the UK.
To aid their work, Russell and his colleagues use PolicyMogul to track the range of policy areas relevant to JLC members and map their most relevant stakeholders. Russell says, “PolicyMogul helps us to develop relationships and engage political stakeholders, creating relationships that allow our members to take part in conversations around a policy area.”
The PolicyMogul experience
PolicyMogul allows the External Affairs team to start each day with an overview of relevant updates from the political world. “Being able to start our day well briefed and aware of what’s happening in the world of British politics and the policy landscape is a great advantage. The system’s daily alerts mean we are up to date, whether it be on written questions, parliamentary contributions or press releases, all from the most relevant sources.”
More widely, the platform helps the JLC to keep on top of the policy environment and be one step ahead, being able “to really dive into policy issues and get ahead on how they affect our members and stakeholders.”
We asked Russell to share his top PolicyMogul features:
“The interface is great and really easy to use. It’s definitely an improvement from the system that we were previously using. Particularly when it comes to email alerts, it is all very clear and gives us the power to tailor what we receive. It also means that each team member can set the system up how they need it, breaking topics down to receive exactly what they want.”
“The search element of PolicyMogul is also a great feature. It’s a lot better than we have had with previous systems. Particularly the fact that we can look at individual MPs, see what their contributions have been, and then be able to analyse them by our topic areas. I find it incredibly useful if we’re going to meet with an MP who we have not engaged with previously and we want to get a breakdown of what their views are on our areas of interest.”
“I also like how intuitive and helpful the system feels. When I am researching a topic, even if I don’t have a specific result or item in mind, the system makes it easy to find something that will be relevant and helpful to your research.”
Results
When it came to choosing a political monitoring service, like any organisation, Russell and the team had to weigh up a range of factors. However, Russell shared that the functionality and service from PolicyMogul were key to their final choice.
“I saw it as a significant improvement on the service we had previously subscribed to. Finances were part of the decision and we felt that we were getting good value for money with PolicyMogul.”
Russell says that he and the team found the transition to PolicyMogul to be “seamless”, with PolicyMogul’s customer service setting itself apart from other providers.
“I’ve found that other political monitoring services are much more automated and you feel like you’re getting far less of an individual experience. With PolicyMogul, I’ve got named people who I deal with, I can pick up the phone and discuss something. The team at PolicyMogul are very responsive and I feel they understand us as an organisation and what our interests are. They take an interest in our work and this enables them to be able to properly tailor the service to us.”