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Stacy McCormack is a Partner at TWENTYTWENTY public affairs, where she co-founded the firm to offer lobbying, policy development, and political strategy services to a diverse clientele, ranging from Fortune 500 corporations to regional organizations, businesses, and startups. With a keen understanding of complex political landscapes, Stacy excels in navigating governmental affairs and helping teams identify crucial stakeholders, including elected officials, agencies, and business and labor groups, to drive forward public policy initiatives.
Drawing from her extensive background in government relations and campaign management, Stacy brings invaluable expertise to her role. Previously serving as Director of Government Relations at The Nature Conservancy – NJ and as Director of Conservation Finance and Government Affairs at The Trust for Public Land, she has secured millions in sustainable funding for parks and open space through successful local referendums across multiple states. Stacy’s dedication to environmental causes extends to her past role as an environmental policy advisor to the NJ Department of Health, where she focused on combating childhood obesity through initiatives at the intersection of public health and the environment.
Stacy is not only a seasoned professional but also a proactive advocate for positive change. She founded Ag in the City, a statewide organization supporting urban agriculture and food access, which has since become a program of Rutgers University’s Agriculture and Urban Programs. With a Bachelor’s degree from Seton Hall University and a Master’s degree in Environmental Policy Studies from the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Stacy combines her academic background with hands-on experience to drive impactful outcomes in coalition development, political campaigns, environmental policy, and strategic partnerships.
TWENTYTWENTY Public Affairs is a women-owned consultancy specializing in guiding clients through the intricacies of nonprofit, governmental, and political realms. With certifications in New Jersey (SBE, WBE) and New York State and City (WBE), they offer comprehensive expertise to navigate diverse regulatory environments, ensuring effective advocacy and strategic initiatives for their clientele. Committed to excellence and diversity, TWENTYTWENTY Public Affairs is a trusted partner for organizations seeking impactful solutions in today’s dynamic environment.
Susan Kleiner: Hello and welcome to the Women’s Roundtable podcast, powered by the Think Factory, where we learn how women think big and grow their business. My name is Susan Kleiner. I’m a partner with Outside General Counsel Solutions, and I’m the host of today’s episode. I am happy to have with me here today Stacey McCormack from 2020 Public Affairs. Stacey is an experienced government affairs professional who thrives in complex political environments. She has expertize in running political and issue based campaigns, using public opinion research and strategic message development before being part of 2020 public affairs. She was most recently the Director of government relations at the Nature Conservancy, the largest environmental organization in the world. Before that, she was the director of Conservation, Finance and Government Affairs with the Trust for Public Land and National Conservation Group. She’s the founder of the statewide aggregate organization AG in the City supporting urban agriculture and Food Access, now a program of Rutgers University. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Seton Hall University and a master’s degree in environmental policy studies from New Jersey Institute of Technology. Welcome, Stacy, to the podcast.
Stacy McCormack: Thank you. Thank you, Susan.
Susan Kleiner: So I was really interested to read about 2020 public affairs. And I want to congratulate you on becoming one of the real New Jersey’s top women in business, which is quite a feat, especially since, you know, you’re pretty newly formed. So I’d love to hear a little bit about how a person from your background, your extensive backgrounds in nonprofit, you know, turn to what you’re doing now. And and in particular, you know, how it was formed and how you and your partner operate.
Stacy McCormack: Sure. So, yeah, Debie Mans is my business partner. She and I have similar backgrounds in nonprofit work, government and specifically in environmental work. So we’ve both worked in state agencies, we’ve both worked for nonprofits, and specifically around my work. I’ve run a number of open space campaigns. I’ve done ballot questions, referendum work regionally. And in New Jersey, I worked specifically on the ‘Keep a Green’ Campaign securing open space funding in New Jersey. So I’m very passionate about environmental issues, specifically urban environmental issues. So I ran an organization called AG in the City which focused on community garden, urban AG work around the state, working with a number of different small community garden groups, you know, food organizations. And then Rutgers began to take that over as almost like a whole program. So specific to my background is a little bit more unlike the urban environmental work. Debbie also has a similar background. She’s an attorney. She worked for New York, New Jersey Baykeeper, and she’s done a lot of work in the bay around cleanups and other things like that. During the pandemic, we Deby was the Deputy Commissioner at the EPP and left guard in the summer of 2020, I guess right in the heart of the pandemic. And we got on the phone together and we were talking about next steps and we decided to form 2020 public affairs. There’s a little bit, you know, if you look at the website around 2020 vision, it was the anniversary of the women’s right to vote, sort of like women in part, you know, women in politics. And 2020 was quite a year, I would say. Yes. So- a little bit of a moment in time. So we decided to start the firm. And one of the things that Debbie had talked, you know, we had talked extensively about, but specifically around her work was community engagement in public participation. And the value of doing it correctly coming out of the EP, especially around the environmental justice rules, were in there now requiring public participation. There’s a ton of work that goes on in the community infrastructure work on the ground, projects that require outreach, stakeholder and community engagement, public participation with however you want to phrase it. And we talked a lot about the value of that work. You know, projects coming into the community that often end up with a backlash could have been rolled out differently. So that had become a big piece of the work. I mean, for me personally, I love government affairs, I love lobbying. I do a lot of, you know, environmental lobbying, ballot question work I had done. And, you know, going forward, we were thinking, you know, there’s probably a need for us to be doing the coalition, building the stakeholder in the government affairs, the public affairs, work around the issues that we love, you know, as consultants.
Susan Kleiner: Yeah, I mean, what an amazing transition. One of the things that I really enjoyed, you know, reading about on your website and in talking to you and I think probably is, you know, your secret to a success or at least one of them, your secret source is your collaborative approach, which I think it’s collaborative on multiple levels, you know, in terms of, you know, how you collaborate with each other, your team collaborates, but also how you are able to bring in stakeholders that ordinarily would not mix. So I’d love to hear some more about that. And you know how it is that you got to that point.
Stacy McCormack: Well, I can tell you that, you know, I think at this moment in time, people are very siloed. You know, I look at the coalitions that generally are built and they’re built around the issue area that you’re passionate about. And then you invite all the other people who are also passionate about your issue and agree with you on your coalition. And that is just not going to get you very far. So I really value bringing in you know, I’ll give you an example of a coalition that Debbie worked on around, you know, clean water. You know, there was a ton of money out there for water infrastructure. And so she had worked on a coalition with labor and environmental groups to sort of secure that funding for New Jersey. A lot of times, labor groups and environmental groups don’t sit at the same table. But we’ve got to start to build coalitions that don’t just allow you to sit around with your friends.
Susan Kleiner: Do you find yourself having to kind of have discussions with the various stakeholders, you know, to kind of incentivize them or make them feel more comfortable sitting in a room with people that, you know, they’re normally not going to be on the same side of the table with.
Stacy McCormack: I think the key to bringing people together is to not just go at the thing you don’t get along about right. We all know what the big elephant in the room is, and maybe it’s that clean energy isn’t providing the jobs for the labor community that we’re all saying it does. And the Labor folks are like, No, they’re not there. So I would say if you’re going to bring people together, you don’t bring them together to fight it out. You bring them together to just listen. I mean, that could be the actual outcome of the first conversation. You don’t have to resolve that. You don’t have to put together an agenda that is going to work for both of you going forward. You might just want to hear people out. I mean, that’s a really good outcome.
Susan Kleiner: Just listening, right? People want to be heard. And that’s interesting, too, when you talk about how part of what you do is with community building. I mean, is that a big part of, you know, what you do for your stakeholders when you’re going out there and and talking to the community and, you know, moving that forward?
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