SPAC 2019—A Year in Review
By Ivan D. Butts
NAPS Executive Vice President
At the end of each year, it seems everybody does “A Year in Review.” It’s an opportunity to bring one last focus on what was—whether it’s events that happened, music that made it to the top of the hits list or great movies that were released. We give it one last focus before looking forward to bigger and brighter things.
I want to do the same with NAPS SPAC in this column. As executive vice president, one of my duties is executing our association’s legislative portfolio or the creation and maintenance of a robust Supervisors’ Political Action Committee (SPAC).
We began CY19 after another excellent finish in CY18—another record-breaking year in SPAC contributions. Our CY18 effort was aided by your tremendous efforts at our national convention. I thank and appreciate all who gave to SPAC that year to make that new record possible.
The NAPS Legislative staff looked to CY19 SPAC with the hope of maintaining and building on what had been accomplished. Leading up to
the 2019 LTS, we redesigned our SPAC pins to create new interest and energy. We continued our focus on growing “Drive for 5,” our program for continuous contributions that allows us to forecast our SPAC efforts for the year and helps us project a budget.
We had a tremendous SPAC effort at the 2019 LTS. Our aim was fueled with a challenge from Southern Maryland Branch 531 President
C. Michele Randall and Maryland State President Steve Shawn to branches to contribute above and beyond for SPAC. This helped us maintain the high level of LTS giving that we have seen over the past several years.
The support you gave to NAPS SPAC at LTS and throughout the year will be instrumental in NAPS achieving another high percentage of wins for NAPS-supported candidates in the 2020 elections. The NAPS Headquarters Legislative staff also continues to receive increased support from the NAPS Legislative Team, which is headed by Madam Chair Marilyn Walton, Western Region vice president.
The support of this team continues to help us move our NAPS SPAC to greater heights. The team helps bring new ideas and increased focus—not just on SPAC, but also on how we get our legislative voice heard locally at the grassroots level.
With your support over these past five years, SPAC has been able to engage legislative leaders in a way that gives life and full support to our legislative requests and concerns. We are continually building a relationship with legislators to have a voice in shaping and molding legislation that impacts not just the lives of our NAPS brothers and sisters, but also America’s Postal Service.
However, that all being said, we went through CY19 with the hopeful optimism that we would be able, despite being in a non-national convention year, to have another excellent effort in regard to SPAC. Although our SPAC total for CY19 failed to provide the continuous growth we have seen in prior years, your generosity shows that NAPS is making real its commitment to a vibrant SPAC; we all should be proud.
You stood firm and supported SPAC in a way that makes your NAPS Headquarters Legislative staff and Executive Board team proud to serve you. The following charts represent the SPAC Ultimate Contributor trend analysis, as well as the CY19 receipts vs. disbursements analysis.
Thank you to everyone listed in this issue of The Postal Supervisor for their CY19 SPAC contributions. Thank you to our “Drive for 5” members. I also want to thank everyone who gave to SPAC without providing a receipt to get credit (not recommended) and for those who contributed with a receipt, but their CY19 total did not reach the minimal donor level.
Many, many thanks to all. I appreciate every member of our NAPS family who made 2019 a solid SPAC year!
In solidarity …
