IFA CEO Update: Recap of the 2011 Public Affairs Conference

September 2011

Last week close to 500 members descended on Washington for the 12
^thAnnual IFA Public Affairs Conference to lobby Congress for pro-growth policies to help franchise business owners do what they do best-create jobs that the country so desperately needs.

If you attended the conference, thank you for the time you took away from your business to travel to Washington to advocate on behalf of the franchise industry. If you were not able to make the conference this year, I urge you to mark your calendars for next year’s conference scheduled for Sept. 9-12, 2012. As President Dwight D. Eisenhower once said, “Politics should be the part time job of every citizen.” Your involvement in IFA and the political process will help us meet our aggressive advocacy goals and keep the industry growing and thriving.

As you are well aware, the overriding issue facing the country right now is the economy, specifically job creation. With 9.1 percent unemployment, 16.2 percent (25.2 million people) when you include part-timers or those who have given up looking, and a congressional and presidential election a year away, franchise business owners, as major job creators-1 in every 8 jobs-can demonstrate how it can be part of the solution if Congress and the Administration take action on the industry’s priorities. Here is a wrap up of our activities during the Public Affairs Conference to help achieve these objectives.

Health Care Reform

: IFA members told Congress that if the current health care reform law is implemented as written, 3.2 million franchise jobs would be at risk.

A Hudson Institute report
prepared for the IFA illustrated the negative impact of the law on the industry and was delivered to Congress with the message that the bill should be repealed or significantly improved so that the burden of providing healthcare is not solely placed on small business owners.

Franchise Ownership Among Veterans

: IFA has been a leading supporter and advocate of the Help Veterans Own Franchises Act to provide a tax credit of 25 percent of the franchise fee up to $100,000 to veterans who buy franchise businesses. During the Public Affairs Conference, Rep. Aaron Schock (R-IL) and Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) reintroduced the bill and IFA members lobbied aggressively for passage of the bill.

A new ad

has been developed to publicize the bill.

In addition, IFA launched an expanded VetFran campaign designed to increase the number of companies that participate, as well as promote franchise jobs among veterans. A new Web site (

VetFran.com

) is now available with more information.

Credit Access

: IFA continues our aggressive efforts to increase access to credit for franchise businesses. During our visits with members of Congress and their staffs, we leveraged our partnership with many lenders to send the message that lending regulations may be hampering the flow of credit to small businesses. There are many bills that have been introduced in Congress that are attempting to free up credit, but we told Congress that we think that the regulators could make changes that would have an immediate impact on franchise businesses. In addition, we have developed tools for IFA members to help them be better positioned to access credit. These new tools are now available on a new Web site (

SmallBusinessLendingHub.com
) launched last week. We urge you to visit the site and utilize the tools and information available.

To learn more about these issues, I urge you to review the

Issues Brief

prepared for the Public Affairs Conference. It will provide you great information to talk to your members of Congress throughout the year.

Promoting Franchising as an Economic Powerhouse

: As part of our ongoing Media and Public Awareness Campaign, last week we launched our latest print and online ads featuring The UPS Store that showcases the power of the franchise model to grow and create jobs. The new ad and a searchable database of the economic impact of franchising in all states and congressional districts can be viewed at the campaign Web site
(

www.buildingopportunity.com
).

In addition, we took our economic impact message to media as well. IFA Board member David Barr appeared on

Cavuto

on Fox Business

to discuss how healthcare regulations were impacting his ability to create jobs and Bill Hall, CFE, another IFA Board member, appeared on

CNBC

Street Signsto talk about how the lack of credit is impacting the entire franchise industry. And, my opinion editorial about the healthcare bill appeared in several print publications including the inside-the-beltway publication

The Hill

.

We were also honored to have important opinion leaders attend the Public Affairs Conference, including
Fox News Channel’sStuart Varney and
Roll Callcolumnist and political analyst Stu Rothenberg.

FranPAC Going Strong

: The IFA Strategic Plan sets a goal of $1 million in receipts by the 2013/2014 election cycle and I’m happy to report that we are already more than half way to that goal in 2011. During the Public Affairs Conference, we raised an additional $25,000 and total pledges for this year now stand at $606,000 (against our yearly goal of $375,000), so I am very confident that we’ll hit the $1 million mark in 2012, one election cycle earlier than called for in the Strategic Plan.

Additionally, we hosted a very successful fundraiser for franchise businesses supporter Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA).

These are just a few of the highlights from a very successful week of member advocacy in Washington. But advocacy is a year-round activity. If you would like to get more involved in our efforts, please consider joining
Franchise Congress, our grassroots advocacy campaign. If you would like more information about the initiative,

click here

.

And finally, if you have not already registered for IFA’s 52
^ndAnnual Convention in Orlando, you can do so now at our improved

convention Web page

, Convention Central. We have a jam-packed schedule of top speakers including experts in franchise development and marketing. I hope you will join me and thousands of your franchise industry colleagues in Orlando. In the meantime, please don’t hesitate to contact me or any member of the IFA staff if you need more information on these or any other programs and services.