With election season in full swing, millions of voters are focused on whom to support — while countless organizations are navigating whom to endorse.
Endorsements, however, are more than just a way to urge members, partners, and the public to get behind a specific candidate. They are also a communications opportunity, a chance to highlight shared values and thoughtful review while acknowledging that members may hold different views about candidates and strategy.
Strong communication does not simply announce these decisions. It makes the process behind them visible.
This year, we’ve worked alongside a statewide organization in Texas navigating this tension with notable care. The group brought deep experience, strong advocacy, and a clear sense of mission. What stood out was how it embedded communication directly into the endorsement process rather than adding it at the end.
Instead of leading with party labels or public positioning, the organization led by asking every candidate a set of clear, mission-driven questions tied directly to member priorities, in this case retirement security, health care costs, workplace rights, and access to the ballot. These were practical questions designed to assess alignment.
Those responses then moved through a disciplined internal process. Candidate information was tracked, district context documented, and notes revisited. Many candidates were reviewed; few were ultimately endorsed. That narrowing was deliberate and strategic, with an emphasis on consistency over speed or visibility.
This matters.
In these polarized times, endorsement processes can break down and lose credibility when they remain a mystery or reveal a knee-jerk strategy. When the criteria are unclear or uneven, trust erodes quickly. Here, the opposite occurred. Even when members disagreed with outcomes, the process itself was fully transparent and easy to understand.
This offers a broader lesson for organizations navigating high-stakes decisions. Neutral language does not mean empty language. A bipartisan posture does not require abandoning values.
Credibility is built by translating priorities into clear criteria and consistently applying them. And that’s an approach we fully endorse.