Welcome back to another edition of The Goods — the newsletter covering the intersection of social good and strategic communications. In our last edition, we debuted a new format of this newsletter to highlight interviews with impact leaders across sectors and deliver actionable tips around storytelling for good, change management, and adapting communications strategies in these tumultuous times. ICYMI, you can read Emily Yu’s Spotlight Series about her role with Newman’s Own Foundation here.
Next up, we’re introducing Andrew Morris, Public Policy and Staff Counsel at the NFL Players Association (NFLPA), where he advocates on critical matters affecting players, such as athletes’ rights to monetize name, image, and likeness (NIL), regulatory compliance, legislative engagement, and reinforcing the organization’s legal strategy. As an expert at the intersection of law, policy, and social impact, Andrew walks us through how staying true to who you serve can drive sustained impact across advocacy and stakeholder engagement.
Read our full interview with Andrew Morris:
The Goods: You’ve had a storied career in the legal and policy space. Tell me more about your journey.
Andrew: Storied is pretty generous, thank you for that, but a little bit about my journey in the legal and then policy world is I came to DC following my father‘s footsteps and attended Howard University as an undergraduate where I had the opportunity to intern in a few government affairs offices and that’s really when I got experience and exposure to what policy making and advocacy was. I had always wanted to be a lawyer, but the policy side was a strong interest, and I was fortunate to get experience with that as it has aided in my career tremendously.
As I matriculated at Howard University School of Law, I saw how I could use both a traditional legal background and policy engagement to make a broader difference for the people and demographics that I wanted to represent.
My journey is one that also speaks to timing, consistency and persistence. I’ve had a lot of roles over the years, and the right opportunity has always presented itself at the right time for me. There have been times when I’ve been unemployed and that taught me resilience, creativity and humility but it’s really been a rewarding journey. Staying diligent in the craft and keeping a good circle of support have also been critical elements of my journey.
Today, I am very fortunate to work at the NFL Players Association and combine my skill set in law and policy to further the well-being of our membership. It’s been a journey from Howard undergrad to Howard School of Law, to the NCAA, the Attorney General’s office for DC, to Events DC and all stops in between. It’s very rewarding and fulfilling to now be at the NFL Players Association.
The Goods: How are you looking to “future proof” your advocacy and impact model, especially in this day and age?
Andrew: That’s a good question. I think the thing you have to start with when future proofing anything is identifying who are your stakeholders, what are they coming to you for and what do you want to be to them now, and in the future. I think the only way you can do that is to solicit feedback from those stakeholders. In my role now, stakeholders are most importantly our membership of active and retired players. I have to actively ask myself, “what they are looking for from me and their union as advocates and what impact do they want the union to make?”. Additional stakeholders are their sphere of influence, like their agents and their family, who are important pieces to the puzzle of advocacy. They often can relay priorities on behalf of the membership in ways that perhaps membership isn’t comfortable. So, understanding what and who the priorities are of the stakeholders is critical. And a close second to that is authenticity and being true to the foundations of the priorities. What that means from an advocacy standpoint is you understand who you represent, why you represent them, and why the issue is important to them. As long as you keep that at the forefront, that is how to sustain your advocacy and your impact. Continuing to have two-way communication with the folks that you want to have an impact on are the crucial elements. And then be authentic about how you go about doing so.
The Goods: Which aspects of your work are more important now than ever? How are you adapting your strategies and tactics to meet the current moment?
Andrew: There is the expectation of being more creative and innovative. Increasingly, people are looking toward you to solve complex and novel issues or create connections and relationships that didn’t exist before or are a little outside the box “to grow the pie”. Being able to think cross-industry and cross-functionally is a skill that is more important now than in the past. I’d also say cost-effectiveness, so being able to advise and counsel folks in a way that is cost-effective has become increasingly important. And lastly, authenticity. Being authentic to who you are, the relationship that you have with the stakeholder or client and taking it from there, as opposed to presenting in a less than upfront way. People can read through that, and it slows—if not halts—progress and creativity when you’re working with someone that you don’t trust. A way to combat a lack of trust is to have more frequent communication to develop relationships in an organic way. That’s what I’ve done more recently to meet the needs of the current moment.
The Goods: What skills or lessons do policy and social impact professionals need to learn?
Andrew: As you can tell, authenticity is a theme that has worked well for me. When thinking about what skills or lessons policy and social impact professionals need to learn or need to cultivate, I would say one of the most important is knowing how to connect authentically with different and diverse audiences. Being able to find commonality with people and begin the conversation from a place of common ground as opposed to a difference of opinion, is very important in policy discussions and certainly the social impact space. Connecting over things that are central to human experience sometimes goes overlooked and people lead with their objectives, when I think the objective should be to understand the other person or find common ground with the other person. And then number two is learning to communicate with those same different and diverse audiences in different ways whether that is through oral communication or written communication. Should you use different mediums for relating to Gen Z, versus Gen Y, versus the silent generation, versus Gen Alpha, and how do you effectively relay policy and social impact initiatives and priorities to those different audiences? So, learning how to leverage different mediums and platforms for authentic touch points for varied audiences is a big one.
The Goods: From concussion protocols to social justice initiatives, the NFLPA has often led the way among unions and player associations. What do you think makes the NFLPA uniquely influential in driving systemic change?
Andrew: Thank you for saying that. One thing that sets NFL players and their union apart is size. Historically we’ve had the largest number of active members and the largest union staff (until recently wherein baseball now has both major and minor league players) so in that regard, we have the numbers that would suggest a potential higher impact in driving systemic change. But football is king of the hill with regard to popularity and revenue in the U.S., so the more eyes on the product and the players, the more attention that’s paid to them collectively as football players. We try to effectuate unity amongst our membership so that we’re speaking on a united front. This has been persuasive in many regards in advancing player priorities.
The Goods: The NFLPA is known for its robust player advocacy. How has your work shifted in recent months/years?
Andrew: We certainly try to take a robust approach to player advocacy because players have a lot going on. They have their own field pursuits, their off-the-field pursuits, their family and community affairs, and their post career pursuits. Our advocacy tries to touch all of those areas. There is a large focus certainly on health and safety and making sure that they have the safest working conditions supported by science. Working with various scientists and engineers to ensure that is the case with equipment, playing surfaces, training facilities, etcetera, is our largest priority. Recently we’ve been advocating a lot in the space for incoming members. With the evolution of college athletics, our men are now coming in with vastly different experiences than before. With the advent of name, image, likeness (NIL), we’ve had to advocate against predatory contracts that would seek to take percentages of players future earnings as a professional in exchange for NIL payments in college. We’ve also had to advocate for player (person) protections regarding the unauthorized use of a player’s persona in the generative AI space. Many of our members, due to their popularity, are targets of unauthorized AI generated images and messages severely harming their commercial and public image. Lastly with the “boom” of sports gambling we’ve had to engage to ensure there are player protections in the gaming laws. For example, prohibiting negative outcome bets, as well as the use of a player’s health data in odds setting.
The Goods: You lead strategic initiatives that have commercial and revenue-generating implications. How do you navigate the balance between business outcomes and the player-first mission of the NFLPA?
Andrew: This is a really good question, and it speaks to open lines of communication and understanding player priorities. Many of the commercial and revenue generating initiatives are ultimately tied to endeavors that impact players well-being. For example, players that are matriculating from college to the NFL have contracts that would suggest a usury structure. That has an impact on both the players’ commercial opportunities as well as their wellness (i.e. financially, mentally, legally) and this is something where we would certainly fight against— both legislatively and legally—and is a priority that is aligned with being player-centric and keeping players first. Similarly, there are opportunities for players that exist in the artificial intelligence space, but making sure that there are protections against the unauthorized use of their generated images is a commercial and revenue generating initiative. Yet it is still tied to the mission of being player-centric with the player being in control of how they are viewed publicly.
I’d also say there is prioritization even within priorities, so when it comes down to something that is health- and safety-related like the field surface issue or concussions or workers compensation, those take priority over many of the strictly commercial endeavors.
The Goods: You’ve served on nonprofit boards and advised small and minority-owned businesses. How has that community work shaped your broader vision for athlete-led impact?
Andrew: I have been fortunate to serve on a few nonprofit boards and that community work has only furthered my existing awareness of the power of athlete-led (and involved) impact. I can speak firsthand about the impact that athlete-led camps and initiatives had on my life growing up and understanding the power sport has and its ability to bring people together. Athletes certainly can impact and help shape community in a very large way. It motivates me to work with our membership to ask what they want to do in their communities and what impact they want to have. My team helps connect them to the right resources and helps facilitate the execution of those ideas. Internally, we have a charitable partner committee, a partnerships and endorsement committee, a social justice task force, and several other community-focused and inspired initiatives that seek to connect players with their community passions. Also, we do our best to connect players to their representatives in Congress. In doing so, many of our guys will come to Capitol Hill and speak on issues that they are passionate about – from mental health, to combating gun violence, and college sports, etcetera. It really is inspiring to see when a professional athlete speaks about an issue they are passionate about, how it motivates and galvanizes people.
The Goods: Player activism, NIL policies in college sports, and athlete influence in politics are evolving rapidly. What trends are you watching closely, and how is the NFLPA positioning itself to respond or lead?
Andrew: We always want to be seen as leaders in the player protection, player empowerment, and player well-being space. When it comes to issues on NIL policies and college athletics and what that future looks like, we have experience from a professional perspective that may be instructive. Having a union that actively monetizes the group NIL on behalf of the players, we believe can be instructive for the same aspect of the college model. We also regulate agents that represent professional athletes, yet college athletes don’t have that, so we can be looked to as an example of how to best regulate and put player protections in those regulations. Similarly, the health and safety protocols we’ve established over decades of research and testing can certainly be utilized for youth sports. We are doing our best to provide quality service for our members, and be seen as experts and a quality resource for them to achieve their endeavors on and off the field, so staying abreast on the latest in venture, AI, mental health, analytics and other topics is what we strive to do.