consulting

Benefit from the wide range of strategic services provided by the Rideau Institute through our Government Relations Program, Communication Program, and Online Engagement and Fundraising Program.

Your organization can retain the Rideau Institute to provide you with real-time political analysis, identifying opportunities for you to advance your policy or communications objectives. Learn more about our services programs.

RIDEAU Institute
The Hope Building
63 Sparks St., Suite 608
Ottawa, ON K1P 5A6
tel.: 613-565-9449
fax: 613-249-7091
e. operations@rideauinstitute.ca

The Rideau Institute is an independent research, advocacy and consulting group based in Ottawa. It helps non-profit organizations to meet their policy goals, and it provides research, analysis and commentary on public policy issues to decision makers, opinion leaders and the public.

The Rideau Institute is a public policy research, consulting and advocacy group based in Ottawa. We collaborate regularly with other leading non-profit and public interest organizations to help them achieve their policy goals on behalf of their supporters and members. As a non-profit organization well known on Parliament Hill and in national newsrooms, the Rideau Institute welcomes the opportunity to share our expertise and contacts with your organizations.

• A compelling message
• A trustworthy approach
• Founded on values

The Goal: Renew the organization’s brand and enhance its influence.

A disarmament organization composed of scientists and experts wants to increase its media profile on its 50th anniversary and make an impact on Canada’s nuclear weapons policy. First, the Rideau Institute updates the organization’s logo and generates a new policy brief. Then it promotes the group’s roster of experts to journalists in the national media through a press conference on Parliament Hill, a high-level networking luncheon in Ottawa, personal calls to newsrooms on current issues, and even posting press conference videos on YouTube.com.

The Results: The group receives a unanimously supported motion in the House of Commons commending it for its work and marking the anniversary. An organization representative appears in a 7-minute national television interview and the group is quoted in many newspapers, including the Globe and Mail and the Ottawa Citizen. In an extraordinary development, the Toronto Star congratulates the group in an editorial. In sum, press coverage has reached an audience of over 6 million people, with an ad value of $158,000.

The Goal: Find supporters in Parliament

A coalition of consumer groups wants to develop policy positions and communicate them to Members of Parliament and government departments. The Rideau Institute facilitates policy development and produces professional briefing notes written especially for decision makers. After identifying key decision makers, the Rideau Institute organizes a “lobby day” in Ottawa, where coalition members meet with 17 MPs from all four parties.

The Results: During the personal meetings with government MPs, the groups find there is a great deal of interest and support, much more than expected, for one of their main proposals. The groups are now working with the Rideau Institute to build on their new contacts to push the issue forward.

The Goal: Expand an organization’s policy reach

A well-known research organization with expertise in domestic social policy issues wants to expand into international defence and foreign policy. The Rideau Institute, working with the organization, identifies research topics and produces a series of research papers that mix a high degree of intellectual rigour with policy and communications savvy. The Rideau Institute also develops a communications plan for release of the reports, formulating the message, liaising with journalists and organizing press conferences.

The Results: The first four reports released in the new series generate four front-page stories in the Ottawa Citizen and some in other daily newspapers as well as national radio and television coverage. The Prime Minister and his ministers are repeatedly forced to respond to the reports’ findings, and the research influences the public debate thereafter