Companies and non-profit organizations practice public affairs activities on a daily basis. Politics at the local, state and federal levels require practitioners to build, foster and maintain relationships with a variety of political publics. Often referred to as government relations, public affairs is an important aspect of the public relations effort for all types of organizations seeking to survive political environments. Public affairs activities focus on planning strategies for organizing information to serve a political purpose.

The nature of public affairs requires practitioners to have a thorough understanding of the basic political processes at the local, state and federal levels. From supporting candidates in local elections to lobbying various legislators with political action committee information, practitioners must understand the organization, regulations and practices of political systems. Growth in the number of government regulatory agencies at both the federal and state level has created new opportunities and new publics for organizations and practitioners.

Public affairs practitioners use the same types of techniques as other public relations professionals. The difference for public affairs professionals is that the major focus of public relations is to accomplish the political mission for the organization. Using external and internal communication strategies, public affairs professionals constantly work toward educating employee and government publics about the consequences of political actions.

The pluralistic nature of the American system of government has encouraged the use of public relations by the government to keep the citizenry informed about news and information. In government, public affairs professionals are commonly referred to as public information officers. Like their counterparts in business or non-profit organizations, public information officers use a variety of public relations techniques to match organizational objectives with the needs of publics. The problem for public affairs within a government is that public information officers are called upon to be reactive rather than proactive.

Overall, public affairs at the business, non-profit or government level require practitioners to build relations based on honesty, credibility and openness. As various publics use new technologies to gain more open access to all types of organizations, there will be a high demand for public affairs professionals who are multi-taskers who can handle anything from simple grassroots communication campaigns to complicated national political campaigns.