Let’s state a fact: building your own lobbyist registry is costly, inefficient, and resource intensive. For municipalities across Canada, this has acted as a significant barrier for entry, and has ultimately prevented the widespread proliferation of lobbyist registries at that level of government. We have to look no further than municipal staff reports, which identify barriers such as cost, complexity, resource expenditures, and many others. After reading countless of these reports, we knew there was a better way. We created Lobby Registry for every municipality in Canada, specifically making it cost effective and nearly effortless for you to demonstrate transparency. No unnecessary bells or whistles, hidden fees, onboarding costs, or long-term contracts. Just practical and intuitive functionality for municipalities, regardless of their size or budget. Why a shared-service approach? Simple. A shared-service registry spreads the cost amongst all participants, making it financially attainable. Enhancements to a shared-service product also benefits all parties, and not just a single system. Not only does a low-cost shared-service like Lobby Registry remove barriers for larger municipalities, it also makes a registry easily attainable for smaller municipalities. Although lobbying volume is certainly higher in Canada’s largest cities, transparency should not be exclusive to our metropolises.  With interest in this critical transparency tool creating a groundswell in Canada, the time is now to proactively explore a lobbyist registry. Check out www.lobbyregistry.ca to learn more about how we are working to enable increased transparency. Like this content? Subscribe to our newsletter to be among the first to hear about our latest developments. An article by Ryan J. Eickmeier