Advocacy is not intangible
August 01, 2025
Gary Holcomb, JD, CPA
2025-26 Chair, OSCPA Board of Directors
OSCPA membership provides many tangible benefits such as professional development and member discounts. A crucial benefit—that is harder to see and feel—is advocacy. Through the years, my involvement with OSCPA has given me much in return, but none so much as my involvement in advocacy.
Advocacy is in OSCPA’s mission statement and was included as one of five key initiatives when the Board of Directors created the Society’s 2025-28 strategic plan this spring. During our discussions, the myriad of ways that members directly benefit from advocacy became abundantly clear. The best way to demonstrate this may be to highlight just a few of the ways OSCPA is advocating on your behalf:
- Oregon Legislative Tracking Analysis and Testimony. The Taxation Committee and the Legislative Policy Committees are teams of volunteers who spend many, many hours each legislative session determining the impact of proposed legislation on our members and their businesses and clients. This allows the Society to issue real-time updates to members and provide a comprehensive overview after each legislative session. These committees are vital to Oregon CPAs. Issues brew and build, sometimes for years—they can move slowly across the country towards us, or pop up out of nowhere. Most of us do not have time to add full-time legislative watchdog to our schedules. Many of our volunteers are already extremely busy meeting their own work deadlines, but we divide the effort and get it done.
- Stakeholder Relationships OSCPA also works with individual legislators, Legislative Revenue staff members, and a variety of Senate and House Committees. This allows OSCPA members to develop deep, individual relationships with the various stakeholders. These relationships allow the Society and its members to be a trusted and reliable resource. When OSCPA asks for something for our members, these stakeholders take us very seriously because of the trust we have worked to develop and the time we have invested.
- Federal Advocacy I personally was excited to be involved in a visit to Washington, D.C. to meet with federal legislators to help explain issues important to Oregon CPAs.
- Oregon Board of Accountancy, Society staff, and members have developed deep and extensive relationships with our regulators. At a recent AICPA meeting, comments were made on the national level that Oregon is a model for how a Society and Board should work together. This is something we can be truly proud of as an organization.
These are just a few of the types of advocacy that goes on year round. As mentioned, this work can be hard to quantify. It has grown slowly and steadily over decades into something OSCPA members benefit from and are protected by—even if they aren’t aware of the work.
I invite you to help. You don’t need special knowledge or background to volunteer. Experienced volunteers will help guide you—no one gets thrown into the deep end. You will learn so much and develop skills, awareness, and relationships.
I invite you to help. You don’t need special knowledge or background to volunteer. Experienced volunteers will help guide you—no one gets thrown into the deep end. You will learn so much and develop skills, awareness, and relationships.
Lastly, my deepest appreciation to the OSCPA volunteers who do this work, some for decades, some for years, some just beginning. We are a strong team and we absolutely cannot have had all the success we’ve had without your dedication. I thank you sincerely and look forward to continuing to work together to serve OSCPA members and the profession.
To learn more about supporting OSCPA advocacy, email ChairGary@orcpa.org or OSCPA President/CEO Sherri McPherson at smcpherson@orcpa.org.
