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Easy Advocacy


“Advocacy” in politics usually means supporting a certain position on an issue or a bill. Advocacy for citizens means letting your officials know what you want them to do. In Part 12 of this course, you will learn about the many different ways that you can create and use political power. Here we will only discuss the five easiest and simplest things to do.

1.  Complete written surveys from your representatives. If you get a survey sent to you from one of your representatives or from a candidate, you should take the time to fill it out. They want to know what the electorate (you the voters) care about. This is your golden opportunity to tell them. If telephone or written surveys come from other sources, be careful. You may be giving information to the wrong people.


2.  Send emails or letters to your representatives. Emails are best when a vote is getting close. But letters from individuals generally carry more weight because you took the time and effort to write and mail it. Allow 8-10 days for postal mail, since letter need to be processed and screened. In either case, there are some important rules to follow:

a.  Include your mailing address and zip code at the top or bottom, so that they know you are their constituent (in other words, you are in their voting area.) If you are not in an official’s voting area, your email or letter would carry little if any weight. Their concern is their district.

b.  Be polite and respectful. You may be angry at their stand, or you may really dislike almost everything about them, but no one responds well to being attacked. We’re not saying that you need to hide your feelings. Just communicate them respectfully.

c.  Be brief. The aides of these officials must process hundreds or thousands of emails a day. (Congress received 182 million emails and 18 million letters in 2004.) Aim for no more than eight sentences. Come to the point quickly.

d.  Be personal. Include something about how this personally affects you.  This is where you can share your feelings and concerns. Putting the personal or unique information at the start increased the impact of your communication.

e.  Whenever possible include a specific Bill number and name of the legislation. Again, this speeds up the process. They usually want to know if you favor or oppose a certain piece of upcoming legislation. Or, if you are thanking them for their vote, again be specific. If you want to know where they stand on the issue, ask them to reply.

You can easily find legislative information at Congress.Org's bill section.

How to Regularly Receive Action Updates

1.  To regularly get advocacy updates on issues of concern to you, just do a search with three words:  "advocacy"  "organization"  and the appropriate keyword  (such as "healthcare" or "fiscal responsibility" or "environment.")  If you sign up with statewide or local advocacy groups, you can get action alerts at the state and local levels, as well, by adding the name of the state or city to the search.

2.  Review several organizations and pick the one(s) that seems to have the best approach and plan to causing change.  Read carefully.  Many organizations have deceptive names and strategies.  For instance, some anti-environmental groups have "green" sounding names, or names that celebrate some other virtue or value.  Also, some groups may be well-known, but not really have an effective plan for turning things around.  It's one thing to be against something bad; it's another thing to have a realistic plan to change the situation.  Sometimes it helps to find out what a group has already done.

3.  Once you've studied some groups and picked the best, look for a place where you can sign up for free action alerts or legislative updates.  

4.  If you later want to stop receiving the updates, they almost always come with a link at the bottom telling you how to unsubscribe.

f.  If emailing, don’t include attachments and don’t cc.

g.  Don’t write every day about every issue. Busy people will resent this.

h.  Proofread your writing. Simple mistakes and confusing prose make a poor impression.


3.  Ask your friends to write. If you have sent an email and really care about an issue, ask your friends to email or write a letter, too. Make it easy for them to write. Paste and cut the essential background information on the bill into your email. If they've never written an advocacy letter before, include your email as an example.    


4.  Signing a petition. If someone asks you to sign a petition and you decide to do it, follow the directions carefully. Usually you need to include your address and zip code, and sometimes even a signature. In cases where a candidate is trying to get onto the ballot, your signing may be worthless if you do not furnish all the required information.


5.  Make a donation to a candidate or advocacy group. The current reality in politics is that money makes a huge difference in politics. This needs to be changed, but for now it's important to be realistic.  Campaigns and professional advocacy efforts cost money. 

Exercise:  Write an Email to Congress!

1.  Use the above Action Alert link to locate an issue of interest to you.  Find a bill that you would like to write about.  If the bill begins with "S." then you will want to write your senators. If it's "H." or "H.Res." then you will want to write your Congressman (Representative.) Go to http://vote-smart.org and put in your state to find your officials email or postal addresses.

Here's a model letter:

When ready, please continue on to the next part, Know Yourself Politically.