This spring, more than 100 advocacy professionals joined the Congressional Management Foundation (CMF) on a webinar, "The Rise and Decline of Mass Email Campaigns' Influence on Congressional Decisions," during which CMF declared that mass email campaigns are not as influential as many advocacy professionals think. (Below is a 4-minute highlight video of the webinar.)

Why Now?

Each year, advocacy organizations spend enormous resources and effort to implement mass email campaigns in hopes of generating a large volume of email that will grab Congress' attention and influence decisions. After studying communication between citizens and Congress for almost two decades, CMF's research shows that most email campaigns are barely registering in congressional offices. In fact, according to CMF's recent report, Citizen-Centric Advocacy, a majority of congressional staff have NEVER rated form email messages as having "a lot of positive influence" on congressional decision-making.

While many congressional offices were struggling to keep up with their constituent mail before 2016, CMF has compelling evidence that constituent communication to Capitol Hill has increased much more – to a new-normal rate that is causing many congressional offices to change their constituent mail policies and practices.

Back to the Future

What new tactics should advocacy organizations turn to in the absence of mass email campaigns? The answer is not some new mind-blowing technology coming out of Silicon Valley. Instead, it turns out that the most influential strategies are the same ones that worked BEFORE the Internet's arrival caused the advocacy community believe that a few clicks of a mouse could get the same results as consistent relationship-building tactics proven effective by CMF's research.

Recommendations for the Post-Mass-Email Era

CMF has the following recommendations for advocacy organizations that recognize that the era of mass email, as an influence tool, is coming to an end.

First, advocacy organizations should use relationship-based metrics. Such metrics might include the following:

• Number of constituents who are actively engaged with their representatives
• Frequency of supporters' face-to-face interactions or substantive communication with their Senators and Representatives
• Number of advanced grassroots advocates in key districts and states

Second, advocacy organizations should invest time to teach their citizen advocates how to execute research-proven advocacy and relationship-building strategies. While a handful of advocacy groups have the capacity and capability to train their advocates themselves, most would benefit from getting outside assistance from experienced trainers. Of course, CMF has trained more than 64,000 Americans since 2014 and works with more than 60 organizations to enhance their citizen-advocates' effectiveness. Consultants, such as Soapbox Consulting or Advocacy Associates, are also experienced trainers.

What matters is that advocacy groups invest sufficient time to train their citizen advocates and allow them time to PRACTICE the skills they learn before they engage with their Members of Congress.

Contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , CMF's Director of Citizen Engagement , or visit CMF's Website.