This is an excerpt from The Future of Citizen Engagement: Rebuilding the Democratic Dialogue. Most citations have been removed but can be found in the full report. Select resources are included as links at the end of this post.
Like Congress, the associations, nonprofits, and corporations that facilitate grassroots advocacy campaigns to legislators are unwittingly aiding the process of turning constituent contact into data points instead of true engagement. The technology used by constituents and advocacy groups to organize around issues and mobilize constituents to contact their Senators and Representatives makes it easy to participate, but the results infrequently contribute to substantive public policy deliberation. Quick and easily-measured communications tactics are emphasized over thoughtful and interactive engagement, so Congress receives an overwhelming volume of emails and phone calls that do not provide significant value to the public policy process.Form email advocacy campaigns represent 70%-90% of the messages every Senator and Representative receives from their constituents, but they seldom provide substantive input into policy debate and decisions. In a CMF poll of grassroots advocacy professionals in the association, nonprofit, and corporate community, 79% of the respondents said that mass email campaigns are the “primary” strategy they currently employ to contact Members of Congress. However, only 3% of congressional staff surveyed said that mass email campaigns have “a lot” of influence on an undecided lawmaker. They can help provide Members with support for decisions they have already made, and they sometimes raise awareness of issues that might otherwise be ignored, but they seldom persuade them to change their minds. To change their minds—or engage them in issues they are not already focused on—requires more effort than a “click here to send a message to your Senators and Representative” campaign. It requires personal contact, relationship-building, and trust.
Part of the underlying cause of advocacy organizations’ dependence on email campaigns is a bureaucratic mentality that thrives on simple metrics. When presented with data on the inefficacy of mass form email campaigns, one association grassroots director replied, “Yeah … but my boss likes to see numbers.” While this is the dominant attitude among the grassroots community, there are signs that some organizations are beginning to emphasize the quality of the relationship with elected officials instead of the number of emails generated.
Another component of the problem is that—like the leaders of organizations—Members of Congress and their staffs have become accustomed to thinking in terms of volume. Even though volume does not change the minds of undecided Members, it is often used by staff to help them determine what issues receive their attention. In doing so, however, staff motivate organizations to generate even more messages, contributing to a cycle that distracts everyone from the actual substance and merit of an issue.
One major trade association with millions of members now focuses significant energies and resources on training 535 individual association members—one in every district and state in the nation—to build relationships with their Members of Congress, creating trusted constituent advocates to engage on the issues that matter to them. And in 2019, for the first time in this association’s modern history, they did not conduct a national “action alert” asking their full membership of millions to send an email Congress. Instead, they urged their 535 “grasstops” advocates—local expert-members—to meet with their legislators in person or through a scheduled phone call. While these activities are not easily measured in terms of volume, they can be measured in terms of impact. Individuals and organizations that build relationships with Members of Congress and their staff are much more likely to see their efforts affect the Members’ decisions, whether or not they are well-funded, deeply-connected, or experienced advocates.
Additional Resources
