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Government Relations: GROW - Government Advocacy

Advocacy FAQs

Elected officials are always so busy. How can I best gain their attention?
I feel uncomfortable always asking for something. Is it important that I "make the ask?"
What kind of information should I provide a Congressional office?
What's the best way to follow up with a Congressional office?
What's the best way to use e-mail to communicate with elected officials?
Shouldn't I always deal with the Washington, DC, office?
Is whining ever effective?

Elected officials are always so busy. How can I best gain their attention?

Congressional offices are often inundated with visiting constituents during the months of February and March. It seems like almost every association on the planet has its annual meeting and lobby day sometime during these 8 weeks. With all the people milling about Capitol Hill, it can be especially difficult during this busy time to ensure that your message rises above the fray.

One way to do so is to do your homework before going in to meet with your member of Congress. Although you may have only five minutes to deliver your message, you can make those minutes count by understanding what your member of Congress feels passionately about.

Put yourself in their shoes — you have meeting after meeting with people who are asking for this appropriation, that letter, or the other bill. You want to help them, but how can you prioritize the requests? Well, you are most likely to work on things that interest you, that are related to the issues that you feel passionately about. The effective advocate will understand what those issues are and will frame their requests in those terms as best he or she can.

Demonstrating that you've thought beyond what YOU want to what the Member of Congress is interested in is a sure way to get their attention — and often their support.

I feel uncomfortable always asking for something. Is it important that I "make the ask?"
Always Make the Ask: Some people feel uncomfortable asking for something, but Congressional offices are used to it and expect it! In fact, the only way to ensure that someone in a Congressional office thinks about you and your issue for longer than the 5 minutes that you spoke to them (or the 5 minutes it took them to read your letter) is to force them to make a decision. And the only way to force them to make a decision is to ask them for something. But it doesn't always have to be a big or controversial request (cosponsoring a bill or letter, for example).

Think creatively about other things you can ask your member of Congress to do, like visiting your facility, entering a statement in the Congressional record about your organization's efforts, making a statement on the floor about a particular award you won, or writing an article for your newsletter. These efforts require that some one in the office think about you and your issues for some part of their day, to help prepare the statement, or make preparation for a meeting.

What kind of information should I provide a Congressional office?
Congressional offices receive an astounding amount of unsolicited material. So what happens to all this stuff? The truth is, most of it is thrown away. How can you make sure your information doesn't hit the circular file? By making it relevant, short, and easy for the staff person to keep. You should be able to boil the essence of your materials down to one page. You may want to include a few pages of background material with your main message, but do not leave behind reams of paper.

The better thing to do is to let staff know what kind of resources you have available should they need them. If some of the information you would otherwise provide can be accessed on the web, give them a sheet with the web site address and a table of contents. Also, make it easy for them to hold on to your materials — information that's in a file folder, as opposed to a packet or binder, is far more likely to be stuck directly into a file drawer instead of the wastebasket.

Finally, make sure your materials are relevant to an issue the office must deal with soon, either "hot" legislation or a pressing district issue. If the staff person thinks they may need the document for an upcoming decision, he or she will be more likely to hold on to it.

What's the best way to follow up with a Congressional office?
The effective advocate will ask for something specific and then follow up to see what happened. Frankly, some Congressional offices will ignore your first request. It isn't until you ask again that they realize you are serious. By following-up, you demonstrate that you really care enough about the issue to keep track of it for a while — and, more importantly, to keep track of what your elected officials are doing about it. Your follow-up should occur two to three weeks after the initial request was placed.

Another important follow-up technique is to send a thank you letter to both the elected official and the staff after a meeting, and be sure to mention how helpful the staff was in the letter you write to the elected official — that will ensure that you will be well received next time you stop by.

Finally, be sure any reporting you do about you interaction with a Congressional office is very diplomatic. Harsh words invariably get back to the office making them much less likely to want to deal with you in the future.

What's the best way to use e-mail to communicate with elected officials?
Effective E-mail: Whether they are citizen advocates or government relations professionals, people are wondering these days whether e-mail is an effective means of communicating with Congress.

The truth is, most Congressional offices do pay attention to e-mails — so long as they follow the same rules of content and relevance that apply to more traditional forms of written communication. In terms of content, the e-mail message should be personal, thoughtful, accurate, and polite; the writer must ask for something specific and ask for a response; and, most important, the writer must tell a compelling story.

The effective citizen advocate will also ensure that the Congressional office recognizes the relevance of the correspondence. How? By including their snail-mail address. Elected officials need to know whether or not it is a constituent who is tying to communicate with them. Most offices delete e-mails that are clearly not from residents of the district or that do not indicate where the communicator resides. See www.house.gov/writerep to e-mail House members and www.senate.gov to contact Senators.

Shouldn't I always deal with the Washington, DC, office?
Don't ignore the District / State Congressional Office. We all know that in order to be successful, advocates must build positive long-term relationships with their Representatives and Senators. One terrific means of doing so is to engage the district or state office in your issues.

Generally, district or state staff may have slightly more time to delve more into the nuances of your issues and understand better how those issues affect the Congressperson's constituents. In fact, an effective advocate can turn the district staff into a "lobbyist" for them within the Congressional organization. It's also important to know that every Representative has a "home style" and a "DC style".

Frankly, many Representatives are much more relaxed and receptive in their home districts. So be sure to meet with the Member and/or their staff in the district office. Or, invite the district staff to an event, a tour of your facility — any activity that will get them involved in your issues and policy concerns. Finally, associations, business groups, or other organizations might want to consider having a "District/State Lobby Day" in addition to the traditional Washington, DC, lobby day. This would be a day designated for association members to meet with their federal representatives in their home offices.

Is whining ever effective?
Don't whine. While this may seem like an obvious communication tip, you'd be surprised at the number of people who think that whining is an effective way to get their message across.

Think about your own life: what happens when your spouse or your kids try to get you to do something by whining and threatening? "I'm tired of washing the stupid dishes. If you don't do it this week I'm going to divorce you" is rarely an effective way of asking a spouse to do the dishes. So please don't try that same tactic with elected officials. Too many people call their members of Congress and say, "I'm tired of the stupid [EPA, Department of Education, fill in your pet peeve here]. Do something about it or I'll vote for someone else." That's simply not very constructive.

Offering a solution (or a more detailed analysis) makes you a player in the effort to fix the problem. Members of Congress and their staff actually like to deal with people who have constructive, interesting, thoughtful things to say — even if they don't always agree with them.

The "don't whine" maxim applies on a larger scale as well. If you aren't happy with your elected representatives, the options available on the ballot, or the votes that your representatives cast, don't whine about it until you've tried to do something about it — like vote, get involved with campaigns, or communicate your views. Then you can whine all you want!