advocacy gap - big picture

The Advocacy Gap: What Congress Really Does With All Those Emails

Not much.

AdvocacyCongressional policy process, decision-making

Advocacy

GAP[ ]

Research:Senior Hill StaffActivists

SOPA75% of online traffic

Single message

NO

Imminent legislation

Constituents only

Consistent, tight, imminently relevant ask

Win-Win In-District

Advocacy is like health care.Think ahead.

constituent visitsconstituent stories

constituent callsDC media

DC visibility

mass emails

postcardsTwitter/FB

district mediadistrict visibility

WHAT ACTIVISTS DO:

Email through an org

Sign an online petition

Email an elected

FB or Twitter

Call an elected

Meet with an elected

Town hall

Write a letter-to-the-editor

Rally or protest

Regularly Never

WHAT ACTIVISTS THINK IS EFFECTIVE:

Meet with an elected

Call an elected

Email an elected

Email through an org

Town hall

Rally or protest

Sign an online petition

FB or Twitter

Write a letter-to-the-editor

Very Effective Not Effective Don't Know

MAYBE IT’S LIKE DIET AND EXERCISE?

Meet with an elected

Call an elected

Email an elected

Email through an org

Sign an online petition

FB or Twitter

Effective Regularly

The advocacy gapis a chasm.

But not located where we thought it might be.

Hill: Meet with us

Activists: Meetings are effective ... but we don’tdo them.

Gap is action,not education or access.

So what?

List building through low-impact activities is just list building.It’s not advocacy.

1

Heavily invested in making low-impact activities easy.

2

Invest in making high-impact activities easier for activists.

FTW

Reorient out of DC.

3

The relationship between voters and leaders hasn’t changed.

4

We just forgot it in the big list arms race.

This is good news.5

englin.net/AdvocacyGap