Grassrooots lobbying methods (part 1): petitions and post cards

Submitted by Drew Mckissick on Fri, 06/18/2010 - 08:50.

Following up on the last entry reviewing the items on the Grassroots lobbying Buffet, we'll start looking at each of the methods you can use to bring pressure on elected officials. Generally speaking, we'll start at the bottom in terms of impact and work our way up.

Petitions

Petitions have a one-time impact – when they are delivered. The number of signatures tends to be discounted as just a “thick enclosure” that accompanies the cover letter you present along with them. Petitions are generally better suited to building lists for your organization than for lobbying, (but list building is important too!).

This is not to say that you don’t use petitions, it's just that when it comes to lobbying elected officials they are much more effective when coupled with other lobbying techniques.

You can conduct petition drives “off-line” (in paper form), and/or online, (with services such as AktNow).

Pre-Printed Post Cards

The good thing about pre-printed post cards are that they're easy to get supporters to sign and mail in (since you've already printed a message to the elected official, and it's already addressed). Much easier than getting people to write and send in their own personal letters. Also, they're received over a period of time, which extends the effect.

The downside is that it's clear that it's an orchestrated effort, so it doesn't really give the official a good idea of whether the constituent is just casually interested in the issue or feels very passionately about it.

***
Related entries:

You can get more tips and details on these and other lobbying techniques in my Grassroots 101 series.