Rules for effective campaigning

The trick in campaigning is to be persistent and to be prepared to try a variety of different and complementary methods.

Contacting legislators and tracking their record

Among the best sites to use for identifying and locating members of the US Congress are:

• Congress.org , which tabulates voting record, current issues and pending legislation with your Senate and House representatives. It contains a useful guide to Capitol Hill and an easy way to write directly to lawmakers on specific issues. It spotlights these according to its own agenda as a service of Capitol Advantage's CapWiz, a grassroots legislative action tool used widely on corporation, organization and media organization web sites
• Contacting the Congress is comprehensive and up-to-date. An easy-to-use database of committees and congressional contact information includes an almost complete complement of the 540 members of the 107^th Congress on email and all snail mail addresses etc for Congress members. The search engines are excellent and the resources to assist activists who want to keep their own databases and spreadsheets include Sherlock plugins for Mac users, as well as ascii and TSV files, relevant government links and important advice on responsible usage of this – and similar – material
• The official site of the US Senate contains factual information and is well organized and kept up-to-date. It includes a comprehensive voting record, although this is in no way aggregated or interpreted. For this try The League of Conservation Voters scorecard pages
• The official European Parliament site lists the current representatives by party and country for all European members
• The Izaak Walton League of Americatracks the progress of conservation and environmental legislation on Capitol Hill and follows federal agency regulatory actions that may be of interest to its members. A simpler write your representative section of the US House of Representatives site provides links to the homepage of your congressperson (if there is one) and contains a useful FAQ on the best ways to get this type of data.

These equally comprehensive sites have interactive directories listing embassies and consulates internationally:

• Embassy World gives telephone numbers and localized calling rates and international dialling codes from the embassy in question in each country.
• consulate.travel.com.hk has useful help on their search tool to do basically the same thing.
• Flim Flam has an address directory for governmental leaders internationally; it extends to email addresses for those that have them and some simple lobbying resources.
• Votenet is a commercial political organization site with some interesting resources including a legislative alert module.

Tactics

Many successful activists suggest that the top three methods to influence lawmakers are:

• in person
• handwritten letters
• faxes

Some tips for successful lobbying on your own are:

• do not be intimidated by the thought of approaching elected officials
• try to build up relationships with legislative staff: they are sometimes more accessible and can have significant influence over the legislators they work for
• be aware that US State legislators in particular do listen to comments from their constituents
• be concise: make your message short and direct
• generally, you'll want to stick to one theme or area of concern
• do not be afraid to express your personal opinion, although supporting it with facts will increase impact
• you don't need to be an expert but it's wise to use as many available resources as you can to strengthen your argument
• personalize your approach: explaining how and why you are concerned for yourself, your family and your community may make a bigger impression
• know your legislators: research which legislators are most effective or which committees are most likely to listen
• try to keep things friendly and positive: threats and hostile or sarcastic remarks are not productive
• ask for an answer: indicate to the recipient that you're serious and want to begin a dialog
• express gratitude: make sure that those who have helped you know that you will be thanking everyone who has helped in successes you have

In addition to communicating with legislators, there are other ways to influence issues you care about:

• a letter to the editor of a local, regional or national newspaper or magazine gives you a chance to inform those who may not otherwise know about a critical piece of legislation, for example. Even if your letter is not published, it might inspire an editorial on the subject. Use internet search engines to get contact details of the publisher you choose, or sites like this one for an attempt to gather often-changing details in one place. Keep your letter concise and observe the length of other letters published. Although you may want to ask to have it withheld, do supply your name, address and contact details. Do not give up on the first attempt!
• cultivate contacts with reporters and editors, giving them concise, digestible backgrounders and updates on issues that you wish to see publicized. Again, be persistent
• use radio call-in shows to let others know about environmental concerns and to ask questions of those who appear on these shows where appropriate
• prepare and distribute informative flyers and calls for action. It is wise to seek the support of organizations already active in the area on matters of truthfulness and legal responsibility
• try to encourage membership of the organizations you believe in by having ready and well-organized access to their joining processes and websites to pass to others
• research those organization that are most effective in any one area and ally yourself and your own organization with them as appropriate

Good luck!