Grassroots advocacy software - letting constituents contact their elected officials?

Latest post 11-10-2009 11:52 AM by grasshopr. 4 replies.

Grassroots advocacy software - letting constituents contact their elected officials?

01-08-2009 9:04 AM

Hi!

Does anyone know of a free site where I can create an email campaign that I can send constituents to, letting them fill in their personal info and send a message to their elected officials about a specific issue? This is obviously something people pay a lot of money for, but I'd be fine with a hosted site, with ads and everything else...

Appreciate any input!

Cheers,

Greg

Re: Grassroots advocacy software - letting constituents contact their elected officials?

01-09-2009 4:20 PM

Dear Greg,

Welcome to TechSoup!

Check the systems tagged with "activism" and "advocacy" in Social Source Commons and tagged with "advocacy" in the Organizer's Tool Crib.  I see a few that might do what you need. 

Robert

Re: Grassroots advocacy software - letting constituents contact their elected officials?

01-14-2009 8:38 AM

I have been searching today for the same type of software.  I haven't found anything yet that allows you to host such software yourself, but I did find a really good site that hosts it for you.  http://citizenspeak.org lets you organize just such an emailing campaign.

I hope that helps.  Please keep updating if you find any better services/software.

-N

Re: Grassroots advocacy software - letting constituents contact their elected officials?

01-15-2009 8:11 AM

Thanks both of you! Very helpful links and resources. I think Citizen Speak is the closest to what I was looking for, though I haven't fully tested it yet. I can't tell if it has the ability to target the message to a particular user's representatives, though. It seems like you just define an email list, and it sends their message to all of those recipients. What I was looking for (this is probably pie in the sky) is the type of functionality you see with software like Convio and the such that takes their address (or at least their zip code) and figures out who their reps. are, and then sends the message to them. Like I said, maybe I'm just not seeing that functionality on Citzen Speak. And I know that it's some pretty advanced functionality to be asking of a free solution.

Anyway, thanks again, I really appreciate the replies and I'll update this thread if I make any more discoveries.

Re: Grassroots advocacy software - letting constituents contact their elected officials?

11-10-2009 11:52 AM

Check out http://www.grasshopr.com

Grasshopr is designed just to do such things. You can create a group, launch a campaign (action alerts), upload your membership database (or invite members to join), map members to their elected officials, send communications across to elected officials, message your membership base, debate legislation, host polls and discussion forums all in one platform. And the best part is that it all comes for free!