This guide is here to help you understand how to effectively communicate with elected officials about materials protection and performance issues globally.
The key points to make when communicating with elected officials are:
- Make sure your communication is simple, concise, and to the point.
- Don’t raise questions you are not prepared to answer.
- Address the 5 W’s (Who? What? When? Where? And Why?)
- Work to build consensus.
- Utilize resources made available through AMPP.
Tools that are effective include:
- Letters and Emails
- Social Media
- Meetings with Elected Officials
Resources
Letters and emails
AMPP has the tools to help you move an advocacy campaign forward through our new AMPP Action Center. This tool is now available on the AMPP Government Affairs website, and you can get your campaign included in this by contacting AMPP Government Affairs Team. After your campaign is included in our Action Center, sending letters and emails to elected officials to inform them of your chapter's ongoing advocacy campaign will be easier.
Social media
- Most elected officials use social media now to get their message out and it is best for chapters to do the same. We suggest chapters use all the existing social media accounts to help communicate with elected officials on your ongoing advocacy campaign. What makes social media effective is the public nature of communication. A message to an elected official on their Facebook page or through a post on “X” can be seen by anyone connected to that official's page. Due to the public nature of the message, it will also make these elected official's offices more likely to engage with you quickly.
- Social media posts are public statements structured as personal messages. You can interact with members quickly and thank them for supporting essential issues for your chapter. Using social media is a way to inform a broader audience of your issue. Although social media can be used as the primary way of interacting with elected officials, it is going to be most effective when used to enhance the impact of letter/email writing, phone calls, and or in-person meetings, which allow for more in-depth conversations.
Meetings with elected officials
- A meeting with an elected official has a more immediate impact and leaves a longer-lasting impression than a letter or social media. Most elected officials have staff members whose sole job is to interact and communicate with their local constituents like your chapter members. There are no barriers to stopping by these offices and establishing relationships with the staff.
Tips for meetings
- Before meeting with an elected official, please let AMPP staff know you have scheduled a meeting. They can help provide valuable background information about the elected official and their views on the specific issue you want to discuss.
- Make sure you make the elected official's office aware of the issue you wish to discuss with them. When you call and schedule a meeting, the staffer who handles material protection and performance issues can have the meeting. Walk-in meetings usually meet with the staff member who is available at the time.
- Bring materials to leave behind for each point you want to discuss. It is best to create a one-page handout for the leave-behind. Make sure that the page includes a specific ask, and be sure to discuss that during the meeting.
- Have an agenda of what you want to discuss and ask staff how much time you will have for the meeting.
- Do not be disappointed if you meet with staff. Staff members are the best way forward as they are critical advisors to elected officials.
- Volunteer your chapter as a source of local expertise on materials protection and performance.
- Stick to the facts and do not stretch the truth. It is always better to be honest in these meetings about what you do and don’t know, as it keeps your credibility intact.
- Be a good listener, even if the elected official disagrees with your position on the issue you are discussing.
- Always follow up with a thank you note that restates the ask from the meeting.