Form Letters, Sample Letters, Petitions, and Contacting your Representatives
People ask often us if we have a pre-written petition or form letter to help send an email to their elected representatives.
The simple answer: we don’t. From speaking with staff in legislative offices, both at the state and federal level, we have come to understand that these sort of automatic email messages are generally ignored. They might be counted, in some fashion, but a phone call or an individually-sent email is much, much more impactful.
If you can write a snail mail letter and mail it, a letter is the most impactful of all. A faxed letter is good too.By using your own voice, you are likely to have 100 times the impact of simply signing on to some organization’s email or letter. That is why we encourage you to do so.
We give you the information. You decide what is important to you and what you want to say. It does not have to be long. It does needs to come from you, personally.
We know it is more work. But please consider doing this work, because it is very important. Unbelievable as it may be, you doing the work to understand an issue does MORE to change an issue from the bottom up than anything else.
Follow the three steps below.
Step 1:
Figure out what level of government can help with the issue. Is it:
- Municipal?
- County?
- State?
- Federal?
Step 2:
Identify your contacts:
- Municipal: town council, city council, selectboard, unorganized territory? Call the place where you registered to vote, or where you pay your property or excise taxes, and find out how to contact the elected representatives at the town or city level.
- County: Depending where you live in the country, your county government might be more relevant to an issue than your town or city.
- State: Generally, a web search for “Find my state representative [State Name]” will do the trick. If not, once again, you can call your town office or city hall and ask them. Like at the federal level, you will have both a State Representative and a State Senator.
- Federal: Find your Representative here, by zip code.
Find your Senator here, by state.
Save your contact information for the next time you need to reach out!
Step 3:
Write to them. Yes, you may need to use the contact form on their website – don’t worry, it will help your email get delivered.
Please, go ahead and use our one pagers or articles as a resource. A letter doesn’t need to be long. But if you write it, it will be more impactful than sending dozens of form letters.