In 1998, the Congressional Management Foundation (CMF) embarked on a ground-breaking research project: to study best practices in congressional websites with the goal of providing Congress with guidance on how to use this emerging technology to improve constituents’ communication with, and understanding of, the institution. Three years later the initiative was boosted by a two-year grant from The Pew Charitable Trusts to create the Congress Online Project, in association with The George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management.

The project had an ambitious goal: develop a methodology for evaluating more than 600 congressional personal office, committee and leadership websites. CMF spent a year conducting focus groups with citizens, examining private sector research, and even polling reporters on their expectations when interacting with congressional websites. We then engaged in a thorough assessment process, assigning grades to every website on Capitol Hill. The strategy was: by highlighting the best practices, and playing to politicians’ natural competitiveness with a grading system, Congress would better utilize online communications tools, thereby better serving citizens.

The initial results were not promising: 10% of congressional websites received grades of A or B, and 90% received grades of C, D or F. The 2002 CMF report on congressional websites stated:

“(T)he large majority of congressional offices treat their Web sites as ancillary to their duties, rather than integral to them. They don’t see them a deserving priority attention and they devote minimal office time to them. They update them haphazardly or when time permits. They post content that highlights the activities and achievements of the Member rather than creating content specifically geared to meeting the needs of their audiences.”

What happened in the next 12 months was remarkable. CMF held more than 200 sessions with individual congressional offices, explaining the research and identifying deficiencies in their online communications. When CMF again assessed congressional websites and issued a report in 2003, the results were markedly different. Using the same criteria, the percentage of congressional websites receiving an A or B rose from 10% to 50%. Both as a result of CMF’s encouragement, and the innate intuition of Members and staff that the Internet offered significant political and communications potential, an era and culture of continual learning and improvement began.

Over the last decade, Congress experimented with content and features that had varying degrees of success. Blogs captured special attention five to six years ago – until staff and Members realized that it took a lot of effort to transcribe daily musings in an efficient and interesting way. Congressional podcasts were a fad – until Congress realized that its content was competing for audience attention on the same device (an iPod) on which the audience also had Ray Charles, NPR and Lady Gaga. These features and tools have been supplanted by newer innovations, such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.

Now there are signs that Congress really does “get” technology and the value to individual Members, the institution of Congress, and constituents. IPads are common on the House floor, Members in the House and Senate display extraordinary creativity and transparency in their use of social media, and institutional offices continue to develop new methods to help Members use technology to enhance the relationship and communications between citizens and Congress.

Most notably, the 112th Congress Gold Mouse Awards: Best Practices in Online Communications on Capitol Hill documents the biggest leap forward in the vast majority of websites in the history of our research. In the past two years, the most common congressional website grade rose from an F to a B. CMF theorizes that this great leap could be a result of new attention on social media. With the shifting of resources to constituent communications (documented in CMF’s 2011 Communicating with Congress research), there appears to be greater emphasis on all online resources.

And yet, there continue to be noticeable and embarrassing laggards. More than one-third of congressional websites received a D or F grade. (To receive one of these substandard grades, the following is likely: the website design hasn’t been changed in the last three to five years, the content is woefully out of date and explanations of basic services – such as how to receive casework help from the office – is nonexistent.) This is not an abstract problem. When a constituent tries to get information from an office online, and gets no answers, the constituent’s thoughts could range from, “What are they hiding?” to “They don’t care about me.” Both emotional responses contribute to cynicism about government in America and Congress’ historically low approval ratings.

Fortunately, these cases are the minority. This report demonstrates the outstanding effort, contribution and transparency of the best websites on the Capitol Hill. The winners of the 112th Congress Gold Mouse Awards clearly have devoted substantial resources and creativity to building “virtual offices.” They have sought ways to ensure that their constituents and stakeholders experience convenient avenues and tools for accessing services and information related to government processes. Most important, these Members and staff have displayed a degree of transparency and efficiency that ultimately enhances the image of Congress and helps to improve confidence in our democratic institutions.

The Super Committee is charged with recommending how to reduce the U.S. deficit by at least $1.5 trillion over the next ten years, and has until Thanksgiving to do so. Committee members say comments from the public are being taken seriously (here’s the web form to prove it), though some of them are also limiting participation: for instance, Senator Baucus (D-Mont.) is not taking messages from any one who doesn’t live in Montana — even though the mission is national in scope.

The limited time frame for decisions and the committee’s difficult task makes advocacy especially challenging. What’s an advocacy group to do?

Hopefully, most organizations have plans in place to handle a sudden grassroots need. But if your organization was not quite as prepared as others, don’t despair. Even in this Internet age, all politics is still local.

Meaning stick to the basics and do them well:

1. Key Contacts: Activate the members in your organization that are from these states. They should already be identified as key contacts for the members of Congress, and now is the time to leverage those relationships.
2. District Meetings: Never overlook district staff. These Super Committee members may not make it home very much over the next few weeks, but they will still be getting a daily report from home. Make sure your organization and your members (i.e. their constituents) feature prominently.
3. Social Media: They are listening to social media. Get as many of your advocates as possible to upload content to your YouTube channel, personalizing the issues. Your Facebook and Twitter strategy should be integrated into this campaign as well, for a social media “surround sound.”
4. Coalition Partners: Most advocacy groups are part of a coalition. Are you contacting partners and their followers? It’s imperfect, since your message may not be delivered exactly how you would prefer, but it’s more voices added to your chorus.

At the end of all of this, remember the poor congressional staff of these Super Committee members. You can’t buy them dinner these days, but an honest and sincere thank you for all their work will be (almost as) appreciated.

Despite the successful and headline-grabbing launch of Google+, only 13 members of the U.S. Senate and 15 members of the U.S. House of Representatives have established profiles on the new social networking site, far fewer than the number from each chamber who are active on Facebook and Twitter.

Google+ launched in July to much fanfare and within three weeks had attracted 20 million users in the U.S. Some technology pundits have labeled it a “Facebook killer.”

Congress’s slow adoption of Google+ comes as a surprise because the new social networking platform contains at least one unique function the others do not: It allows users to segregate relationships into “Circles,” meaning members of Congress can isolate constituents from other followers. Heavy social networking “spam” from non-constituents is a significant frustration for members and their social media staffs.

“Just the other day, someone posted on our Facebook wall that she wished my boss was her senator,” a Hill press secretary told me.

A recent study by the Congressional Management Foundation reports that members of Congress and key staff have embraced social media as a tool to communicate with constituents. But privately, many also complain they receive too much pre-packaged “Astroturf” in the form of canned Tweets and Facebook wall postings. In many cases, these communications come from people far away from the members’ districts or from undetermined locations. Google+ Circles allow members of Congress to target their communications directly to people in the states or districts they represent, while ignoring communications directed at them from people outside their states or districts.

The Circles feature offers additional benefits as well. For example, members can compartmentalize constituents based on the content of their communications. A member could have a Veterans Issues Circle or an Energy and Environment Circle, for example. Circles can also streamline and facilitate press communications. And Circles are by no means the only promising functionality on Google+. So-called “Hangouts” — a native, pushbutton small group video chat feature — could become an alternative to district town hall meetings, which have become made-to-order YouTube set-up moments over the last couple of years.

Nevertheless, one staff member for a Republican U.S. senator told me he was reluctant to dive into Google+ because, “We already have enough difficulty keeping Facebook and Twitter up to date.”

It appears that Google has not yet made a concerted effort to encourage members of Congress to use its new platform. “While Facebook and Twitter appear to actively work with the caucus, Google has made no such effort,” another Republican staffer told me.

Of the senators who have established profiles on Google+, only four appear to use it to reach out to constituents actively: Sens. Bob Casey, Orrin Hatch, Bernie Sanders and Mark Warner.

Only thee House members on Google+ (Reps. Jan Schakowsky, Jared Polis and Kathy Hochul) use it frequently to post and interact with followers. The others have profiles and occasionally update their spaces.

One reason for the relative lack of Capitol Hill enthusiasm for Google+ to date may be the fact that the platform has not yet lived through an election cycle. In the past, heated primary and general-election contests have fueled the explosive growth of Facebook and Twitter in the political world.

It’s also important to note that despite its widespread use, Google+ is still a Beta product. Google is currently testing a platform for business entities that might have additional functions that will benefit political leaders, like advertising tie-ins to aid brand management and data collection. And in addition to its native applications, developers are certain to enhance the Google+ experience with custom apps.

Some Hill staffers I have spoken to feel a bit burned by the overstated expectations of other social media platforms. It’s not altogether clear to them that they are getting out of it all they have put in. But the successful launch of Google+ ensures it is here to stay. And its native functionality and promising future appear well-suited for leaders in government, politics and public affairs.

Patrick Hynes is the President of Hynes Communications.

Sometimes a letter isn’t enough. Here are a few groups that have delivered a message to Congress by actually delivering something. 

When Medicare faced major cuts a year ago, the American Medical Association sent over 2,000 white lab coats to members of Congress. (A true fashion statement.) The association held a “Write Coat Rally” (above) at its annual meeting in Chicago, where members signed and wrote messages on the lab coats before they were hand-delivered to congressional offices. “White coats are personal to physicians and signify the work they do to care for patients,” AMA president Peter Carmel tells us. “They provided physicians a place to write a personal message to their elected officials on this important issue.” They also helped generate media coverage, including a photo and story in The Washington Post. Last Novermber, AMA held a “virtual white coat rally” to again convey the need for permanent Medicare reform. The campaign generated 12,000 phone calls to Congress.

Hats aren’t just for making a statement at polo matches and royal weddings. The American Farm Bureau Federation made a political statement out of farmers’ caps by mailing them to Congress to show its opposition to 2009 cap-and-trade climate change legislation that would raise fuel, fertilizer, and energy costs for farmers and ranchers. The campaign’s name? “Don’t Cap Our Future.” The association distributed stickers, which its farmer members signed and slapped on their caps before sending them to their representatives. Above, Kansas Farm Bureau members hold up signed caps at their annual meeting. 

 


In the heat of the 2006 immigration debate, advocates for tougher border security wanted to push Congress to start building a border wall. So, they sent about 10,000 bricks to get it started. The grassroots effort, which grew out of an online forum, formed as the Send-a-Brick Project. Advocates could send bricks themselves or pay the project a fee to box and ship the bricks for them with a note explaining their purpose. “E-mails are so common now,” one of the organizers, Kirsten Heffron, told The New York Times at the time. “It is really easy for the office to say duly noted, hit delete, and never think about it again.” The bricks were ultimately collected and donated to Habitat for Humanity.

Click here to read the report.  

Among the key findings:

       *Nearly two-thirds (64%) of the senior managers and social media managers surveyed think Facebook is a somewhat or very important tool for understanding constituents’ views and opinions, 42% say Twitter is somewhat or very important, and 34% say YouTube is a somewhat or very important tool for understanding constituents’ views and opinions.

       *Nearly three-quarters (74%) of the senior managers and social media managers we surveyed think Facebook is somewhat or very important for communicating their Members’ views. YouTube is viewed by nearly three-quarters of staffers surveyed (72%) as somewhat or very important for communicating their Members’ views.  More than half (51%) of the staffers surveyed say Twitter is a somewhat or very important vehicle for their Members’ communications.

       *A strong majority of staffers (72%) believe that social media allows their Members to reach people they had previously not communicated with.  A majority of the staffers (55%) feel social media offers their offices more benefits than risks.

The report is part of CMF’s initiative, the Partnership for a More Perfect Union.  The Partnership seeks to enrich the relationship between citizens and Congress through education, building trust, and providing innovative yet pragmatic tools to facilitate purposeful two-way communication.

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