Apps for Advocacy

When it comes to advocacy, communication is key. However, it isn’t always easy when we all live such busy lives.

Associations that have deployed mobile apps benefit from being able to connect with their members wherever they may be.

Below are some examples of how you can advance your advocacy with mobile:

Scout for Threats and Opportunities
Want to know opinions on hot topics or what focus a proposal should receive? Take 5 to 15 minutes to push out an alert, setup a poll, or create a survey. If you’re succinct and purposeful, you will improve your turnout. The app does the results tracking for you!

Plan Your Response
Set up a discussion forum or chatroom so members or committees can collaborate on the message proposed for Congress virtually.

Inform your Members
Consider sharing resources and research too. Push personalized surveys to collect stats such as “140 out of 150 medical professionals surveyed have an ongoing issue with insurance….”  With a newsfeed pushing hot short information bites, members can choose to read more now or later from the app.

Rally and Lead your Members
Allow members to contact their state or federal level representatives through the app. Giving the members fast access to Representatives is a start, but preparing the member for communication is equally important. If members can see their representative’s voting history, relevant research, suggested speaking points, or even a canned email message; they can reach out with confidence!

Track Member Actions
With these tools, your members can have a voice in Congress and your association can track the effort along the way to impacting political changes.

Advocacy App in Action

Many associations find their shortest path to influence happens when members and Congress meet face to face. For associations like the Florida College of Emergency Physicians (FCEP), this happens annually in the spring.

According to Niala Ramountar, FCEP Director of Education, “We’ve been using Results@Hand for quite some time now for all of our live conferences and symposia. This year we are excited to use the mobile app to help with our advocacy event in Tallahassee – Emergency Medicine Days. We’re using the app to detail all of the legislative appointments that have been scheduled with our members and all 160 Florida legislators. This will replace older processes that involved continuously updating and printing large spreadsheets.  With push notifications, we are able to alert our members of new changes in their appointment schedules in a timely fashion.”