Outreach to Policymakers

How many constituent requests does a typical congressional office get every day? How much time do staff have to process a request, before they have to move on to the next one? What approach makes it easiest for staff to respond? We’ll explore the answers to each of those question and consider the resulting boundary conditions for effective communication with policymakers: keep it tight, make it compelling, have a crystal clear ask. We’ll see what we can learn from a related format – the evening local 1/2 hour news broadcast -- where time is precious, and information is conveyed quickly and efficiently. We’ll then have audience volunteers tackle some real-world cases to see how effective communication with policymakers works in practice.