Grassroots advocates drive volume, while grasstops champions deliver influence. When coordinated, the two create a powerful one-two punch for advocacy. For heads of grassroots teams, the challenge isn’t choosing between them — it’s aligning them. Here’s how to expand your grasstops strategy without losing momentum on grassroots mobilization.
The Case for Coordination
Grassroots programs thrive on scale — thousands of advocates sending letters, making calls, and showing lawmakers the breadth of support. Grasstops programs, on the other hand, depend on depth — trusted voices who already have personal ties with decision-makers.
When these efforts operate in silos, you risk duplication, inconsistent messaging, or missed opportunities. But when they’re coordinated, grassroots sets the stage while grasstops closes the deal. Imagine thousands of constituents writing in, followed by a personal visit from someone the legislator knows well. The message lands harder because it’s both widely supported and personally reinforced.
Step 1: Identify Your Grasstops Within Your Grassroots
Your grassroots base is often the best place to find grasstops connections. Start with a relationship survey: ask advocates, “Who do you know?” You may uncover ties to lawmakers through church communities, youth sports leagues, workplaces, or past campaigns. Campaign finance records are another rich resource — major donors often have direct access.
Read More: Identifying Key Influencers: How to Find Grasstops in Your Community
By surfacing these relationships, you’re not building a separate grasstops program from scratch; you’re layering influence onto your existing grassroots base.
Step 2: Keep Everyone in One System
The biggest risk when managing both grassroots and grasstops is fragmentation. If grassroots actions live in one database and grasstops interactions in another, you’ll never see the full picture of your influence.
Instead, track everything — from mass email participation to a quick text between a grasstops advocate and a lawmaker — in one place. Quorum’s integrated grassroots CRM makes it possible to log both grassroots activity and grasstops interactions side by side. This allows you to see how broad support and personal influence are working together, and to fill in gaps where one effort needs reinforcement.
Step 3: Align Messaging and Timing
A well-timed grassroots surge gives grasstops champions cover to speak directly with lawmakers. Likewise, insights from grasstops conversations can inform the tone and timing of grassroots campaigns. Align your campaign calendars so personal outreach from grasstops advocates coincides with high-visibility moments bolstered by grassroots actions.
To break through the noise, personalize outreach. Quorum Grassroots supports this with customizable prompts that guide advocates to share personal stories, plus AI-enhanced messaging that strengthens authenticity. Interactive Campaigns make it easy to scale compelling narratives, including video, so that both grassroots and grasstops voices land with more impact.
Step 4: Make Participation Meaningful
Grassroots advocates want to know their voices count; grasstops champions want to feel valued. Keep each group engaged in ways that resonate. For grassroots, that might mean campaign updates and metrics that show impact. For grasstops, it could mean exclusive briefings, access to organizational leadership, or invitations to Capitol Hill days.
When both groups see the impact of their efforts, they’ll stay active and aligned.
Step 5: Build Long-Term Advocates
After an advocate takes action, don’t let the momentum stop there. Use each interaction as a springboard to move them up the ladder of engagement. Quorum Grassroots makes this easy with built-in gamification and tracking tools that encourage repeat participation and spotlight high-potential advocates.
As advocates stay active, you can guide them from first-time participants to trusted grasstops messengers with direct lawmaker access.
Step 6: Measure and Prove ROI
For leadership, the value of coordinated grassroots and grasstops programs lies in results. By tracking both in a single system, you can demonstrate how mass participation amplified the effectiveness of a personal ask — or vice versa.
Read More: Top 5 KPIs Grassroots Teams Should Feature in Every Government Affairs Report
Reporting dashboards in Quorum allow you to visualize this combined influence, showing stakeholders that your strategy is not just broad, but deep.
Bringing It All Together
Coordinating grassroots and grasstops isn’t about running two separate programs — it’s about weaving them into a single, stronger strategy. Grassroots advocates show lawmakers that an issue matters to thousands, while grasstops champions make sure the message is delivered by a trusted voice. When these efforts are aligned, your organization gains both breadth and depth of influence, creating advocacy campaigns that are harder to ignore and easier to win.
FAQ
What’s the difference between grassroots and grasstops advocacy?
Grassroots focuses on mobilizing large numbers of constituents to show broad support, while grasstops leverages personal relationships with lawmakers for direct influence.
Why should grassroots and grasstops efforts be coordinated?
When aligned, grassroots demonstrates volume of support while grasstops provides trusted voices to reinforce the message, making advocacy efforts more persuasive.
How do I find potential grasstops advocates?
Start with relationship surveys of your grassroots base and review campaign finance records. Many advocates already have personal connections to lawmakers.
What tools can help manage both grassroots and grasstops programs?
Quorum’s public affairs platform lets you track grassroots participation and grasstops interactions in one system, align messaging, and generate reporting that proves ROI.
How do I keep advocates engaged long term?
Provide regular updates, celebrate wins, and tailor incentives. Grassroots advocates value transparency and impact, while grasstops champions often appreciate exclusive access and recognition.