The gold standard in grassroots advocacy is to have a robust grasstops program in which every district has a constituent passionate about your issues who has a personal relationship with their lawmaker and is on a first-name basis.
You might be reading this thinking, “That’s a daunting task.” Yes, there’s a fair amount of work involved but the organizations that pull it off develop a phenomenal advocacy tool: messages arrive through someone the lawmaker already knows, trusts, and appreciates, which makes every ask far more effective.
August recess is the perfect moment to kick off this effort. Lawmakers head back to their districts, giving you an opportunity to ask your most engaged advocates to engage in person.
How to Find Those Relationships
Start with a relationship survey. Simply ask your advocates, “Who do you know?”
You’ll be surprised. People go to the same church as a Senator, their kids play on the same little league league team as the Congresswomans kids, they were friends in high school, or they once worked in the office. The connections are boundless.
Next, look at campaign-finance records. Match your advocate database to FEC data and see who’s writing the checks. If someone has cut a $1,000, $2,000, or even $5,000 check, chances are they’ve attended a fundraiser and know the member personally.
It all comes together once you start asking.
Keep Everything in One Place
After you’ve identified these ties, you need a central home for the information. Know who holds the relationship, what kind of relationship it is, and every interaction that happens: formal meetings, quick texts, church parking lot hellos. Yes, you could run this in Excel, but that manual approach is exactly why we built Quorum: one system to track, score, and leverage every connection.
Set Engagement Targets
Decide how often you want each grasstops advocate to interact with their lawmaker. Maybe it’s one or two business meetings a year — one in August back home and one in Washington if you have the budget to bring advocates to town. Between those formal touchpoints, aim for social or informal interactions: chatting at the farmers’ market, bumping into each other at the health club, attending the same fundraiser. Whenever that happens, ask your advocate to log it so you know which relationships are truly active.
When the moment arrives, use Quorum Grassroots’ “request a meeting” feature (or let the advocate simply text the member). Then keep your Grasstops network in the loop with Quorum Outbox or another e-mail platform. They want to be ambassadors, so equip them with the key provisions of the one big beautiful bill you care about or the priority asks for the year. Communicate at least four times annually; monthly is even better.
Make it Worth Their While
What’s in it for the advocate? Grasstops champions love a trip to Washington, D.C. If the budget allows, convene them for an education session, then escort them to the Hill. People also want to feel special. Create an aura of exclusivity — private briefings, direct interaction with senior leadership, even a simple swag bag — and be clear that this is a grasstops program, not just another grassroots task. Your champions are important, so you should make them feel important. Let them know how influential they are and about the impact they’re making.
The Payoff
Yes, building a grasstops program can look like a lot of work, but with the right technology it isn’t that heavy a lift, and the impact is enormous. When a critical vote looms, you’ll have 535 trusted voices who can call, text, or sit down with their Member right away. That’s influence no mass email can match.
Best of luck as you start. My team and I are happy to discuss best practices, surveys, data matches, engagement plans, etc.