Connecting with the 118th Congress

Erik Leaver
Erik Leaver Blackbaud Employee
Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 First Reply Name Dropper
in Blackbaud Luminate Online® Blog
Luminate Advocacy Target data is current as of January 3, 2023. Let’s look at when you can expect additional updates, and how you can be heard by legislators to advance your mission.

Our new year ushers in the 118th Congress to Capitol Hill. This Congress is unique not only because it is considerably younger than the outgoing Congress, but because it welcomes a record number of women – the highest percentage in U.S. history!

Luminate Advocacy Target data is current as of January 3, 2023. Let’s look at when you can expect additional updates, and how you can be heard by legislators to advance your mission.

Luminate Advocacy Target Data

Blackbaud receives updated contact data when new officials take office. Luminate Online refreshes this data on a weekly basis. See the Luminate Release Notes to view the most-recent update.

Federal House of Representative offices follow Communicating with Congress (CWC) standards that make each contact form similar (and easy) to contact.

Federal senator offices do not have a standard contact form. Each senator decides the data they require to be contacted. Each web form in Luminate Advocacy that targets a senator is updated to match each senator’s form after their required fields are set.

State and local officials take office at various times throughout 2023. These officials are updated in Luminate Advocacy Target data as they become contactable.

Freshman class at-a-glance

  • 82 Freshmen: 37 Democrats, 45 Republicans
  • 13 women of color
  • 1 Gen Z (25-years-old)
  • 30 states represented
  • Average age below 50
  • Drops average age of Congress from 61.7 to 59.2 years old

Connect

Introduce your organization and mission to lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

In person

  • Set up informational meetings with members and their staff
  • Deliver welcome messages and statements of support for issues from supporters in the members’ home district

Online

  • Use Luminate Advocacy web forms to send welcome messages
  • Create a Luminate Survey to share your supporters’ priorities
  • Build a social media campaign to welcome the new members and start building a relationship

Listen

The 118th Congress is incredibly diverse. Get to know members to determine what messages might resonate with them.

Use Instagram and Twitter to scan the members’ posts to see the hashtags they use. You can also use tools like Hashtags.org to find trending hashtags to stay on top of what issues are socially relevant.

Be Heard

Expect a lot of political activity in 2023. To advance your mission, turn up the volume and use these strategies to amplify your voice:

  • Organize influencers

    Recruit influencers as ambassadors for your messages. Influencers can broaden your audience and drive action.
  • Get Louder: Share kit

    Give your supporters relevant next steps to build momentum! Our Responsive Advocacy Kit shows you how to create "a share on social and donate form" to drive action in your advocacy alerts.
  • Be multichannel: Use social media and call alerts
    • Use Luminate's "Tweet @ your Representative" functionality to help supporters use Twitter to contact their reps.
    • Add Call Alerts to make it easy for supporters to call their members. After placing a call, constituents can log that call so you have a record of it.
  • Be mobile responsive

    Use our free toolkit to create mobile responsive one-step advocacy alerts. The alerts look great on any device, from a mobile phone to a desktop computer.

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