The System’s Broken
In our democracy, a lot of attention
gets paid to voting and elections. Sadly, not enough attention gets paid to
what happens between elections – communications between constituents and their
elected officials. This important aspect of our democracy is broken. Badly.
It’s broken because of the sheer
volume of email Congress receives each year. The Congressional
Management Foundation estimates they receive more than 350 million emails per year
and staff sizes remain the same. They’re simply overwhelmed.
It’s broken because there’s a trust
gap. Spam, astroturf and proxy email
campaigns have eroded a sense of trust that real people are taking real action.
Elected officials and their staff don’t know who’s real and who isn’t. Who
intended to contact them and who didn’t. Who’s a constituent and who isn’t.
It’s broken because the tools for
advocacy are only available to well-funded organizations. They have the
resources to kick up so much dust that many other voices get lost in the
shuffle. All interests are special, but some interests are more special than
others when a few can wage massive email campaigns.
Elected officials want to hear from
their constituents and build stronger relationships. Individuals want their
voices heard, and of course organizations want their members concerns heard.
The status quo works against these goals.
We Created Grasshopr to Address
these Issues
We created Grasshopr to give
organizations, individuals, and elected officials an authentic, sustainable,
and efficient means of engaging on issues at the federal, state, and local
level. By "organization," I mean an officially-registered nationwide
association or an informal small town grassroots community group. A non-profit
or a company. A political party organization or a talk radio show audience.
Wherever a group of people come together because of common interests, causes,
or issue positions, Grasshopr can help.
Organizations should have a platform
for their members to communicate, collaborate, and engage in the public policy
process. They should be able to know which legislative districts their members
fall in and target their communications, event notifications, and advocacy
alerts accordingly.
Elected officials should know when
those communicating with them are real people who took action themselves on
their own accord. They should be able to manage the communications process
efficiently so they can concentrate on the job their constituents sent them to
office to do.
And organizations are more effective
when they tap into their most valuable resource: People. Engaging individual
members in conversation and collaboration is better than blasting one-way
emails.
Everyone benefits when individuals
are engaged and advocacy is authentic.
- Andrew, Jon, and Sujay