News

Members of Congress are always coming up with new and innovative ways to engage citizens online, but no congressional office should neglect their website. After all, in our survey of over 10,000 citizens, we found that the website of the Senator or Representative is the one of the first places they turn for information. So it's essential that congressional websites provide at least a basic level of information and services. With limited time and resources, where should offices focus their efforts? Here are the 4 most critical areas to focus on, the questions to ask yourself as you improve your website, and examples from award winning websites from the 111th Congress:

Obviously, Members of Congress have a constitutional responsibility to interact with their constituents because the First Amendment extends us the right "to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." But what about the chief of staff, the legislative director, or the legislative assistant for small business issues? Do I as an individual citizen have a right to communicate with those individuals?

In our evaluations of congressional websites we found that there is a digital divide in Congress (PDF), with 'A' and 'F' being the two most common letter grades. While we will continue to cover the basics, we also want to highlight a few new and innovative ways Members of Congress are engaging citizens in the 112th Congress.

Members have long included short polling questions in their regular newsletters or on their websites, and some even pose questions on Facebook or Twitter. Rep. Randy Forbes (R-VA), however, is taking a slightly different approach. Rather than tacking on a polling question to a much larger email newsletter—almost as an afterthought—he created a cleverly branded regular poll of his constituents called the “instaPoll.”

CMF hosted a training program for House and Senate staff on how to improve their websites in preparation for the Gold Mouse Project website evaluations this summer. Here are 5 tips from our Q+A with award winning staffers and 5 recommendations from our presentation:

I recently made an historic discovery regarding what is probably the first system to track relationships between Members of Congress and organizations that seek to influence them. Any grassroots or government relations professional knows that it is essential to have an understanding of Congress, and one of the best ways to do this is to set up a customer relationship management (CRM) system to track relationships between supporters and legislators. The tools also are used to note important characteristics or interests of the legislator that may either connect him to your cause, track meeting discussions, and note follow-up actions.

You might be able to do it alone, but it's easier with some help! In fact, it's close to impossible for a single staffer to create an award-winning website by himself. If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes an entire office to maintain an excellent website.