How to prepare for a meeting on Capitol Hill


May 16, 2018
by RESULTS

Feeling nervous about meeting with your member of Congress or not sure how to frame your request? Here’s some advice from David Jolly, who represented Florida’s 13th congressional district from 2014 to 2017. He recently appeared as a guest on RESULTS’ monthly webinar.

1. Make it personal. “If you’re from their district, that makes you a voter and your interests should be represented. Where you can, establish a personal connection.”

2. Make it professional. “Go into your meeting understanding exactly what your request is. Members of Congress have a thousand things going on, so it’s very helpful if you can speak to the issue or give them a piece of paper with the technical details on it.”

3. Make it impactful. “You’re talking about ending poverty and saving lives! I can’t tell you the number of times I saw passion from RESULTS advocates. They would say, ‘If only Congress would do this small thing, it would have such a big impact.’ At the end of the day, we get into this line of work because we want to change lives. That’s why most members of Congress run for office. Make those members think they have an opportunity to truly change the lives of somebody they hadn’t thought about before they got to Capitol Hill.”

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