Make Your Hill Day Count

If it’s spring in Washington, DC, odds are it’s a Hill Day.

Hill days are a great tool that many organizations underutilize. They engage membership, they bring in-district advocates face-to-face with their members of Congress and they can be a lot of fun.

They can also be a massive amount of work. Make that work count: make your Hill day strategic.

Here are 3 quick tips to make your lobby day awesome.

1) Have as much information on your advocates as possible.

Scheduling meetings for your advocates can quickly turn into logistical nightmare. One way to make sure offices are easier to work with is for you to have as much information as possible about the folks that will be attending the meetings.

Offices generally want to meet with constituents, so do your homework and make sure you have a full address and zip code to turn over if schedulers request it (they probably will).

Make sure to have a cell phone number for each individual for day of contact. Congressional offices are busy places and things often change at the last minute, it will make the scheduler rest easier if they know they have a point of contact.

2) Ask for a meeting with the Congressperson or Senator.

Too often organizations assume they will be meeting with staff. In fact, if you ask for a meeting with the member you will often get it, especially if you focus your member requests in smaller states. If you have constituents from South Dakota chances are they will be able to meet their member, New York will be more of a gamble.

Make sure you pay special attention to delivering constituents when scheduling member meetings. Scheduling staff are paid to be strategic about their boss’ time and don’t want them spending time with people whom they don’t represent.

3) Have talking points to use while scheduling meetings.

Not for your advocates (although you should have those too), but to help make conversations with schedule staff more productive. Offices like to be prepared for what to expect from your advocates, especially if you are requesting a member meeting.

A one pager PDF with some of your top-line asks or talking points is enough for most offices to be prepared and make the meeting more effective.

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Let us know if you need help making your Hill day a ringing success. 202.683.8465 or ten.nilgnenull@ofni.

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