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 Letter writing campaigns are a great way to involve students and faculty as well as Democracy Matters members in exercising democracy by pressuring their elected representatives. You can do this by tabling on campus with sample letters, or canvassing and dorm storming.
See sample letters below or be creative: One chapter tabled with materials to make Valentines (or Halloween, Christmas cards etc.). Students created their own Valentines to send to their representatives with poems like "Roses are Red, Violets are Blue, We want public financing and hope you do too." At Halloween they sent things like "BOO! Don't be afraid to support public financing." Or "RIP Democracy unless we get Clean Elections." They then enclosed a serious (pre-printed) letter explaining Democracy Matters and their support for public financing of elections.
Hints for writing good letters:
1) Make sure the letters are handwritten.
2) The letters should be addressed to a student's elected officials in their hometowns or to those who represent the area of the college or university attended. (To locate a student's federal representatives go to Common Cause's CauseNET Action Center to get the name and address of elected officials by zip code. For state or local representatives, check the Internet for that state or city).
3) Somebody should take responsibility for collecting and mailing the letters.
4) If you are doing this as part of a group or class project, students should be encouraged to personalize the letter around their interests. This is a great way to get students educated and comfortable with the issues. They should go to the issue impacts section to learn more about their issue and its link to money in politics.
See sample letters to elected officials in downloadable materials.
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