Citizens’ Climate has advocated for climate solutions in Congress for over 10 years. With local chapters all over the country, they train everyday citizens - from teenagers to grandparents - to engage directly with their elected representatives and become successful climate advocates. Citizens’ Climate is one of the few climate organizations working in a bipartisan way: they believe that every member of Congress is a potential ally in their work. Because of this, they aim to mobilize supporters in every congressional district and push forward a robust and sustainable climate agenda.
Citizens’ Climate has local chapters in almost every congressional district. Advocates meet with members of Congress multiple times a year in both their home district and in DC. To ensure these meetings happen, Citizens’ Climate must have accurate congressional district data for matching their new members to their local advocacy chapter.
This is not a simple task.
Most average citizens do not know what congressional district they are in. Their new member sign up forms have a field for congressional district, but is it typically left blank. For a while Citizens’ Climate would direct new members to go to www.house.gov, fill out a form, and find their district. But this extra step was a burden and resulted in lost signups. To effectively assign members to their local chapters, Citizens’ Climate needed a tool that could use the data they had to match members to congressional districts.
Tony Sirna, Data and Strategy Coordinator for Citizens’ Climate, knew there had to be a simpler, more streamlined way to match members to districts. He found District Match and was able to build an internal system that used the location data and congressional districts returned through District Match to automatically and accurately assign new members to their local chapter.
“We’ve streamlined the process for people joining and we are more effective at getting people connected with their local chapters. District Match has made us more effective at advocacy.”
Citizens’ Climate relies on the accuracy of Cicero’s data to ensure that they are matching members to the correct district. They run District Match projects throughout the year to account for any changes in districts due to redistricting. Using District Match, Citizens’ Climate regularly matches 10% more people to districts and chapters than before. With this increased advocacy effectiveness, they hope to get the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act passed in Congress.
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