Phone2Action

Phone2Action started as a mobile advocacy tool when there was no other solution on the market. Built by organizers, Phone2Action was conceived of in 2012 when its founders were traveling around the country running advocacy campaigns and hearing from passionate constituents who didn’t have an avenue for sharing their grievances with their elected representatives. They realized that by and large people don’t know who their elected officials are or how to contact them. (Sound familiar? That’s how we started too.)

In the past decade, Phone2Action has built out a platform and complementary products that center on putting grassroots advocacy tools in the hands of its users. With Phone2Action, customers are able to launch highly effective campaigns, speak out on important issues, and power their movements.

How to account for all of the complex layers

Phone2Action’s goal from the start was to match people with their legislators and let them engage. That meant that every single time a person gave Phone2Action their address, Phone2Action wanted to be able to confidently match that address with its associated legislative districts and legislators. It sounds simple, but this problem has several layers of complexity. Not only did they want to connect people at all levels of government in the United States – national, state, and local – they also wanted to support constituents in other democracies around the world, which meant incorporating international political data.

Phone2Action was also a young but quickly growing company. They needed a data solution that would scale and grow with them.

And then there was the question of accuracy. They instinctively ruled out the zip-to-district matching route, which would have resulted in less accuracy overall. There were several affordable address-to-district matching providers. But when they dug into the data, these providers proved to be inaccurate and unreliable.

Reliable data without breaking the bank

Then they found Cicero. Phone2Action was drawn to the API-driven technology that prioritized accuracy and scalability. Phone2Action was initially built with low internal infrastructure and low overhead. Starting with the Cicero API offered a reliable way to get the needed information with a cost structure that could grow. As Phone2Action built out a customer base and scaled its development, they could rely on Cicero for accurate data and a transactional model that didn’t break the bank.

The company started out just using the Cicero API, but as they grew, Cicero worked with them to adapt its functionality in a custom way to serve their needs. Over time Cicero has enabled Phone2Action to grow, whether that be through gathering more data in new countries or adapting the pricing model to fit their needs.

Powering movements

Phone2Action’s vision is simple: they power the movements that change the world. And with Cicero data backing their tools, this has proved possible time and again for grassroots advocacy organizations, professional associations, and corporations alike.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the American Nurses Association (ANA) relied on Phone2Action to activate nurses and their loved ones to act when relief legislation was being created. Because of their access to good legislator data, ANA was able to make sure their nurses were considered in this legislation and had access to respirators and other technologies they needed to be safe and effective during the pandemic response.

Whatever’s next for Phone2Action – whether it may be empowering brands to save public land or expanding their impact into new countries – Cicero is happy to be growing and supporting those efforts alongside them.