Cicero enables organizations to take any address in their community and find out precise information about the local elected representative.
Organizations across the country are using Cicero to provide actionable local elected official information.
Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance was established in 1972 by nine Philadelphia cultural institutions to coordinate historical and cultural activities for the Bicentennial Celebration. Today, with a membership of over 300 non-profit arts and culture organizations, the Cultural Alliance advocates for positive public sector, business and foundation policies and funding priorities at the local, state and federal levels on behalf of its members.
Recognizing the untapped benefits of direct constituent contact with local elected officials the alliance worked to build an online advocacy center to encourage active civic engagement among member organizations. Among a range of political advocacy tools, the system uses Cicero Web Services to enable the lookup of council district for any addresses, so that users can have better information to lobby their appropriate council person.
A large environmental advocacy group based in San Francisco has become aware of a piece of legislation which will exempt a polluting industry from many important regulations. The vote is close, with a number of representatives still on the fence. Using Cicero, the organization determines which of its membership resides in these representatives districts. The organization produces a mailing addressing this particular piece of legislation and sends it to these members, emphasizing both the urgency and the ability of voters to affect the legislation.
A staff member at Union Local 33 receives a call from a member who heard about a city law under consideration which would strongly affect the Union. She would like to write her city council member, but does not even know what district she is in or who represents her. The staff member opens up a webpage to the Union intranet, requests the caller's address, types this into the Cicero box on the web page and is returned with the correct council district and details about contacting the council person.
A medium sized city in Texas has an active and forward thinking city government. They create a website using Cicero Web Services, allowing anyone in the city to find out what their council district is and who represents them. The website includes maps, which allow users to view council district boundaries in relationship to their own home or business.
The last round of voting in the city elections resulted in a lot of turn-over. A new mall is proposed, and an anti-sprawl advocacy group needs to find out who is on the planning committee quickly and generate a targeted mailing. Using Cicero, the process is easy.
Looking over reports of membership, the director of a Pennsylvania-wide small business advocacy group notices that his group has 700 members in district 18, information unavailable before his organization began using Cicero. As he is going to have lunch with district 18's representative that afternoon, this might be something to bring up. He also notices that one of his key members, a big contributor to political campaigns and a member of the advocacy group lives in district 18.
A hard working woman is at her computer late at night, opening the mail. Among the bills, she sees a mailing from "Feed Hungry Minds", a group interested in improving educational outcomes for the poor. She scans over the mailing, knowing it would be great to help out, but she is tired. At the end of the mailing is the e-mail address of her state representative and a few sentences she could write in support of a new spending bill. "Well this will be short", she thinks and dashes off the e-mail before turning in for the night. Because of Cicero her voice is heard.