| Communicating with Congress: How Capitol Hill is Coping with the Surge in Citizen Advocacy |
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figure 16. influence of individual postal letters
"If your Member/Senator has not already arrived at a firm decision on an issue, how much influence might the following advocacy strategies directed to the Washington office have on his/her decision?" 
This chart compares the impact of identical form postal mail with that of individualized postal mail. The differences between the two are significant. In cases where the Member/Senator has not reached a firm decision on an issue, 44% of staff surveyed said that individualized postal communications have "a lot" of influence, compared to only 3% for identical form communications. This preference for individualized communications over form communications was a theme that staff repeatedly emphasized throughout our research, some quite passionately. The chart below shows a complete breakdown of the different types of campaigns and the levels of influence they have on undecided Members of Congress. |