Washington, D.C. - The Congressional Management Foundation (CMF) study, “Communicating with Congress: How Capitol Hill is Coping with the Surge in Citizen Advocacy,” released today confirms what Capitol Advantage has long recognized: that the Internet and e-mail are having a positive impact on democracy and that citizens who participate politically online are thought leaders in their communities.

Having helped citizens send 7 million messages to their Members of Congress this year, Capitol Advantage is in a unique position as the conduit between Congress and the advocacy world and is evolving technology to best serve both communities.

“The findings of the CMF report confirm the importance of the improvements to our service that Capitol Advantage has made this year,” said Bob Hansan, President of Capitol Advantage. “In our newly released version of Capwiz·XC, we’ve added message authentication tools to combat concerns about list-generated campaigns, and Message Booster, which allows constituents to provide additional demographic information about themselves. And we now require carbon copies on each message sent with Capwiz·XC -- both to remind constituents of their correspondence and to ensure the legitimacy of the message sent.”

“In our ongoing efforts to bridge the gap between grassroots organizations and elected officials, we have hired Susie Gorden, a former Hill staffer, as Director of Government Outreach and Citizen Communications,” Hansan added. “As a co-sponsor of the study, Capitol Advantage is dedicated to understanding what Congressional offices look for in the citizen communications they receive and will continue to be heavily invested in better understanding the needs of Capitol Hill.”