Frequently Asked Questions

Congress Plus is an all-in-one government relations and advocacy platform. It brings together the tools government affairs teams rely on most. To name a few:

• Directories and data on legislators and their staff
• Legislation and regulation tracking
• A built-in CRM for managing contacts and relationships
• A full advocacy platform for mobilizing supporters to contact policymakers
• A fly-in manager for planning and running advocacy days
• Journals for logging meetings, calls, and other interactions

Because every part of Congress Plus is connected, information flows between them. Your team gets a complete picture of its government relations work without switching between separate tools.

Congress Plus is used by trade associations, nonprofits, advocacy groups, coalitions, corporations, law firms, and government agencies that engage with policymakers at the federal, state, and local levels. Some organizations use the full platform to run their entire government relations program, while others focus on specific tools like advocacy campaigns or legislative tracking.

Advocates can contact members of Congress, state legislators, governors, and local officials and executives. They can also submit comments directly to regulatory dockets. Congress Plus automatically matches each advocate to their officials based on their address, so they reach the right offices without having to look anything up.

Organizations can also add custom recipients, so campaigns can reach anyone with an appropriate email address, such as agency staff, company leadership, or university administrators.

Congress Plus offers a range of action options, so organizations can choose the right approach for each campaign:

• Multi-channel actions that combine messages, phone calls, X posts, and Facebook posts in a single campaign
• Messages to members of Congress, state legislators, governors, and local officials
• Phone calls to officials’ offices
• Posts on X (formerly Twitter) directed at officials
• Facebook posts directed at officials
• Regulatory comments submitted directly to regulatory dockets
• Letters to the editor of local media outlets
• Petitions to demonstrate broad support for an issue
• Custom recipient actions that let advocates contact anyone with an appropriate email address

Many of the options can be combined within a single action (for example, a message paired with a regulatory comment), so campaigns can often be tailored to each issue.

Yes. Congress Plus offers bill and vote tracking at both the federal and state levels, along with federal regulation tracking. Your team can follow the issues that matter most to your organization and see how legislators vote on them, so you always know where things stand.

You can search for existing bills that match your criteria and set up keyword or key phrase alerts to be notified when new bills or regulations are introduced. Once you’re following a bill, you can also receive alerts as it moves through the legislative process.

Because tracking is connected to the rest of the platform, you can put that information to work across Congress Plus. For example, you can email the offices that haven’t cosponsored a bill you support, or set up an advocacy action whose recipients update automatically as their cosponsor status changes.

Yes. Congress Plus includes directories of federal and state legislators, along with federal staff directories covering member offices, committees, caucuses, and leadership. Your team can quickly find the right person for any issue, whether that’s a member, a committee staffer, or a leadership aide.

You can also build self-updating email lists of specific groups of staffers, for example, a list of the staff across all energy-related committees, so your outreach lists stay current as staff change roles or leave the Hill.

Yes. Congress Plus includes a built-in CRM for storing and organizing your contacts, including advocates, members, and stakeholders. Contacts can be imported manually or added automatically through Congress Plus signup forms and advocacy actions. Your team can segment contacts into groups and track their engagement over time.

Because the CRM is connected to the rest of the platform, you can put your contact data to work in other ways. For example, you can find which of your members are constituents of legislators on a specific committee, see which advocacy actions they’ve taken, and build targeted email lists.

Yes. With journals, your team can log meetings, calls, and other interactions with officials and staff, creating a shared record of your organization’s relationships on the Hill and beyond.

You can add contacts to each journal entry, including officials, staff, and advocates, and the entry syncs across Congress Plus. That means an interaction appears on the relevant legislator’s directory profile and on the records of any advocates in your CRM, so your team always has the full history of who met with whom and when.

Yes. The Congress Plus Fly-In Manager helps organizations plan and run fly-ins from start to finish, from attendee registration and meeting scheduling through post-event feedback. Meetings can be assigned automatically based on attendees’ constituent relationships, and a conflict detection tool helps prevent scheduling overlaps. Your team can assign talking points by filter or customize them for individual meetings, and include related events and travel details.

Attendees get customizable, branded agendas and a branded mobile app that shows their schedule in real time, and you can notify them of agenda changes by text or email. After the event, you can report on and export the data you need. Meeting notes can also be logged in journals and linked to your CRM and directory records.

Learn more on our Fly-In Manager page.

Yes. The Congress Plus advocacy action center includes an Elections tab where advocates can find information about candidates and learn how to register to vote. It’s an easy way to keep supporters engaged during election season and help them stay informed about the races that affect your issues.

Congress Plus delivers each advocacy message through the most reliable channel available for that office, including an API, official website contact forms, and email.

Congress Plus has a dedicated research team responsible for monitoring and maintaining official and staff information. The team tracks changes such as new members, staff turnover, committee assignments, and updated contact details, so your directories, email lists, and advocacy actions stay accurate.

Yes, and personalization is encouraged. Organizations can allow advocates to edit messages in full, including the subject line, so they can put the issue in their own words. Custom story boxes give advocates a dedicated space to share how an issue affects them, their families, or their communities.

Organizations can also personalize messages automatically. Merge fields add details like the advocate’s name and location, recipient-specific messages tailor the content to each official (for example, by sponsorship status), and message and subject line carouseling rotates between multiple versions you write. Together, these ensure every message includes a personal touch and variety even when advocates send it as written.

Yes. Congress Plus lets you write recipient-specific messages that change based on the official receiving them, for example by sponsorship status or committee membership. A cosponsor of your bill can receive a thank-you message, while an official who hasn’t signed on receives a request for their support.

When an advocate enters their address, Congress Plus automatically identifies their officials and loads the right message for each one, so advocates send the most relevant message without having to sort anything out themselves. Because recipient-specific messages connect with bill tracking, messages update as officials’ sponsorship status changes.

Yes. With message and subject line carouseling, you can write multiple versions of a message and subject line, and Congress Plus rotates between them as advocates take action. Offices receive a mix of messages that all carry your organization’s core ask, giving your campaign a broader range of voices.

Carouseling works alongside Congress Plus’s other personalization tools, including full message editing, custom story boxes, merge fields, and recipient-specific messages, so organizations can combine them for as much variety as each campaign calls for.

Yes. With the optional Message Approval feature, your team can review messages before they’re delivered to officials. This gives organizations added confidence that messages stay on topic and reflect their policy positions, while still giving advocates the freedom to personalize.

Yes. By turning on Message Approval, your team can hold messages as advocates submit them and release them at a later time.

Yes. You can bring your existing membership into Congress Plus from other platforms, either by importing it manually or by uploading files to an FTP site for automatic imports. New advocates can also be added through Congress Plus signup forms and advocacy actions, so your list grows as supporters engage.

All advocates are stored in the built-in CRM, where your team can organize them into groups, track their engagement, and use them to build targeted outreach.

Yes. Congress Plus lets you send email and text alerts to advocates, so you can mobilize supporters quickly when an issue moves. Alerts can link directly to an advocacy action, and email alerts can use auto-filling links that prefill the advocate’s information on the action form, making it easy for advocates to go from notification to action in just a few taps.

You can send alerts to your full list or to specific subsets of advocates, such as those who live in the districts of legislators on a particular committee, so each alert reaches the people whose voices matter most for that issue.

No. Advocates can take action without creating an account or remembering a password. They simply enter their information, such as their name and address, and Congress Plus matches them to their officials. When advocates arrive from an email alert with auto-filling links, their information can be prefilled, making it even faster to take action.

Yes. Congress Plus actions are built to be embedded directly on your organization’s website, so advocates take action in a familiar setting that matches the rest of your site. Each action also comes with its own customizable landing page, giving you a standalone option for sharing campaigns by email, social media, or text.

Yes. Congress Plus actions are built mobile-first, so they’re designed from the start for the phones where many advocates take action. Whether advocates open an action from an email, a text, or social media, they can complete it quickly and easily on any device.

In most cases, organizations are using Congress Plus the same day they sign. Once the service agreement is signed, accounts are typically live within two business hours. Live training sessions can be scheduled with a few days’ notice, and pre-recorded tutorials are available in the platform anytime.

For a closer look at the process, read How Long Does It Take to Get Started with Congress Plus?

No. Congress Plus is designed so government affairs and advocacy staff can run the platform themselves, without a technical background or a dedicated administrator. Clients regularly tell us it’s one of the most straightforward platforms in the space, with logical interfaces that make everyday tasks like building an advocacy action easy to learn.

If questions come up, our support team is available during business hours, and live training and in-platform tutorials are available whenever your team needs them.

Congress Plus integrates with a range of CRMs and other platforms, making it easy to keep supporter and advocacy data in sync across the tools your organization already uses.

See all available integrations on our Integrations page.

Yes. Each Congress Plus subscription includes a set number of user logins based on the package you select, and additional seats can be purchased at any time.

You can also set user permissions to control what each team member can access. For example, you might give an intern access to the platform without the ability to send emails.

Our support team is available by phone and email during business hours (8:30am to 5pm ET, Monday through Friday, excluding holidays) to help with any questions as they come up.

For self-guided learning, Congress Plus includes pre-recorded trainings and tutorials, along with written guides. Live training sessions are also available upon request with a few days’ notice, whether you’re onboarding new staff or learning a new feature.

Every section of Congress Plus comes with a wide range of built-in reports and exports, so your team can measure results across your entire government relations and advocacy program.

Yes. Congress Plus shows which officials received messages from your advocates and how many each one received. You can also see who sent each message and read what they wrote, including any personal stories or edits advocates added.

This makes it easy to prepare for meetings with offices, follow up with engaged advocates, and show leadership or members the impact of each campaign.

Yes. Data from across Congress Plus can be exported, including advocate records, advocacy activity, reports, and more. This makes it easy to share results, back up your records, or use your data in other tools.

Congress Plus pricing is standardized and based on two factors: the package you select and the size of your contact database. Every organization starts from the same rates for the same package, whether it’s a Fortune 500 company or a small nonprofit. Additional fees may apply for custom work or certain integrations.

We take pride in being an affordable option for government relations and advocacy software, and we keep renewal rate increases to a minimum so your costs stay predictable year after year.

To learn which package fits your organization, contact us to schedule a demo.

No. Our standard plans don’t include a setup fee, so you can get started without any upfront costs beyond your subscription. Fees may apply for certain integrations or custom work, and we’ll always discuss those with you in advance.