Successes and impact
Every year, hundreds of thousands of people use WriteToThem to contact the people who represent them — from local councillors to MPs.
WriteToThem gets used in two ways: casework, where an individual is trying to solve a problem, and campaigning, where lots of people write about a shared issue. In both cases, people have used WriteToThem to get a response from their representative, and to make a difference on the issues that matter to them.
What people tell us
These are a few of the messages we’ve received from users about how they’ve used WriteToThem to get in touch with their representatives:
“I am writing to say that I have now used the site to contact my local Councillors on two occasions. On each occasion I had an immediate response and my complaints were looked into and remedied. I must say that I find the response time quite amazing and it is by far the easiest and quickest way to get hold of whoever is responsible for dealing with council problems.”
“It has long since been my impression that MPs do not listen to their constituents but my experience here dispels that assumption entirely.”
“Well done, at last I feel that I might have a voice that could be listened to.”
“I think your website is brilliant. I’m calling it the lazy activist’s new power tool because it makes it so easy to get in touch with district and county councillors, your local MP, the House of Lords and your MEP… (I got a response through my letterbox, so I know it really works!)”
“I really enjoyed getting that high density paper and cream envelope with the house of commons stamp on it in response.”
“I have just discovered this website and used it for the first time to contact my MP. I had a response within seven days by means of a letter, which referred me to information in Hansard concerning the issue I was concerned about. I have forwarded your website address to a number of friends. Many thanks for providing a very useful service.”
To protect those representatives who do get in touch with their constituents, we’ve taken out their names and replaced them with “my MP”. Other than that, all these quotes are genuine, and from constituents rather like yourself.
We can’t guarantee that your representative will get in touch with you about your query, but many of them do respond promptly.
It’s always inspiring to hear about your successes — do keep telling us about them.
Campaigns and organisations
WriteToThem has also helped people work together for change.
Power for People built support for the Local Electricity Bill this way, using WriteToThem as the final step in their campaign. Rather than push identical, copy-and-pasted emails — which our system blocks — they gave supporters the facts and encouraged them to write in their own words and keep up the conversation with their MP. The campaign went on to win the backing of hundreds of MPs and local authorities. mySociety wrote up how they did it.
The issues people write about go well beyond “big politics”, too. The band Iron Maiden rallied fans to contact representatives about ticket touting, and national newspapers across the political spectrum have used the site to mobilise readers on the story of the day.