1. New research report: Supporting good communication

    With WriteToThem.com we want to run a service that helps people write the right message to the right place. That means helping users express themselves effectively and keeping the service a constructive channel between constituents and representatives by deterring abusive messages.

    Abuse and intimidation aimed at elected representatives does not just harm the person receiving it. It corrodes the openness and trust that democratic culture needs, and it can deter people (especially those from under-represented groups) from taking part in public life at all. 

    We think we’re in a good position to play a constructive role in this area. One problem that has been raised is frustration at bouncing around layers of government, where a key benefit of WriteToThem is getting people to the right layer first. But we need to go further than that to understand how we can discourage abusive messages – both to directly implement approaches, and to trial patterns that could be implemented by a wider range of parliaments and local authorities.

    We’ve been exploring what a “toxicity” risk score would look like in our infrastructure and have released a report of our findings so far. We trialled a range of options — from baseline keyword matching, to Google’s Perspective API, to running lightweight models locally (IBM Granite Guardian), and then to LLM-based grading as a second pass for tricky cases like implicit threats or messages quoting abuse from third parties.

    But having a risk score is less important than how it is used. We’ve mapped out a few different approaches beyond a manual moderation approach – such as soft “nudge” prompts (encouraging people to reconsider wording before sending), cool-down delays for higher-risk messages (without removing someone’s ability to contact their representative), and informative flags for recipients (for example, passing along a risk score or relevant metadata on a message).

    Our next step has mapped out some technical possibilities to talk to more people about which approaches make sense  – which we’ll be doing as part of our wider Welsh Government funded democratic engagement work to improve WriteToThem.

    For more details on the approaches tested, potential issues with different methods of implementation, and unanswered questions, you can read the report online.

    Image: Pawel Czerwinski

  2. New report: WriteToThem Insights

    Understanding more about constituent communication

    We’ve released a new report exploring insights from WriteToThem about the content of constituent communication – you can read the whole report online or a summary below. 

    WriteToThem.com is a long-running mySociety service that enables people across the UK to contact their elected representatives by entering their postcode and sending a message through the site.

    This service provides a unique opportunity to understand the flow of communication between many constituents and many representatives. Our WriteToThem Insights report uses surveys to understand more about what people are writing about. 

     While previous work identified patterns in response rates and deprivation gradients, this experiment focuses on understanding what people are writing about, distinguishing between casework (individual problem-solving) and campaigning (policy-oriented advocacy).

    A new survey and data-processing pipeline were developed to categorise and anonymise message summaries, applying machine learning and large language model techniques to cluster and label topics. Analysis of 5,400 messages from Q3 2025 found:

    • Casework and campaigning form two distinct types of communication, with casework more common for councillors and campaigning dominant for MPs.
    • The deprivation gradients of these two types differ sharply: campaigning is concentrated in less deprived areas, while casework is more evenly distributed, though likely still underrepresents the most deprived groups.
    • First-time users are more likely to send casework messages and to receive responses.
    • Top themes in casework include housing, local services, health, and anti-social behaviour; in campaigning, issues such as Gaza, climate policy, and digital ID predominate.

    This data has limits. This covers only a portion of total correspondence, and with little information about whether the sample is representative enough to generalise to messages sent in general. That said, we think there are strong uses both for improving WriteToThem itself and for informing broader understanding of constituent communication.

    We want to build on this work: refining the analysis process and exploring opportunities to collaborate. We see particular value in digging more into casework data as something that could inform more systematic approaches in this area, helping representatives across the country join up information and improve collective scrutiny of government services.

    The full report can be read here.

    Image: Christopher Burns

  3. Proxy use of WriteToThem

    Our WriteToThem website makes it easy for anyone to send an email to their elected representatives. That’s the core concept, and it works brilliantly for millions of users every year — but that said, we’re aware that even when a website is simple and built with usability at its core, not everyone has an equal ability to access it.

    As part of our warm up for a new programme of work on WriteToThem, we’ve published some of our internal research from a few years ago on messages written on behalf of someone else — what we’re calling ‘proxy use’. 

    The reasons for this are easy to understand: the primary subject may not be confident at writing in English; may be elderly or have a condition that makes it easier to delegate the task of writing; or may generally use internet services through intermediaries.

    The key findings are:

    • A small group of users (5%) were writing on behalf of someone else.
    • Proxy messages made up 6.8% of messages to local councillors, and 4.5% of messages to MPs. This would account for an estimated 55,000 messages to MPs through the service in 2019.
    • The largest group was people who were writing on behalf of family (40%), but there were also people writing on behalf of local groups (40%), friends or people they knew (12%), and service providers writing to representatives on behalf of clients (8%). Messages on behalf of clients from carers would have accounted for an estimated 7,500 messages in 2019.


    We’re about to embark on research and development work around WriteToThem, and these findings will contribute to our understanding around making it easier to get the right type of message to the right place.

    If you are interested to dig deeper into everything we discovered around proxy usage, take a look at the full piece of research here.

  4. Supporting democratic engagement in Wales

    Thanks to new funding from the Welsh Government’s Democratic Engagement Grant, we’re going to be doing some really exciting work around WriteToThem over the next couple of years, specifically focused on helping people in Wales. This grant is both an opportunity for us to improve our approach, and to help get our tools into the hands of people who can take it further. 

    WriteToThem’s core mission is to make it very easy to send an email to your politicians — and to help people send the right message to the right representative. This is especially relevant in Wales, where devolution brings decision-making closer to people, but can also mean people have to discover who is responsible for different public services. 

    And so, what does this new bundle of work look like?

    • First off we’ll be doing some concentrated research with representatives and community groups to understand barriers to constructive communication, which we’ll use to inform new development on the site.
    • We’ll also be doing work to ensure that more people are supported to write to representatives for the first time, particularly in the most deprived areas of Wales, where typically there is less engagement with democracy — and all the more need for it!
    • Just as important will be the translation of every part of the WriteToThem user flow into Welsh — that’s webpages, buttons, confirmation emails, error messages, the lot. 
    • And finally, there’ll be improved guidance about where to send messages — people already appreciate WriteToThem for its succinct descriptions here, but we know there are improvements that can be made, especially in the devolved regions.

    We’re excited to get going on this, and to work with other grantees on how we can help each other go further. We’re starting to plan our research phase, and will have more to say about our plans soon, so watch this space or sign up to our newsletter to be the first to know.

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    Image: Catrin Ellis

  5. This is not just any Impact Report…

    …this is mySociety’s 20th anniversary Impact Report!

    Cover of mySociety's 20th anniversary impact reportThis has been a very special year – mySociety’s 20th anniversary.

    So we haven’t just put together our usual review of the past twelve months: this Impact Report is a special edition, covering our entire history since 2003.

    We look back at our beginnings as a small group of determined coders, and trace our history through the changes our services have made, here in the UK and across the world.

    Discover daring acts of (data) piracy, and learn which vandalised phone box sparked the idea for FixMyStreet. Find out how our “cheap and cheerful open web technology” has been instrumental in helping citizens tackle vital issues, from the climate emergency to human trafficking.

    It’s quite the read. Sit back, grab a mince pie if you have one to hand…and enjoy! Access the Anniversary Impact report here (web), or enjoy the print-faithful PDF version, or plain text and epub formats.

    And if you’re interested in our activity on the SocietyWorks side, don’t miss their own, just as engrossing, annual report: you can read that here.

  6. Shortlist announced for mySociety’s 20th anniversary awards

    The ways in which people and organisations have used mySociety’s services through the lifetime of the organisation have been impressive, inspiring and sometimes astonishing.

    So, to celebrate our 20th anniversary, on 15 November we’ll be presenting awards in five categories, showcasing impactful usage of their services through the years.

    • Driving Institutional Change
    • Accelerating Climate Action
    • Exposing Truth
    • Impactful International Reuse
    • Campaigning for Justice

    The shortlist is as follows:

    Driving Institutional Change

    • The Give Them Time campaign used WhatDoTheyKnow to get the law changed over funding for nursery care in Scotland.
    • John Graham-Cumming In 2009, John used the petitions website that mySociety had built for 10 Downing Street, resulting in Gordon Brown apologising on behalf of the British Government for its treatment of the computer scientist Alan Turing.
    • Richard Bennett used WhatDoTheyKnow, coupled with the Equality Act, to make pathways more accessible for wheelchair users, sharing his methods so that others could do the same.
    • Privacy International The ‘Neighbourhood Watched’ project used WhatDoTheyKnow to reveal the unchecked use of surveillance technology by police forces across the UK.

    Accelerating Climate Action

    • Zero Hour Using mySociety’s WriteToThem software, they’ve garnered the backing of over 150 MPs for their draft Climate and Ecology Bill.
    • Sustain used data from CAPE, our Climate Action Plans Explorer, to analyse the degree to which local authorities are including food within their strategies to cut emissions. 
    • Save the Trees of Armada Way Plymouth’s grassroots campaign fought against the removal of much-loved trees in the city centre, using WriteToThem to send emails to the local councillors — apparently, the most emails they had ever received on a single subject. 

     Exposing Truth

    • Jenna Corderoy Jenna is shortlisted for her investigation — using WhatDoTheyKnow — of the Cabinet Office’s controversial Clearing House, a secretive unit that screened  and blocked FOI requests made by journalists and campaigners, often on matters of serious public interest.
    • The Bureau of Investigative Journalism Their Sold From Under You project used crowdsourced and FOI data to reveal how much publicly-owned property was sold off by councils across England, in an attempt to fill funding gaps caused by austerity measures. 
    • Lost in Europe worked with people running FOI sites on our Alaveteli platform, in 12 different countries, to uncover previously unknown statistics around how many children disappear at borders

    Impactful International Reuse 

    • Dostup do Pravda/Access to Truth The Ukrainian Freedom of Information site continues providing access to information even in the difficult circumstances of war.
    • vTaiwan, Public Digital Innovation Space, and the Taiwanese Ministry of Digital Affairs The Taiwanese government uses mySociety’s SayIt software to make deliberations on difficult subjects public and accessible to citizens.
    • DATA Uruguay The organisation has built both FixMyStreet and Freedom of Information sites on mySociety’s codebases, changing the way their governments  communicate with citizens at both local and national levels.

    Campaigning for Justice 

    • Doug Paulley is a lifelong campaigner for rights for disabled people, using FOI to fight against access discrimination, especially around public transport.
    • Eleanor Shaikh has dedicated hours and hundreds of FOI requests to finding out the truth behind the Post Office Horizon scandal, with her findings making front page headlines.
    • After Exploitation use Freedom of Information to uncover the failings of the government’s measures to protect vulnerable detainees.

    Of course, every single user of our services is a winner in our eyes – but watch this space to find out who takes home the award in each category!

    Image: Rene Böhmer

  7. The Climate and Ecology Bill is gaining traction – with the help of WriteToThem

    You might know our WriteToThem service as an easy way to contact your representatives – which it definitely is! But did you realise that it’s also doing heavier lifting, helping proposed legislation gain support in Parliament?

    We’ve already seen how Power for People have mobilised their supporters this way: and Zero Hour is also running a successful campaign around a draft Bill. 

    zero hour logoZero Hour’s campaign centres around the Climate and Ecology Bill, in which they lay out a comprehensive and joined-up approach to the climate and nature emergency. A cornerstone of their strategy relies on getting their supporters to contact their representatives and ask them for their backing. 

    We asked Amy McDonnell, co-Director of Zero Hour to give us a bit more background and to explain the thinking behind the Bill. 

    Amy explained, “It’s the only current or proposed legislation that tackles the interconnected nature-climate emergency together.

    “We formed the campaign to provide a pathway to getting cross-party support for a legislative solution that will ensure that the UK delivers a science-led, people-powered plan on biodiversity and climate.”

    We were interested to know more about how rallying individuals can pave the way to change. 

    Amy told us, “We’ve always depended on our grassroots movement. MPs really care about what their constituents think, and writing to them is incredibly impactful. Moving forwards, we know that we can only win with people on the ground by turbocharging our activity in Parliament.”

    So how did they make the decision to bring WriteToThem onto their website? 

    “We knew that we needed an integrated tool on our site. The WriteToThem tool was key, as we recognise that people’s priorities are stretched and time is precious. So we used WriteToThem to ensure that supporters could contact the MP where they live with the click of a button. 

    “This has been incredibly effective, with thousands of our supporters asking their MPs to support the Climate and Ecology Bill. Having the mechanism to write to MPs with ease has been crucial to the success of the campaign to date, providing insightful responses and opening opportunities for our team to have engaging conversations with members of all political parties on how we can all work together to create an integrated strategy to tackle nature-climate emergency together.”

    WriteToThem doesn’t allow for mass, identical messages from users, and we were curious to know whether that had created any kind of challenge. Quite the reverse, as it turns out:

    We’ve found that fewer, personalised messages are a lot more impactful than thousands of standard emails, which can easily be blocked and ignored.

    “Our approach has always been to maximise not just the action taken by our supporters, but critically the impact that our supporters can make. Through providing guidance on how to personalise messages, we can avoid emails being dismissed or reaching spam folders.”

    And that has a knock-on effect on the way campaigners feel about taking action. 

    “The effectiveness is leading to visible progress, and that’s critical in ensuring that subsequent supporters see there’s a point in taking action on the campaign. So, we created the tool in a way that allows them to craft a personal messages about why the CE Bill can deliver a prosperous, nature-rich UK, that benefits nature, jobs and health for all, in their own words — and it will go directly to the right representative.

    “We know this has proven fruitful, as we commonly get meaningful responses from MPs which move the campaign forward — they can create an opportunity for further conversation about meeting our shared objectives on climate and nature.” 

    And WriteToThem helps in other fundamental ways, too:

    “It reduces the barrier of users having to search for their MP’s details and contact them in a more manual way. It saves supporters time. 

    “We knew mySociety was a very reputable and trustworthy organisation that could deliver the reliability we required in providing functional tools to best engage with the political system and felt the tool was a perfect match to get the engagement we were seeking from the campaign. The choice to use WriteToThem has been instrumental in the success of our campaign.”

    So would they recommend it to other campaigns looking to follow a similar model?

    “Absolutely. We would wholeheartedly recommend campaigns utilise WriteToThem as it’s a reliable and convenient tool for ensuring your campaign is not only seen by a maximum number of representatives but also vitally providing engaged responses. 

    “We can say without question that the tool increased the frequency of our supporters contacting MPs. This has provided invaluable leverage; opened doors and raising the profile of the CE Bill for us to build support which now stretches across all major parties.”

    Indeed, support now comes from 132 MPs, 40 Peers, the Mayor of London, 240 local councils, 192 scientists and 500 organisations — you can find Zero Hour’s full list of supporters here.

    “Frequently when we call MPs’ offices about events, briefings and other matters, office staff mention they have received numerous emails on the Climate and Ecology Bill, and that is a testament to the power of the WriteToThem tool, as MP’s have a large number of competing campaigns and prioritises in their inboxes daily. So, if you are looking for a way to easily connect supporters with their MP to increase awareness and engagement on key campaigns, it’s very effective.”

    Well, we couldn’t hope for much more than that! We’re very glad to have helped underpin such an essential campaign.

    If you’d like to find out more, head to zerohour.uk. And if you feel inspired to write to your MP about the Climate & Ecology Bill, you can do so here

    For those who would like to be kept up to date with all Zero Hour’s activities, the best way is to sign up as a supporter.

     

     

     —

    Image: Nuno Vasco Rodrigues / Climate Visuals Countdown (CC by-nc-nd 4.0)

  8. WriteToThem supports local campaigning

    In Plymouth, a determined group is fighting to save trees from being cut down in the city centre. They’re called STRAW, an acronym for Save the TRees of Armada Way.

    A small and local campaign it may be, but we recently noticed that it was sending a significant number of people to our ‘contact your representatives’ site WriteToThem. Curiosity piqued, we got in touch to find out more.

    Ali from STRAW was glad to talk to us. “The campaign started last September”, she explained, “when I learned that Plymouth City Council planned to regenerate Armada Way, a wide pedestrianised area which was covered in trees and runs through the heart of the city. It’s an area I live near, and was very fond of.

    “It was clear that some of the trees would have to be cut down in order to implement the design, and I was surprised I hadn’t heard about this plan before, since it looked like it was definitely going ahead, and quite soon.”

    A campaign is born

    What do you do when you find out that an unwanted change is planned in your own neighbourhood? Gather other people who feel the same, and go on a fact-finding mission, that’s what!

    And indeed, Ali explains: “I realised that I had no power on my own, so I decided I’d try and find out if other people knew about the plan and whether they were happy about it. 

    “Not long after, we discovered it wasn’t the case that some trees would be felled in order for the council to realise their new design. It was 99% of the 137 trees! 

    “Most of them were healthy, and most had been planted in the 80s, so they were trees which people had a real connection to. They’d grown up with them. They were like a little green oasis from quite a harsh urban landscape – an urban forest.”

    Democracy in action

    Once these startling facts had been pinned down, the group needed to take action. Their website provides multiple opportunities for activism: posters you can print out, a chance to donate, a petition to sign, and facts about the trees. Oh, and that link to WriteToThem!

    “The campaign was really one of public awareness”, says Ali. “But we also asked the people of Plymouth to contact the decision-makers and let them know how they felt about what was planned, and that they were unhappy that they had not been consulted on it.

    “We figured that if enough people wrote, they would realise what a bad decision it was. Democracy in action!”

    First steps into politics

    Since it’s a local campaign, STRAW encourages supporters to contact their councillors rather than their MP. WriteToThem doesn’t need you to know who your reps are before you email them, which proved very useful. 

    “Many people had no idea who their councillors were, and had certainly never written to them before. If nothing else, the campaign has got a lot more people in Plymouth to pay attention to local politics,” says Ali. 

    “The thought of having to look up who your councillor is before writing to them is a real barrier for people. WriteToThem makes it so easy, I really think it made a difference.

    “We saw it a bit like a protest. Rather than blocking the streets, we filled councillors’ inboxes with passionate messages – not to be vexatious but to show our strength of feeling. We heard that Plymouth City Council have never had anywhere like the amount of correspondence as they had on this issue. We didn’t get many responses but we knew we’d got our message over.”

    An ongoing campaign

    STRAW had a significant initial success: “In November, at a council meeting, the council passed a motion to pause the project to review it, to determine whether any more trees could be worked into the design. 

    “This was two months before we presented them our petition, and was directly as a result of their being inundated with emails!”

    But unfortunately, there was a huge setback when the plan went ahead regardless. 

    Chopped down trees in front of a fenced off area in Armada Way, Plymouth

    “We’re now in a legal case with the council over the way the Armada Way project has been handled,” says Ali, “and we are fighting to save the 20 trees which weren’t cut down in March as a result of a last minute injunction we managed to obtain.”

    Sad news, but it’s great to hear they’re still fighting on. and Ali reckons that even if STRAW didn’t achieve everything it had hoped for, their actions have still had a net positive effect. 

    “We’re hoping that the campaign will mean that there’s better public consultation in the future. We’ve demonstrated that local people really do care about how their city looks; they want a voice and they care about urban trees and the many benefits mature urban trees bring. 

    “We’d like the council to better consult not only with local people but local stakeholder groups and local experts, most of whom have been overlooked in recent years.”

    Trees matter

    There’s been a growing understanding of the importance of trees within the urban landscape, and particularly in the context of the climate emergency.

    They provide useful shade as the temperature rises; they decrease carbon, help mitigate flooding, increase biodiversity by providing homes for insects, birds and other creatures; and of course they simply make harsh city streets seem more appealing. A tree provides a natural place under which to place a table and chair, for example, reclaiming street use for people rather than traffic.

    Dark Matter Labs has produced this graphic to explain these benefits and more. See more in their Trees As Infrastructure project.

    a graphic showing how trees can reduce noise levels, improve wellbeing, decrease crime levels and reduce carbon among many other benefits.

    Image by Dark Matter Labs; click to see bigger

    A tool for campaigners

    With all this in mind, small neighbourhood campaigns to preserve trees seem all the more vital, and we’re pleased that our services can help. Would Ali recommend that others use WriteToThem as part of their campaigning toolkit?

    “Absolutely. WriteToThem really is so useful; it’s a wonderful tool. 

    “And if you’re campaigning about a situation that lots of people feel passionately about, it can only help if we make our elected officials aware of how we feel.”

    Many thanks to Ali for sharing STRAW’s story. If you’d like to get involved, you can find out more on their website.

     

  9. Mass mobilisation of supporters with WriteToThem

    Power for People would like to see a transformation in the way we provide energy in this country – by removing barriers to small-scale renewable energy schemes, owned and run by people in their local communities. 

    They’ve written draft legislation — the Local Electricity Bill — and are currently campaigning for it to be made law. Since our TheyWorkForYou and WriteToThem services are an integral part of their campaign, we were keen to find out more.

    Power For People’s Corinna Miller was happy to help, firstly by explaining what drives the campaign: “We’re in the midst of an energy price crisis. It’s never been more obvious that we need cheap, clean, home-produced energy.”

    And their vision is one of a sweeping change to the UK’s energy provision. Right now, provision is limited to a few big monopolies with profits disappearing into shareholders’ pockets; Power for People advocate clearing the path for small sustainable energy projects, with profits that would stay local.

    “There’s such huge potential in our cities, towns and villages, for growth in small-scale renewable energy generation – especially by local groups that would provide cheaper, greener power and distribute the benefits across their local communities.

    “But at the moment, such schemes only generate 0.5% of the UK’s electricity – largely due to the prohibitive costs they face in accessing local markets.” 

    So how do mySociety’s services fit into their campaign? It’s down to Power For People’s belief that mass mobilisation can bring change — and that all links back to the experience of their Director Steve Shaw, says Corinna. 

    “In 15 years working both at environmental NGOs and as a freelancer, Steve worked on campaigns that were instrumental in getting new laws passed – like the Household Waste Recycling Act, bringing in the doorstep recycling collection that all our homes now have; and the Climate Change Act, setting a legally binding target for the government to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions — which has resulted in almost all of the UK’s coal power stations closing and the building of the world’s biggest offshore wind farms.

    “These were great successes, and one thing Steve learned from them was that grassroots focused campaigns, mobilising tens or hundreds of thousands of people to lobby their MPs at the constituency level, when done in a coordinated way over a long-term arc, are extremely effective.”

    And of course, to help people contact those MPs, what better than free web services like TheyWorkForYou and WriteToThem? 

    Power for People’s website first sends you to TheyWorkForYou to find out who your MP is, then provides a list to check against and discover whether or not they already support the Local Electricity Bill.

    Once you know what their stance is, you’re in a far better position to write a persuasive message to your MP, says Corinna, and WriteToThem is the final step on that path. 

    “We wanted to streamline the communication process so each supporter didn’t feel like they had to do too much extra work. Whether an individual has contacted their MP before or not, offering them a tool to help easily find and write to them, all in one place, felt like the best solution to get people to take action in support of the campaign. 

    “WriteToThem has a wonderfully streamlined system that people trust and we have found people take effective action with this tool.”

     WriteToThem doesn’t allow for copy and pasted messages, and Corinna says she finds they’re often blocked by MPs’ servers in any case. “Instead, we direct people to helpful facts that they can share with their local leaders — and we give them bespoke advice when they receive a response. 

    “We highly encourage back-and-forth communication, so that the MP understands that the campaign is not going to go away until action is taken at a parliamentary level. People care about this issue, and we want MPs to know that.” 

    It sounds like everything’s working nicely for Power For People, who say that their Bill already has the support of 322 MPs from all partiesa figure which includes 128 Conservativesalong with 110 local authorities and county councils. 

    “Our main call to action continues to be for people to write to their MP, which is why WriteToThem is such a key tool for us. Helping streamline the communication process and helping people write to their local leaders has been vital to the success of the campaign so far.”

    And so, what advice would they give to other organisations considering using WriteToThem for their own campaigns?

    “Definitely help people curate their own message to their MP, by being specific to their constituency. This requires a bit more time speaking to your supporters but it’s worth it to get an MP interested in what you are calling for. Be specific. Try to keep each email short and polite, with a single request for the MP.”  

    Many thanks to Corinna for sharing such interesting background details to the campaign. If you’d like to learn more about Power for People and get involved, visit their website.  

    Meanwhile, if you’re running a campaign yourself and think it might benefit from WriteToThem’s free service, there’s lots of useful information here.

    Image: Chelsea

  10. February 12 is Good News Day

    The climate emergency is, of course, a massive concern, and that’s why we often urge you to contact your MPs and councillors to demand faster, better, greener progress.

    And that’s important — but also, we really should take the time to give positive feedback, thanking those councils and politicians who are doing the right thing.

    This year, we’re taking part in the Climate Coalition’s Good News Day which, since 2015, has asked “organisations, institutions, household names and millions of people to use the power of green hearts to join together and ask politicians to put aside their differences and tackle the climate crisis.”

    Here’s how you can get involved

    1. On Friday February 12, use our Climate Action Plans database to search for your local council and see if they have a plan in place.
    2. If they have, drop your councillors a line on our WriteToThem service to let them know you appreciate it.
      Local authorities and councillors who are taking action need to know they’re supported in their actions, some of which may be radical or taking them into new territories — so let’s thank them for everything they’ve done so far, and maybe give them the support to go further, too.
    3. If they haven’t? Let them know you care about any climate-related action the council have taken, and urge them to get a wider plan approved.
    4. Maximise the power of your action by shouting about it on social media. Use the hashtag #ShowTheLove, and use a picture of a green heart (we’ve added links to some royalty-free images below you can download or copy and paste) to join in with the national Good News Day movement. Or, if you want to go all out, make your own crafty green heart: there are some ideas on the Climate Coalition’s worksheet and on cafod.org.uk.
    5. If you’d like to do more, see the Climate Coalition’s collection of downloadable resources.

    If you’re on a roll…

    There are other ways you can #showthelove, too.

    We think the prompt to ‘ask politicians to put aside their differences and tackle the climate crisis‘ is a particularly important one, so:

    • You could also use WriteToThem to email your MP with this message…
    • …or go public and tweet them!

    And finally, there is encouragement to share everything your own organisation is doing to help the climate. With that in mind:

    Green heart pictures

    Pictures on Unsplash are free to use and you don’t even have to credit the photographer, although if we’re talking about showing the love, we should of course do the same for the creative people whose work we benefit from!

    Top row L-R: Ronak Valobobhai, Siora Photography, Adithya Vinod.
    Bottom row: Volodymyr Hryshchenko, Patrick Fore, Bekky Bekks.