What Actually Works: Advocacy Insights from Rally Starter, Media Cause’s AI-Powered Tool

Table of Contents

1. Advocacy in 2025: The Noise, the Shift, and the Opportunity
2. What Makes Advocacy Work: 5 Key Ingredients
3. Tactic Analysis: Protests, Boycotts, and Petitions
4. Real-World Campaign Examples from Rally Starter
5. Why Contacting Congress Still Matters
6. How to Make Your Message Count
7. Final Thought: The Power of Collective Pressure
8. Related Reads: More on Building Advocacy Campaigns

At Rally Starter—Media Cause’s AI-powered advocacy tool—we’ve had a front-row seat to how people are taking action in 2025. From individual messages to Congress to large-scale campaigns, we’ve been tracking what’s working, what’s gaining traction, and where advocacy is making real impact. This post shares some of those insights—and how you can use them to take action that truly counts.

2025 has brought with it a level of political noise and social discourse that feels harder, harsher, and more relentless than ever before. The volume is up, the stakes are high, and the stream of headlines never lets up.

It’s no wonder so many of us find ourselves scrolling, sharing, spiraling—feeling like our voices don’t matter, and that whatever we could do wouldn’t make a difference.

In fact, that’s exactly how people were feeling just a few months ago.

After the 2024 elections, we surveyed thousands of advocacy-minded individuals. They described themselves as disheartened, overwhelmed, and unsure of what to do next.

But something shifted.

Six months later, those same people said they felt more fired up, determined, and energized to create change. And it wasn’t just a mood shift—we saw the evidence:

The message is clear:
Advocacy is necessary: People power is and always has been essential to creating change on any scale.

Here are some things we’ve seen be effective on Rally Starter, and how to make sure your actions matter:

*Advocacy actions on Rally Starter, a free online advocacy platform

What Tactics On Rally Starter Are Actually Driving Change?

Not every campaign drives results. But the standouts on Rally Starter tend to share five essential ingredients:

1. Mass Participation – Strength in numbers
2. Visibility to Targets – Actions seen by people in power
3. Emotional Intensity – Passionate, urgent messaging
4. A Clear, Opposing Vision – A focused ask or alternative
5. Sustained Press Coverage – Repeated public attention

We analyzed three of the most common advocacy tactics on Rally Starter—protests, boycotts, and petitions—to see how they stack up against the five ingredients of effective advocacy. Here’s what we found:

Real-World Examples from 2025 on Rally Starter:

• Protests like the Hands Off! demonstrations and the 50501 Movement are gaining massive visibility—but require follow-up to connect with legislative outcomes.
• Boycotts targeting brands like Target and Pepsi pushed their CEOs to meet with DEI leaders—an early indicator of influence, but real progress has yet to be seen.
• Petitions in support of stopping Project 2025, blocking ICE raids, and protecting trans youth are surging on sites like Rally Starter, demonstrating public will.

The takeaway? No single tactic is a silver bullet. But when layered together and aligned with the five key ingredients, they build pressure that gets results.

The Power of Contacting Your Elected Officials

Your voice truly does matter. And, despite how it may seem, contacting your representatives in Congress is one of the most powerful and effective ways you can participate in causes you care about.

It’s fast. It’s personal. And—combined with wider strategy—it matters.

Every call or email is logged. Offices track how many constituents speak up on an issue. When enough people raise their voices, it signals urgency—and can shift decisions, even when the political winds are against you.

This isn’t new. There are many examples of how contacting Congress is effective:

• Congress backed down from a 50% pay raise in 1989
• Anti-immigration legislation was blocked in 2005
• SOPA and PIPA were defeated in 2012
• The Affordable Care Act survived early repeal attempts

Yet many people never try. Why?

Because they don’t know who their reps are, how to contact them, or what to say.

How to Make Your Message Count

Want to write to your representatives? Here’s how to do it effectively:

• Only message your own members of Congress. Most won’t respond to non-constituents. 
• Be respectful. Passion is powerful; aggression shuts people down.
  Make it personal. Share your story. Why does this issue matter to you?
• Repeat and share. Collective pressure over time creates change. Don’t stop at one message—and encourage others to join you.

There are plenty of online tools that make it easier to contact your representatives including Rally Starter. Rally Starter’s Contact Congress feature is a free advocacy tool created by Media Cause—but don’t take our word for it. Check it out yourself.

If you’re part of an organization looking to rally your members to take action together, online tools can help coordinate a unified campaign—making it easier to scale messages, mobilize supporters, and track impact over time.

Final Thought: Keep Showing Up

Bradford Fitch, president of the Congressional Management Foundation, once described advocacy like this:

“If a hundred cubic feet of water flows into a dam over three weeks, nothing happens. But if that same water rushes in over three minutes, something’s going to give.”

That’s what advocacy is in 2025.
Pressure + strategy + people power.

In this moment of chaos and static, don’t underestimate what’s possible. Your voice matters—not because it’s loud, but because it’s part of something bigger.

Interested in learning more about digital advocacy? We have you covered…

• The Five Building Blocks of a Digital Advocacy Campaign, Part 1
• The Building Blocks of a Digital Advocacy Campaign, Part 2

This post is based on insights shared during Media Cause’s 2025 Learning Week and includes findings from our work with Rally Starter, an AI-powered advocacy tool developed by Media Cause to help individuals and organizations launch impactful campaigns quickly and easily. Learn more about Rally Starter’s story here.