Five ways to use the VisitThem.org API
The VisitThem.org API builds on top of open-data provided by the unitedstates project on Github and extends it with congressional district office and town hall event data. There are lots of game… The VisitThem.org API builds on top of open-data provided by the unitedstates project on Github and extends it with congressional district office and town hall event data.
There are lots of game changing ways that the API might be used by a talented developer to make progressive advocacy organizations more powerful. Here are five ideas we’d love to see someone run with:
Get Data to Your Field Team Many of our customers use a cornucopia of CRMs tools to manage their relationships with members. For example getting town hall event information into NGPVAN a tool that many field organizers use, seems like it could be powerful for organizations who want to call, text or canvass their members to get them to attend events.
Send Members a Text Message When their Congresscritter is Nearby Mashing up your text message program with our APIs should allow you to build an SMS program to notify members whenever there is an upcoming town hall near them.
Call the Nearest Congressional Office The VisitThem.org API also contains phone number information for every member of congress — including each local office. Use it to easily build an interface for members of your organization to call their local district office instead of the national switchboard in DC.
Put Congress on the Map Many organizations maintain event directories on their websites with information about days of action and trainings. Using our API, organizations can integrate congressional town halls with their existing events infrastructure.
Build New Advocacy Products Instead of building out all of the complicated infrastructure to keep legislative data up to date and easily usable in your new app, developers can use our API to get started quickly. We provide more comprehensive data for advocacy apps than what is available via competing services like the Google Civic Information API.
The VisitThem.org API is available to all VisitThem.org subscribers and we’re looking forward to seeing the tools our customers and partners build. Self-service signup via VisitThem.org