Every digital campaign eventually runs into the same challenge: who exactly are we trying to reach or pressure?
Behind every mail-to-target action, petition delivery, or social media push sits a dataset: a list of decision-makers, representatives, or institutions that have the power to make the change we want to see.
For campaigners, these datasets are both essential and, let’s be honest, painful.
The hidden work behind contact lists
Maintaining accurate contact lists of politicians, ministers, or local representatives is hard, never-ending work. Roles change, emails break, constituencies shift, and ministries get reshuffled. Collecting and cleaning this data takes time, technical skills, and constant attention – that’s time most campaign teams simply don’t have.
This is why ready-made, reliable datasets are such a powerful asset. When campaigners can rely on off-the-shelf contact lists, they can focus on strategy, messaging, and mobilisation – not bulky spreadsheets.
At Fix the Status Quo, we’ve seen again and again that lowering the technical and logistical burden of campaigning is what helps power up faster, more responsive campaigning.
Proca: off-the-shelf and custom datasets for campaigns
Proca makes it easy to use existing datasets or upload your own custom targets in just a few clicks. Whether you’re running a rapid-response action or a long-term advocacy campaign involving multiple steps, you don’t need to build contact lists from scratch.
Proca currently offers ready-to-use datasets including:
- Members of the European Parliament (MEPs),
- German Bundestag members,
- German mayors,
- French parliamentarians,
- And more (ask us!).
In the past, Proca-powered campaigns have also worked with datasets covering various European ministers, British MPs, and many other decision-makers across Europe.
When using one of our existing datasets, you can customise it to fit your campaign objectives. For example, you can use our MEP contact list to only target the members of a specific committee, or to send messages to all parties except members of the far right, or to only contact representatives from a particular country. Our datasets are just a starting point to help you built a custom target list that works for you.
And when you need something specific? You can quickly upload a custom target list, tailored to your campaign.
For custom datasets, our staff will provide you with a google sheet template which specifies all the exact fields and information you need to collect, so you don’t do unnecessary work. Usually, that will be your target’s first and last name, email address, party/group/position, and gender. Why gender? So we know how to address them when writing to them in languages where using the correct form of address matters. Just ask our staff in advance and we’ll guide you through the exact information you need to build your custom list of campaign targets.
Smart geo-matching for targeted pressure
One of Proca’s biggest advantages is geo-matching. Using a supporter’s postcode or location, Proca can automatically match them to the most relevant representative in a dataset.
This feature powers up more impactful, targeted actions:
- Supporters contact their MEP, MP, or mayor – not a random official,
- Decision-makers receive messages from their own constituents or voters,
- Campaigns feel more personal, local, and politically relevant, creating more concrete pressure on their target.
Targeted pressure is what works in digital campaigning. Representatives are far more likely to pay attention when messages come from people they represent, on whose vote they count come elections.
Faster launch, more impact
Thanks to Proca’s datasets (and the ability to upload your own custom list of targets), campaigners can launch actions quickly. The ability to be responsive to real-world events is what often defines a successful digital campaign. Proca tools that can use custom target lists include:
- Mail-to-Target (MTT),
- Petitions,
- Letters to the editor (a type of MTT targeted at local news outlets),
- X/Twitter/Bluesky-to-target social media actions,
- Pledges,
- And more
Good datasets don’t just save time – they make campaigns stronger. With Proca, campaigners get the infrastructure they need to focus on what really matters: changing the status quo. We also allow you to couple a great, customised dataset with our innovative Snowflake Engine to create endless unique messages to target, and make sure your campaign can’t be missed.