How Charities Can Influence Candidates Ahead of the Scottish Parliament and Senedd Elections

Election time is one of the most powerful moments for charities looking to build political support. Candidates are strengthening their public profiles, defining their positions, and actively seeking to demonstrate their community credentials. As Wales and Scotland head into election season, now is the time to prepare.

A public commitment made on the campaign trail carries real weight once someone is in office — but how can your charity inspire candidates to take action? The answer lies in crafting a compelling story, mobilising local constituents, and planning a multi-pronged campaign strategy around key moments.

Tell a Story Candidates Want to Engage With

Candidates are time-poor; during a campaign, they’re fielding dozens of requests for endorsements, meetings, and commitments. To cut through, your campaign needs to feel different from the standard form-letter flood — and that begins with the story you tell.

Candidates are drawn to issues that feel local, human, and easy to act upon. Using facts and statistics may establish the scale of a problem and lend credibility to your ask, but sharing individual stories are what make your issue real and memorable. A carer describing what it means to support a family member through a stretched NHS waiting list will stay with a candidate far longer than a national figure about social care capacity.

A well-designed campaign typically gives candidates a clear, singular ask and makes engagement as low-friction as possible. This might look like:

1. A specific, actionable pledge: Offer something candidates can sign up to publicly, share on their own channels, and proudly point to as evidence of their commitment to the issue.
2. A short, ready-made response: Share suggested language candidates can use when speaking about your cause.
3. A shareable campaign moment: Create a social media-ready frame or visual that candidates can use to signal their support and bring their own audiences to your cause.

Campaigns should also be tailored to appeal to the full breadth of candidates and groups that may support your cause. Local candidates may be more likely to offer public support for a local cause, while party list candidates would have a different set of priorities.

Cats Protection, a UK animal welfare charity, used all three elements to secure responses from over 650 candidates during a tight election timeline. Read more about their successful campaign.

Give Your Supporters Centre Stage

Candidates and their teams are well-practised at identifying form letters … and ignoring them. That’s why the most effective candidate outreach comes from real constituents speaking in their own words. Engaging Networks’ campaigning tools are designed to amplify your supporters’ voices at scale:

1. Candidate database: Our UK-localised database of verified candidate contact information automatically identifies the right candidates based on each supporter’s location, so your messages reach the right people every time.
2. Survey-driven campaigning: Use surveys to understand what your supporters care about most, then tailor your ask accordingly. By inviting them to take action on something you already know matters to them, you can drive higher participation and more authentic messaging.
3. Geotargeting: Use our audience segmentation tools to send campaign actions to supporters in specific wards or constituencies, ensuring outreach is relevant to the candidates receiving it.
4. Multiple action formats: Personalised email sends, click-to-call tools, and tweet-to-target campaigns give supporters multiple ways to engage. A phone call from a constituent is particularly hard for candidates to ignore.

Every supporter who takes action through your campaign not only increases your impact, but also becomes part of a growing list of engaged contacts — people who have already demonstrated they care about your cause, and who can be nurtured into long-term donors and advocates. That list of contacts can also help you predict who among your potential donors tend to respond well to issue-based messages, which provides even more value for your charity.

Diabetes UK leveraged our email-to-target tools, social media sharing, and creative personalisation to run a localised candidate outreach campaign, securing the desired action from 55 MPs. Read about their tactics and results.

Choose Your Timing Wisely

The timing of your candidate outreach campaign can make all the difference between being noticed and being ignored. Selecting your timing carefully is also crucial for securing candidate support for your core issues without straying into party politics or running afoul of election guidelines (get more information on those guidelines here). Different moments in the electoral cycle serve different purposes:

• Early engagement shapes manifesto commitments. Reach candidates before their positions are locked in, and you have a genuine chance to influence what they stand for.
• Mid-campaign pressure demonstrates momentum. A wave of constituent messages during the campaign shows that your issue has active public support.
• Late-stage sign-ons create media leverage. Candidate commitments secured in the final stretch can become a story in their own right.

One powerful approach is to collect supporter actions over a period of days or weeks, then deliver all messages simultaneously at a strategically important moment. Rather than a steady trickle that’s easy to overlook, this creates a concentrated wave of constituent contact that’s much harder for busy campaign offices to ignore.

Iron Out the Details

With your strategy in place, it’s worth running through the operational details before you launch. A well-crafted campaign can still fall flat without solid groundwork.

• Keep your candidate data current. Out-of-date contact information means your supporters’ messages may never arrive. Engaging Networks’ UK candidate database makes it easy for supporters to reach the right contact every time.
• Check your targeting. Review your supporter segments prior to launch and make sure geotargeting, personalisation fields, and constituency matching are all working as expected.
• Test before you send. Run through the action as a supporter would experience it: Check that messages are routing correctly, personalisation fields are pulling through, and the journey feels smooth from start to finish.
• Set up a custom envelope. To authorise email delivery from your supporters to candidates, you’ll need a custom envelope in place. Without it, messages are unlikely to reach their destination.

Access the UK Candidate Database on Engaging Networks

The Scottish and Welsh Parliament elections on 7th May are a timely opportunity to mobilise supporters and engage prospective representatives on the issues your organisation cares about.

Having up-to-date candidate contact information is essential, which is why Engaging Networks does the heavy lifting for you. Our verified, continuously updated database means your supporters’ messages are always reaching the right inbox — no bounced emails, no wasted effort.

For the 7th May elections, we have built dedicated candidate databases for Scottish Parliament and Senedd Cymru, available from 25th February and updated continuously as verified information becomes available. Access is free for anyone using the Advocacy module.

Build a Compelling Campaign With Engaging Networks

The most persuasive advocates for your cause are the people in your supporter base who live, work, and vote in the constituencies you want to influence. A well-run candidate outreach campaign gives those supporters a direct line to the people who want their vote. Done well, this type of outreach builds relationships that carry forward into the parliament that follows.

Engaging Networks’ campaigning tools are designed to help you achieve maximum impact, with a UK-localised candidate database and personalisation tools that make every supporter message count.