Don't show up alone. I got recruited to organize a "Nurses for Single Payer" campaign (I was the web person, I'm not a Nurse.) When it was two of us, our cong

Don't show up alone. I got recruited to organize a "Nurses for Single Payer" campaign (I was the web person, I'm not a Nurse.) When it was two of us, our congress-critter wouldn't return our phone calls. When it was 10, they still didn't return our phone calls because we didn't know we were supposed to put our membership numbers on the web-site. When we were about 50 and realized we should put something like "representing over 50 nurses in our geographic area" we got a call back and when we had 100 real members, we got a sit-down meeting with a staffer. At about 125 members we got a meeting with our congress-critter. YMMV, but if you can get at least 100 people to sign a petition or agree to be counted in some form of official membership list, that seems to be about where policy-makers start responding to you. I am willing to bet you have to have a lot more to truly "influence" policy, but it's a good start.