Using Online Communications

The Fulbright Association posts action alerts and updates about Fulbright Program funding to its website throughout the year. To view current action alerts, please click here. When submitting your action alert to your members of Congress, please take a moment to add personal details about your Fulbright experience and how it specifically benefited your local community, and/or how it is an extremely cost-effective investment.

Making Phone Calls

When urgent and rapid action is needed to prevent Fulbright Program cuts, Fulbright alumni are strongly encouraged to call their members of Congress. A directory of members of Congress and their contact information is searchable through the Association's website here. Please find a sample script for making phone calls below. After you hang up the phone with your member of Congress's office, please send us an email at advocacy@fulbright.org and let us know about your action and the response you received.

Sample Telephone Script in Support of Fulbright Program Funding

Hello, my name is ________________ and I am a constituent and an active proponent of the Fulbright Program. I am calling today to urge Senator/Representative __________ to support our most important foreign policy objectives by funding State Department exchange programs for the rest of Fiscal Year 2011 at the 2010 level of $635 million and within that amount, fund the Fulbright Program at $254 million.

I also urge Senator/Representative ______________ to support Fiscal Year 2012 funding for State Department exchange programs at the $637 million level and the Fulbright Program at $253 million.

Fulbright and other State Department international exchange programs are smart and cost-effective investments in American global and economic competitiveness and national security. State Department exchange programs currently constitute 0.0001% (one ten-thousandth) of the federal budget. Yet the economic and national security benefits exchange programs return to the United States far outweigh this relatively modest expenditure.

I look forward to hearing Senator/Representative ____________'s position on funding State Department exchanges. If the Fulbright Association or I can provide any more information about the Fulbright Program or other exchange programs, please don't hesitate to contact me at ______________.*

*Don't forget to leave your full name, address and phone number.

For more talking points about the Fulbright Program, please visit here.