Some of the more powerful tools combine data banks of information with robust technological features. One such tool is the Cause Caller developed by Fred Benenson, an ITP graduate student who developed it for his thesis project.

Here is some more information and make sure to check out the blog for even more:

The promise of a truly participatory democracy has never been clearer than digital media has made it today. The unique distributive nature of the Internet provides a platform that has the potential to deliver on this promise by facilitating better group action at lower cost,thereby encouraging actual participation in democracy. There have been many meaningful developments in bringing better information and actions to citizens looking to use digital networks to serve their political needs, but many useful tools and databases remain proprietary and costly while others remain too general or ineffective for political action.

Cause Caller uses open source technology to deliver on the promise of a participatory democracy by taking the hassle and difficulty out of organizing phone banks. Users of Cause Caller can create individual causes and associate new politicians to those causes.