This blog breaks down the biggest advocacy shifts of 2025—from regulatory changes to email deliverability—and what they mean for your work in 2026.

Advocacy organizations had a busy year. In 2025, teams adapted to new realities in how they reach decision-makers, maintain supporter engagement between legislative moments, and build trust in increasingly filtered communication channels.

This recap is for people working in grassroots advocacy, government relations, and public affairs; especially teams that rely on digital outreach, supporter lists, or public comment campaigns. Below, we cover what shifted in 2025, what patterns are likely to continue into 2026, and practical adjustments advocacy teams are already making.

Table of Contents

• Shift #1: A Major Change to Public Comment Access
  

• Shift #2: Record-breaking Government Shutdown
  

• Shift #3: Email Sending Became a Compliance Issue
  

• Shift #4: Corporate advocacy went mainstream
  

• Shift #5: Form Emails Are (Still) Dying
  

• A quick AdvocacyAI update

Shift #1: A Major Change to Public Comment Access

In August, the General Services Administration (GSA) ended public access to the Regulations.gov post API. The API was how hundreds of thousands of commenters each year found dockets and submitted comments to federal agencies.

Before the shutdown of the API, organizations relied on it to surface regulatory actions, collect comments, and contribute expert input. In 2025, losing the API meant redesigning how they capture and deliver comments.

Advocacy teams shifted to:

• Sending comments by email directly to agency staff
• Accepting hand‑signed letters mailed to official dockets

Advocacy tech platforms came up with a workaround that bypasses native agency submission portals' CAPTCHA requirements, but orgs should keep an eye out. These workarounds require close monitoring and risk rejection or blacklisting if agencies treat them as atypical submissions.

What this means for 2026:
Expect advocates, vendors, and lawmakers to push for interoperable ways to submit comments that do not depend on a single API. Some organizations are tracking offline submissions as data

Shift #2: The Longest Federal Shutdown and How Advocates Responded

On November 12, Congress passed a budget agreement ending the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. Periods of federal disruption consistently lead advocacy teams to redirect energy toward storytelling, data readiness, and public-facing education.

With direct lawmaker access limited, media became the channel of choice. Organizations shifted gears: collecting stories, refining supporter data, and launching educational efforts while the government stayed closed.