DearMEP

DearMEP is a white-label outreach system for contacting European Parliament representatives and organizing public campaigns. It is best suited to NGOs, activist groups, and other organizations that can operate a self-hosted service and manage a calling-provider account. The software itself has no licence charge, but phone operations and technical setup remain the operator’s responsibility.

Overview

DearMEP combines representative outreach with campaign mobilisation. Citizens can contact elected European Parliament members, while organizations can deploy a branded instance for constituency actions around EU legislative issues. Its open-source design makes it more adaptable than a fixed public-facing service, although that flexibility assumes an organization has the capacity to configure and maintain an instance.

Key features

Users can place a one-off call or schedule calls daily or weekly. Email and social-media contact provide alternatives for people who do not want to use the phone. DearMEP selects a representative from the user’s country whom it estimates will be most persuadable, based on voting behaviour and feedback. That targeting can give a campaign a clearer legislative focus than an undifferentiated directory, but it remains an estimate rather than a guarantee of influence.

Campaign teams can customise DearMEP’s widget and embed it on their own websites. Each campaign URL must be added to the instance’s allowed origins, so organizations running several domains need to maintain that configuration as sites change. Browser-language detection lowers friction for international audiences, while a manual language selector gives users control when detection is wrong or a different language is preferred.

The project is intended for reuse in campaigns and other assemblies. API documentation supports advanced integrations and custom clients, which should appeal to organizations connecting representative outreach to their existing systems. A new instance requires an account with 46elks, identified as DearMEP’s calling provider, and the operator pays scalable phone-call costs. The result is free software rather than a zero-cost communications service.

DearMEP’s privacy approach is deliberately restrained: the project describes privacy-by-design, privacy-by-default, GDPR compliance, and limited personal-data processing. IP addresses are used for geolocation and abuse prevention and are not persisted by the application itself. Scheduled calls require encrypted phone-number storage, while phone numbers used for authentication are represented by peppered hashes. The privacy design document is primarily architectural and notes that some described functionality may not yet be implemented, so operators should verify behaviour during deployment.

Pricing

There is one plan and no licence-payment barrier, making DearMEP practical for NGOs and volunteer-led campaigns with their own infrastructure. The trade-off is operational: the organization must arrange 46elks access, handle deployment, and budget for calls. This is a stronger fit for teams seeking control and adaptation than for groups wanting a managed advocacy platform with bundled communications costs.

Platforms

DearMEP is offered as an API, self-hosted software, and a web application. The API and documented custom-client route suit technical teams integrating outreach into another service; self-hosting suits organizations that need control over branding, deployment, and data handling. Web access supports campaign participants without requiring a separate app.

Who it's for

DearMEP is aimed at NGOs and activists mobilizing communities around EU legislative matters, including organizations that want a white-label widget on campaign sites. It also suits groups running repeated call, email, or social-media actions and those prepared to manage privacy and infrastructure decisions themselves. It is less appropriate for a small group seeking an immediately managed service with no calling-provider administration.

Pros and cons

Pros

• No licence fees: the free-software plan removes per-seat or subscription charges.
• Purpose-built representative outreach: calls, scheduled actions, email, and social media cover several campaign channels.
• Persuasion-oriented targeting: representative selection uses voting behaviour and feedback rather than a purely static list.
• Adaptable deployment: open-source reuse, self-hosting, widget customisation, and an API support bespoke campaign setups.
• Privacy-conscious architecture: the project describes GDPR compliance, limited processing, encrypted scheduled-call numbers, and hashed authentication numbers.

Cons

• Calling-provider dependency: every new instance requires a 46elks account.
• Operating costs remain: the operator pays scalable phone-call charges despite the zero licence price.
• Configuration overhead: campaign domains must be added to allowed origins before embedded widgets can be used.
• Implementation uncertainty: the privacy design document says some described functionality may not be implemented.
• Self-service support model: primary support is through GitHub Discussions, Issues, and a public Signal chat; paid consulting and feature work come from some contributors.

Alternatives

Changemaker Lite is the better choice when you want a free self-hosted campaign suite with more than 45 tools, unlimited users and data, and community support on your own infrastructure.

Choose CORE Software if a freemium, open-source platform built on WordPress and CiviCRM, with Android and iOS apps, fits your organization better.

One Click Politics suits teams that primarily need free tracking for one bill or a paid advocacy product with custom pricing.

Pick Action Network for broader grassroots tools, including a free tier and a Movement plan starting at $15 per month with usage-based email charges.

activist is an alternative free, open-source, privacy-focused web service governed by its community.

New/Mode is preferable when you need a free individual plan with unlimited contacts, petitions, email blasts, representative-email campaigns, and social-media advocacy.

Rally Starter offers a free-forever starter plan and a free trial for organizations seeking a web-based campaign service.

Action Builder is a paid platform with free volunteer-leader accounts and $80.00 per month admin users.

Verdict

Choose DearMEP if your NGO or activist group needs a licence-free, adaptable way to coordinate European Parliament outreach and can run its own instance. Its representative targeting, embeddable multilingual widget, and API make it unusually suitable for tailored EU campaigns. Look elsewhere if you need managed hosting, bundled calling, or a simpler setup without 46elks and domain-configuration work.