Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions, direct answers.
Everything we get asked most often, about the platform, the AI, our editorial standards, and how we work with organizations.
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The basics
Quick answers to what Acta is, who it is for, and how it works at a high level.
What is Acta?
Acta is a civic engagement platform that translates official government documents into clear, sourced briefs, and gives you the tools to act on what you read. From any brief you can contact your representatives, draft a letter, build a campaign, and rally your neighbors behind it.
Who is Acta for?
Anyone who wants to participate in civic life without needing to be a policy expert or political insider. Parents tracking school board decisions, voters preparing for an election, union members following state policy, neighborhood organizers running local campaigns, students learning how change actually happens, nonprofits rallying their supporters. Acta is built for all of them, without sorting by ideology.
Is Acta free?
For individuals, yes, and free for mission-driven nonprofits and classrooms, too. Reading briefs, contacting your representatives, and building personal campaigns cost nothing. Organizations that need branded mobilization tools, analytics, and constituent intelligence pay for those capabilities. That is how the free product stays free.
Who is behind Acta?
Acta is built by a small team with backgrounds in public-affairs strategy, labor political organizing, and institutional investment management. We've spent two decades inside systems where civic engagement is a profession. We built Acta because the gap between what civic insiders can do and what ordinary people can do was widening, not closing. We took the tools we use professionally and rebuilt them as a free product for everyone. AI finally made the right architecture economically possible.
Is Acta partisan?
No. Acta does not endorse candidates, parties, or movements. The AI is designed to serve the user's stated position, not a position we chose for the user. A conservative gun owner and a progressive parent get the same quality of civic action tools. Our Nonpartisan Commitment page lays out exactly how we enforce this.
How it works
What you can actually do with Acta and what happens behind the scenes.
What can I do with an Acta brief?
Read it in five minutes. Verify any claim by clicking the source. Contact your real representatives directly from the page. Generate a draft letter that reflects your position. Build a campaign to share with neighbors.
Does Acta cover local, state, or federal issues?
All three. The platform identifies the right level of government for each issue automatically and routes you to the officials who actually have authority over the decision. Local zoning, state legislation, and federal policy are all in scope.
How do I contact my representatives through Acta?
Enter your ZIP code and Acta identifies your federal, state, and local officials. From any brief you can call, email, or send a letter, with an AI-drafted message that reflects your stated position on the issue. You edit before sending; you stay in control of the words that go out under your name.
What if I disagree with how Acta classified my issue?
You can override the jurisdiction routing manually. If Acta sent your issue to the state level and you think it is a city council matter, change it. The AI's classification is a starting point, not a verdict.
AI and accuracy
How the AI generates content and where its limits are.
How does Acta's AI generate briefs?
The AI reads official source documents, Congressional Research Service reports, state legislative analyst memos, voter guides, and the League of Women Voters, and produces a structured brief with the same sections every time: what the proposal does, the case for, the case against, the fiscal impact, and links back to every source. The AI structures and summarizes. The sources determine what is true.
Can I trust an AI to be nonpartisan?
Perfect neutrality is impossible. Every word choice is a choice. What we can guarantee is that we are actively trying, we have specific mechanisms in place to enforce nonpartisanship, and we publish exactly how. Every prompt explicitly avoids tribal political markers. Every output can be flagged for bias review. Read the full editorial standards →
What if a brief contains an error?
Every AI-generated output includes a "Report a concern" link. If you find an error or a bias issue, flag it and we review every report. Errors get corrected. Patterns that suggest a prompt problem trigger a prompt rewrite. We do not pretend AI is perfect. We treat correction as part of the product.
Does the AI invent facts or statistics?
The AI is explicitly instructed not to. Where a brief would be stronger with a specific number, vote count, or named program, the AI either pulls it from the source documents or marks the spot for the user to fill in, rather than inventing something that sounds plausible. Honesty about what is known matters more than appearing comprehensive.
Privacy and data
What data we collect, what we do with it, and what we never do.
What data does Acta collect?
You can use Acta's core features, researching an issue, generating a brief, finding your representatives, and drafting a letter, without giving us any personal information at all. If you choose to provide your email (for alerts) or ZIP code (to find your representatives), we use them only for that; there's no account to create. We collect no personal information from users under 16, and when Acta is used in a classroom we collect nothing from anyone. We also keep anonymous, aggregate usage statistics that aren't tied to you. The full picture is in our Privacy Policy.
Can students or minors use Acta?
Yes, with privacy protections that scale by age. Anyone can read briefs, research issues, and explore Acta. What differs is whether we collect any personal information: we collect none from anyone under 16. Users under 13 can use the informational features but are blocked from submitting personal information at all; users 13-15 can use every feature, but nothing personal is collected or stored; users 16-17 may use the service with limited data collection, consistent with applicable law. When a teacher runs Acta in the classroom, we collect nothing from any student regardless of age. Student work is created in the session and exported, never stored. Acta provides neutral information and tools; the issues and positions are always the student's own.
Do you share my information with political campaigns?
We never sell your individual identity or personal records to political campaigns, parties, or PACs. Acta's business is built on aggregate, de-identified civic intelligence, patterns across many people about which issues are gaining momentum and where, which is what organizations pay for. Your individual record is never the product and never leaves Acta attached to your name. Where you opt in to be contacted by an organization (for example, a union running a campaign), you control what you receive and from whom.
Can I delete my account and data?
Yes. Email us at feedback@actacivic.com to request deletion, and we'll remove all personal data tied to you within 30 days. You can unsubscribe from emails at any time using the link at the bottom of any email we send, without having to delete anything else.
Are my civic actions visible to other users?
Only the actions you explicitly choose to make public, like signing a public petition. Letters, emails, and phone calls to officials are private. Your civic engagement history is yours.
For organizations
How unions, advocacy groups, and other organizations use Acta.
Can my organization use Acta?
Yes. Acta works with unions, advocacy organizations, coalitions, and community groups that need grassroots mobilization tools, constituent intelligence, and member engagement analytics. See the full Organizations page →
How much does Acta cost for organizations?
Pricing scales by organization size and the campaigns you need to run. We have founding-partner terms for early adopters, a standard tier for mid-size organizations, and an enterprise tier for large unions and national groups. The fastest way to find out what fits your organization is to talk to us directly.
Who owns the constituent data my organization generates?
Acta owns the underlying constituent intelligence asset, the database of civically active Americans is what makes the platform valuable across all our clients. Organizations get aggregate analytics, mobilization reports, and campaign-level intelligence on their members. We do not hand over raw constituent records, even to the organization that drove the engagement. This is a feature, not a limitation: it protects your members and preserves the integrity of the dataset.
How is Acta different from Quorum, Muster, or VoterVoice?
Those tools manage outreach to people already in your database. Acta builds the database. We capture self-reported civic intelligence from people outside any organization's existing contacts, citizens who took a civic action on their own and are now identifiable as constituents who care about a specific issue. No incumbent platform builds that asset. It is Acta's structural differentiator.
Trust and editorial
How we earn trust structurally, not rhetorically.
How does Acta make money?
Organizations pay for the platform, unions, advocacy groups, coalitions, and campaigns that need grassroots mobilization tools and constituent intelligence. The individual product is free. We do not accept political advertising and we do not sell individual user data.
Why should I trust an AI-powered civic tool?
You should not trust it on faith. Trust it because every claim links to a source you can verify, every output can be flagged for review, and our editorial standards are published in full. Read the safeguards. If we ever fail those standards, you should hold us to them.
What does Acta refuse to do?
Three commitments, even when refusing costs us business:
We do not take political positions. Acta does not endorse candidates, parties, or movements.
We do not accept political advertising. No campaign, PAC, or advocacy group can pay to influence our outputs.
We do not sell individual user data to political campaigns. Aggregate patterns help organizations understand their members. Individual records do not leave Acta.
What if my question is not here?
Contact us. Real people respond. If your question is one others might have, we add it to this page.
Ready to try Acta?
Look up a bill. Read a brief. Contact a representative. The work of being an informed citizen begins with one informed step.
Open Acta →