No matter who you are or what your reason for writing is, you absolutely can send a letter to the President.
Will the President actually read your letter? Consider this. President Obama received, on average, 65,000 handwritten letters and more than 100,000 emails each week — and that doesn't even include faxes, which people also still send. Not every President gets the same number of letters from members of the public, but you can bet that the volume of mail he (or maybe she, some day) gets is always overwhelming.
That is why the White House has an entire Office of Presidential Correspondence, which deals with all these letters. White House staff will definitely read your letter to the President, and if it's compelling, important, or interesting enough, they will pass it onto the President.
That's a little intimidating, isn't it? Your odds of achieving your aim — writing a letter that the President will personally read — grow exponentially if your letter is good. Here's how.
The most common reasons to write a letter to the President are:
Anyone can write a letter to the President, but it goes without saying that if the President were to personally read all the letters the White House receives, nothing else would ever get done. Before you consider writing a letter to the President, it is always prudent to investigate whether another course of action could also address your particular concern. If there is a problem within your city, for instance, it is often a good idea to write to the Mayor first.
The White House serves the American public, and has procedures in place to ensure that members of the public can get in touch. They do encourage you to follow their guidelines as you do so, however.
What format should you use? You have several different options:
It is advisable to follow a standard business letter format when writing a letter to the President. Always include your return address, because it is indeed possible that you will receive a reply!
The tone of your letter will depend on your reason for writing, but regardless of your motivation in writing a letter to the President, you are strongly advised to maintain formal wording. Even if you are writing a letter to the President on behalf of a civil rights group, and you are angry about an injustice, remain polite at all times to increase the chances that the letter will find its way to the President's hands.
The appropriate length of a letter to the President will again vary, but you should always strive to be succinct. A personal anecdote may be helpful in making your point, but you should never ramble. Every word in the letter should serve a purpose, and your letter should be edited and proofread multiple times before you send it.
US Presidents do appreciate hearing from the nation's children, and often welcome autograph requests. Never include any items besides the letter itself in an envelope you send to the White House, though! Maybe you are writing to the President as a class project, and you think it is a nice idea to send an artwork made by the students in your class. The White House discourages this for security reasons.
Writing your letter to the President is the hardest and most important part of the process — but unless you know where and how to send your letter, it will never reach its ultimate destination.
You essentially have two choices.
You can mail your physical — typed or handwritten — letter to the White House.
The correct address is:
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20500
Make sure to address your letter to the sitting President. Include your return address on the envelope as well as within the letter itself; this is not only standard practice, but also important for security reasons.
You can send an email to the President, a practice the White House encourages.
Do not attempt to find a dedicated email address to which you can send an email directly. Instead, use the contact form the White House provides. Always double check that you entered all your details correctly before submitting the form.
Your letter to the President should be unique and personal — and unless you are joining an advocacy group in sending a signed copy of the same letter that hundreds of thousands of others are also sending, it is important to put personal thought into the letter.
Never copy sample letters! Although reading letters which people in similar situations have previously sent to the President, perhaps with successful outcomes, can be helpful, those letters should only ever serve as inspiration.
Frankly, posting sample letters would not serve you well, because no fictional sample could ever compare to a sincere letter to the President. We can, however, offer you some pointers.
People seeking any form of clemency, including a Presidential pardon, for Federal crimes, have to follow the appropriate procedure to do so. This does not only require writing a letter to the President, but also completing the relevant forms. The Office of the Pardon Attorney handles this process.
The most effective clemency letters and letters of pardon include the following elements, nearly always in the following order:
Most people will advise you to use a formal tone, but it is important to keep in mind that your clemency or pardon letter should also show your sincere feelings.
To congratulate a President on being elected, you should:
Teachers will sometimes ask students to write a letter to the President as part of a school project. This offers a great opportunity to learn to be part of the democratic process! You can:
Letters from advocates are polemical by nature, and you are free to criticize the current administration or any political practice, as well as to call for change. Being polite and expressing your hope or confidence that the situation you are writing about can change helps, however. As you write your letter, include:
The staff within the Office of Presidential Correspondence are the gatekeepers who read the letters sent to the President. If they believe the President should personally read your letter, they will present it to the President. You can make their job easier — and increase your odds of getting your letter into the President's hands — by following best practices.
The format of your letter should follow that of a standard business letter, and should look something like this:
Your full street address
If desired, include an email address and phone number]
[The date on which you are sending the letter]
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr President,
[Introduce yourself first. Be sure to include relevant details, which will depend on the context. If you are, for example, a teacher writing to call attention to a widespread problem within the school system, this would be the place to talk about your career and experience. If you are writing on behalf of an advocacy group, describe the group's activities here.]
[In your next section, describe your reason for writing and the outcome you are seeking.]
[Thank the President for their time, and end with a call to action or expression that you are hopeful that the President will take your concerns to heart]
[End with your full name.]
The tone you choose for your letter depends on your goal in writing. If you are petitioning for a pardon, for instance, the tone will overwhelmingly be remorseful. If you are writing with the goal of influencing policy and calling for change, it may be angry — but should always be respectful. Never write anything that you wouldn't want the whole world to see, and that very much includes inappropriate language of any kind.
If you want your letter to be seen by the President, it is important to take current affairs and timing into account. Some factors to consider include: