Empowering Advocacy Through Technology
These four steps will help move your Web visitors to action.
August 2006 By Charlie Cumbaa
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Do you need to raise public awareness in order to serve your organization’s mission? Do you need to maintain public funding for your organization? Do you protect or fight for social issues important to your organization?
These are all goals of traditional advocacy. Online advocacy uses the viral marketing capabilities of e-mail and the Internet to meet these same goals. Keeping your supporters informed and engaged doesn’t have to mean an expensive direct-mail or phone campaign. In fact, you can motivate your supporters through e-mail and allow them to take action right from your Web site. Through online advocacy, your organization also can offer supporters the ability to get their peers involved in issues that are important to them — which helps you reach a broader network and can result in a more effective and further-reaching campaign.
First, it’s important to inform your supporters of important issues affecting your cause. The next step is to inspire them through engaging, personalized communications. By providing supporters with easily accessible tools, you give them incentive to immediately take action. Finally, you must interact with your supporters on a regular basis to keep them informed and inspired so they’ll be more likely to take future action on your organization’s behalf. Follow these steps to take your grassroots advocacy campaigns to the next level:
1) Inform: The first step of any advocacy campaign is to educate supporters and potential advocates.
These are all goals of traditional advocacy. Online advocacy uses the viral marketing capabilities of e-mail and the Internet to meet these same goals. Keeping your supporters informed and engaged doesn’t have to mean an expensive direct-mail or phone campaign. In fact, you can motivate your supporters through e-mail and allow them to take action right from your Web site. Through online advocacy, your organization also can offer supporters the ability to get their peers involved in issues that are important to them — which helps you reach a broader network and can result in a more effective and further-reaching campaign.
First, it’s important to inform your supporters of important issues affecting your cause. The next step is to inspire them through engaging, personalized communications. By providing supporters with easily accessible tools, you give them incentive to immediately take action. Finally, you must interact with your supporters on a regular basis to keep them informed and inspired so they’ll be more likely to take future action on your organization’s behalf. Follow these steps to take your grassroots advocacy campaigns to the next level:
1) Inform: The first step of any advocacy campaign is to educate supporters and potential advocates.
- Publish an informative alert or a call to action on your Web site or via e-mail so your supporters can learn about an issue and immediately take action.
- Give your supporters access to directories with easy-to-use search capabilities, so they can access information on every elected official, including information about committees, Congressional staff, contact information and more.
- Track key legislation on your Web site to keep your supporters informed and up to date.
- Stay informed of what’s happening on Capitol Hill, when a bill is “on the floor” or if it is referred to committee or conference, and keep your supporters informed of proceedings in Congress. Quickly rally support by posting an action alert on important issues.
- Choose specific votes to display based on ZIP code, along with vote descriptions, to inform your supporters of actions in their areas.
- Keep score on your Web site of members of Congress, how they voted on each bill, and how often each member voted in support of your position.
- Provide floor and committee schedules for Congress.
- Reach out and inform your potential supporters. Publish your alerts on Yahoo, MSN, AOL and other media sites. Alerts should include a link to your Web site so activists can get more information about your organization.
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Hitting the Email Inbox
Hitting the Email Inbox
