Target audience: Advocacy and cause organizations, nonprofits, foundations, NGOs, social enterprises, political organizations, educators, journalists, general public.

Guest post by Kyle Henri Andre
Idealware

Advocacy organizations often encourage their grassroots supporters to influence politicians and corporations using different methods, from promoting a cause or opposing legislation to challenging ad campaigns or policies. A large display of public opinion can have a powerful message, and advocacy groups often help to focus and channel this support to make the most impact.

This has been traditionally done with mail. The sheer bulk of hundreds or thousands of letters was a strong visual stand-in for the people behind the cause. Today the tactic hasn’t changed, but the message is more likely to be delivered by email, telephone or social media, and the physical presence of the message replaced by the easy, constant barrage of communications.

Let’s look at a few of the tools available to help advocacy groups direct grassroots communications to a target.

Email-based tools

While once a strong alternative to physically mailing letters, high-volume email campaigns have become more difficult at the national level. Most Congressional offices now use web forms and other filters to restrict the flow of email to their inboxes, minimizing their impact. The majority of midrange and higher-end tools are able to navigate these roadblocks, but it’s a game of cat and mouse; as the email tools become more effective, so too do the defenses.

On the other hand, state and local politicians have lower email traffic and therefore tend to have fewer restrictions on the emails they receive. This makes them more effective targets. Corporations also tend to be more vulnerable to such efforts than Congress, and are more sensitive to attacks on their brand — and, in turn, more responsive to a campaign.

Web forms, filters and other obstacles do more than limit the volume of email that makes it to an inbox — they also request contact information. By requiring a street address, zip code or district, they make it possible to verify that the email is coming from a real person who’s a constituent of the targeted legislator. There’s growing concern among advocacy organizations that email is no longer the effective tool it once was, but a number of software applications can help with such campaigns.

Free and lower-cost tools

CitizenSpeak: The free tool CitizenSpeak provides a simple, straightforward method for advocacy organizations to create an email and then allow supporters to modify, personalize and send the message. Organizations must provide a single target email address, however, which makes it difficult to spread an email campaign across multiple voting districts. CitizenSpeak emails will not automatically navigate through web forms or other filters, making it better suited to a campaign targeting state or local politicians, or corporations.

POPVOX: POPVOX matches your supporters to their representatives and verifies them by name and address. Approved users can then support or oppose legislation by selecting from upcoming bills, or send messages to their representatives. (See our article PopVox: How to advocate your cause in Congress.)

For larger organizations

Salsa: Salsa offers email advocacy, list management, petition functionality, website content management features and survey capabilities. Email blasting and online donations are also available for additional fees. The package is quite flexible, and can be seamlessly integrated into a website, but you’ll need substantial HTML expertise to set it up. (See our article How Salsa Labs enables positive social action.)

For those with expansive needs and more substantial budgets, a number of high-end tools provide strong, advanced features — for a cost. These tools begin at around $1,000 per month. For instance, Blackbaud Sphere and Convio are fairly widely used among large advocacy organizations and combine advanced email advocacy capability with robust online features and constituent tracking. Several newer options from major advocacy consulting firms include ActionKit, put out by We Also Walk Dogs (which is closely associated with MoveOn.org), and a built-to-order offering by Blue State Digital.

Using your existing tools

If your targets aren’t hiding behind a filter or other roadblock, and you’re willing to get a little creative technically, you may be able to adapt one of the tools already used by your organization to send your message.

Most website Content Management Systems (CMSs) — like Drupal, Joomla, WordPress or Plone — provide the ability to create email website forms. You could pre-populate the form with the text of an email for supporters to modify or personalize, a method very similar to CitizenSpeak in functionality. This option has the advantage of being easily branded for your organization, and is fairly easy to implement. However, it relies on your CMS’s broadcast email functionality, which might be less reliable than other options included here.

If you’re running a national advocacy campaign, you might want to help your supporters to identify and contact their appropriate representative through your website. Cicero API, from Azavea, allows you to connect your supporters to their representatives when they enter their zip code. You’ll need a programmer to help you implement it.
 

Other campaign methods

Email is just one method being used to replace the traditional snail-mail campaigns. Telephone-based efforts and social media can both work well in different circumstances.

Click-to-call telephone tools

Congress has typically been more responsive to phone calls than emails, and staffers are more likely to answer a phone than reply to — or even read — an email. Technology is emerging that will allow your supporters to make a phone call by entering their phone number on your website and clicking a button. The tool will then call their phone to connect them with your campaign target. There’s no well-known software that’s available out-of-the box to provide this functionality, but consider Twilio if you’re able to work with a program to implement an application programming interface, or API, which is basically a way for websites to access data from another site.

Social media tools

As politicians and corporations have adopted social media, those channels have emerged as locations for advocacy campaigns. Social media channels like Facebook and Twitter are public locations that allow for more public exposure than calling or emailing a congressional office. Many national politicians seem to be embracing Twitter, in particular, and many national and multinational corporations and brands have similarly taken to both Twitter and Facebook.

Remember, because corporations have more at stake to protect the image of their brand, they are more likely to respond to campaigns. While your supporters can take action directly on Facebook, or using hashtags and retweets on Twitter, some purpose-built tools have emerged to help with these efforts. For instance, Act.ly provides a free tool that uses Twitter to target politicians and corporations.

Whatever method you use, advocacy campaigns can be an effective way to show the support for a particular piece of legislation or policy or a similar cause. There are enough different ways available to spread the message that it’s worth taking the time to choose the one that best fits both your supporters and your target.

To learn about different ways of conducting petitions and pledges online, read our article, A Few Good Online Petition Tools. To learn about advocacy in the age of social media, read Influencing Public Policy in the Digital Age: The Law of Online Lobbying and Election-Related Activities.

This article originally appeared on Idealware and is republished under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial No Derivatives 2.5 license.

Related

• Social Advocacy Toolkit (Socialbrite)

• Resources for social advocates (Socialbrite)

• 10 top tools for cause campaigns (Socialbrite)

• E-campaign resources (Socialbrite)

• How Salsa Labs enables positive social action  (Socialbrite)

• Crowdshout: Social advocacy made simple (Socialbrite)

• Growing nonprofits and social movements with NationBuilder (Socialbrite)

• Empowered.org: Out to grow grassroots movements (Socialbrite)

• Causes reinvents itself as a campaign center (Socialbrite)

The post Tools for e-advocacy: Resources for cause campaigns appeared first on Socialbrite.

Target audience: Cause organizations, NGOs, nonprofits, foundations, social enterprises, political reformers, educators, journalists, general public.

Over the past three years, as regular readers know, Socialbrite has put together dozens of guides and compilations of resources and tools for social change advocates. See the bottom of this article for a few, and our Sharing Center is all about social tools for social change.

To celebrate Internet at Liberty, a conference on protecting protecting freedom of expression on the Internet that Google is organizing in Washington, D.C., this week — and where Socialbrite is running the social media workshops — we’re launching a new section today:

The Social Advocacy Toolkit features new and updated informational guides, tool roundups and resources for global activists, social good advocates, political reformers, NGOs and anyone looking to use online tools for social change. It includes tactics for effective campaigns, guides to the best monitoring and metrics tools (many of them free), lists of enabling platforms and organizations and other resources to help galvanize your campaign.

Below is a new guide that we’ve put together to help social change activists with their advocacy efforts, which we’re adding to the toolkit. Check out the Social Advocacy Toolkit for much more.

10 tools for activists & social change advocates

Asana: A leap ahead for productive teamwork

1Asana is a work-collaboration software suite that came out of beta in April 2012. “We built this company to change the world,” said founder Dustin Moskovitz, one of the co-founders of Facebook. Asana offers a simple, word processor-like interface to give people working together on a task a central place to discuss the project, share files and keep track of to-dos in real time. It’s free for teams of fewer than 30 users.

Alternatives: Yammer, Microsoft Sharepoint (for larger enterprises) and see our Collaboration roundup

PopVox: Advocate your cause in Congress

2You might remember our recent article on PopVox, an online service that individuals and grassroots organizations can use to lobby members of Congress on behalf of a cause. CEO Marci Harris founded the nonpartisan service based on her knowledge of how Congressional staffers interact with the public. For a cause to be effective, it has to be made concrete on behalf of or against a specific bill. PopVox helps you do that.

Geo-bombing with Google Earth

3I was blown away when I saw Tunisian activists from the collective blog Nawaat.org (The Core) link video testimonies of Tunisian political prisoners and human rights defenders to the Tunisian presidential palace’s location on Google Earth. Now, as you fly over the Tunisian presidential palace using a Google Earth KML file, you will see it covered with videos about human rights abuses that strongman Ben Ali tried to prevent Tunisian citizens from watching by blocking YouTube and DailyMotion. Visit earth.google.com/outreach for more examples. We’d like to see more organizations to take up “geo-bombing.”

Mapping tools: Show, don’t tell

4Any campaign or cause organizations with tech talent should consider following the steps of charity: water, which does a remarkable job of documenting their clean-water projects for individual donors through the use of Google Maps. Paull Young, their director of digital engagement, told me: “We’ve been marking all our water projects with GPS since we were founded in 2006. We had a developer crank for a few weeks late last year to create this new mapping solution. It’s not incredibly technically difficult, the hardest part is getting data from the field. You might also want to check out our Dollars to Projects reporting for even more in-depth personalized mapping.” Also doing a good job with Google Maps: A Child’s Right.

Note: Google began charging for its previously free Google Maps API last year, leading to an exodus to the open source OpenStreetMap, which we expect will continue to get better and better.

Tableau Public: Infographics made simple

5You may have noticed the Infographics Everywhere trend that’s sweeping the Web, probably spurred by the fact that infographics has been democratized — you no longer need to be a graphics guru to make a swift-looking graphic. Why not boil down your cause or campaign to a couple of key infographics? The tool we like best is Tableau Public, because it’s good and it’s free. For visualizations, Wordle and Many Eyes create great-looking word clouds. But before you plunge in, see this fantastic set of Data Visualization and Infographics Resources from Smashing Magazine — and make sure what you create isn’t info porn.

Statf.ly: Create a metrics dashboard

6What’s a campaign without a metrics dashboard, to tell you with data-driven evidence what’s resonating with your community — and what’s falling flat? There are a few newcomers to consider: Statf.ly (we like the 30-day free trial and $19/month pricetag), Sparkwi.se and Metricly. It’s worth the investment. See which one works for you and gives your campaign traction and tweak your campaign on the fly.

Dropbox: Life in the cloud is sweet

7I’ll be straight up: My hands-down favorite productivity and collaboration tool of the decade so far has been Dropbox. What was life like before the cloud? Oh, yeah, it was a pain to get stuff done. Dropbox is a free service that lets you bring your photos, docs and videos anywhere with an Internet connection — and share them easily. Any file you save to your Dropbox will automatically save to all your computers, phones and even the Dropbox website. Never email yourself a file again! Dropbox gives you 2GB of storage space for free, plus 500MB more if you refer a friend who signs up. It can get pricey when moving up to Dropbox for Teams, so see what your budget allows.

CitizenTube: Get visibility for your cause videos

8CitizenTube is YouTube’s News and Politics Blog. You’ll find important breaking news videos from citizens and other newsworthy videos from news organizations, activists and politicians. You are creating your own media, right? Why not get it seen by YouTube’s legion of viewers? See a different version of it here, and follow @CitizenTube on Twitter.

Buffer: Cross-posting nirvana

9If you’re running a cause campaign, there aren’t enough hours in the day, right? So think productivity. Shonali Burke, who recently left Socialbrite, told me: “Buffer is killer. It lets you send updates to Facebook, Twitter, etc. straight from your Google Reader or a browser. You can also post them directly from Buffer. Spread them out over the day. I’m just loving it and using HootSuite less. I tend to do most of my reading via Reader, and it’s super easy to star the posts that interest me, then sort by starred items, and then add to Buffer.” The basic version is free, for up to 10 posts at a time; for heavy users, you can get the paid version.

GroupMe: Keep in touch with your team members

10If you’re at an event — a conference, a street protest, a peaceful march — with other team members, you know how difficult it it to stay in touch and to coordinate plans. Socialbrite recently gave GroupMe a test run and came away impressed. GroupMe is a free group messaging app. I like it because it’s both instant and asyncronous — that is, your teammates will see your updates instantly or when they next check their mobile devices. Call up GroupMe and invite others in your posse to join your private group. Type your update and send it to the group, as you would an SMS message, and they’ll see it in a chat thread. One of GroupMe’s key features is that it’s cross-platform: You don’t miss a beat whether you have an iPhone, Android, Blackberry or another kind of smartphone. In addition to the ability to share messages, photos and locations like the other apps, GroupMe also allows old-fashioned conference calls between group members.

Alternative: Facebook Messenger

Other tools worth a shoutout

The tools above aren’t the only ones that should be in your advocacy arsenal. Consider some of these as well:

• See our writeup on Digital Democracy and its Handheld Human Rights mobile platform for human rights in Burma/Myanmar.

• GeoChat, from InSTEDD (Innovative Support to Emergencies Diseases and Disasters), is a collaboration tool that allows anyone to chat, report and get alerts on their cellphone and to map data on Google Earth, Google Maps or Virtual Earth. It uses SMS, email, and Twitter.

• Ushahidi and Frontline SMS are must-have mobile tools for anyone working with remote communities or in disaster relief areas. And they have broader uses as well.

• Join.me is a cross-platform screen sharing app that lets you give control of your computer screen to someone else.

• Shortstack, says my partner John Haydon, “is my number one choice for creating amazing Facebook Page custom tabs. You can create photo contents, reveal tabs, photo galleries and more. Check out this example of what you can create with Shortstack.” It costs $15 a month to start.

• NodeXL is a tool for finding connections between people or organizations. Mostly for geeks as it’s a bit daunting.

• If This, Then That is another interesting tool I just discovered. It helps you create certain actions when a task is triggered, like “send me a text message when my organization is mentioned on Facebook.”

• Jing from TechSmith, Screenr and Screenflow for Mac are three of the best tools for creating screencasts.

Guides for social change advocates

Here are some of Socialbrite’s other guides for social change:

• Change-makers share 10 of their favorite tools (JD Lasica)
• 12 open source tools you should be using (Kim Bale)
• 12 awesome platforms for social good (Katrina Heppler)
• An educator’s 5 top tools for social change (Barbara K. Iverson)
• Top 5 tools for the entrepreneurial journalist (Dan Pacheco)
• A change agent’s top 5 tools for social change (Allyson Kapin)
• A developer’s 5 favorite social tools (Nathan Freitas)
• 6 productivity tools for social change (Katrina Heppler)
• Complete guide to creating a video project (Tim Davies)

Related

• Making media: Tools & resources for nonprofits and social change organizations (Socialbrite)
• 10 top collaboration tools for your organization
• The Socialbrite Sharing Center
• Directory of cause organizations (Socialbrite)

The post 10 top tools for cause campaigns appeared first on Socialbrite.

PopVox: Get through to Congress from JD Lasica on Vimeo.

Online service offers easy way to contact members of Congress on behalf of a cause

Target audience: Nonprofits, foundations, NGOs, social enterprises, cause organizations, businesses, Web publishers, educators, journalists, general public.

One of our matras here at Socialbrite is that online actions only matter if they make a difference in the real world. So we spend a lot of time working with online advocacy organizations to assess the impact they make with their legislative or fundraising campaigns.

One of the most effective tools to come along in recent years is PopVox, an online service that individuals and advocacy organizations can use to contact members of Congress on behalf of a cause.

With Congress returning from spring break today — with votes planned on the Buffett rule, gun bills and cybersecurity — it’s a good time to focus on what works, and doesn’t work, on Capitol Hill.

Marci Harris, founder and CEO of PopVox, founded the nonpartisan service based on her knowledge of how Congressional staffers interact with the public. As a former Congressional staffer, Marci said, “I was really frusteated with the way that information was coming into Congress.” She began keeping a long list of the ways that public input into legislation could be improved — and finally decided to do something about it herself.

Watch, embed or download the video on Vimeo

The most effective way to contact Congress

Being on the receiving end of the funnel, Marci said, “I have to tell you it’s too much. No staffer can possibly read every line that comes into a Congressional office.”

Professional advocates are good at mobilizing support for or against a particular bill. On the other hand, Marci said, “Grassroots advocacy is genuine and heartfelt and reflects the needs of real people across the country, but the asks that come in from people who are self-organizing are really unfocused — you know, save the environment, balance the budget, save the whales.” Congresspeople and their staffs can do little with such overtures.

“PopVox funnels these voices into very specific asks,” she said. On the site, a visitor has to choose a bill on a certain topic and support or oppose it as a first step. The site then works each day to make sure voters’ messages are delivered through something called Congressional Web forms. (There are about 541 different Congressional Web forms — a pipeline directly into Congress members’ offices.)

While an in-person visit or phone call from a constituent is still the best way to influence a member of Congress, that’s not always practicable. “Personalized messages are much better received than form letters or emails. Lowest on the list are form faxes — you might as well just throw those away.” Staffers don’t read those, she said.

Transparency is part of the PopVox formula. When you use the service, the public and news media can see the comments you send to members, “so it’s not just disappearing into the black box of a Congressional office,” she said. Citizens and advocates also have the option to share their cause, plea or rant via Facebook, Twitter and across the social Web.

A subscription-based version of PopVox gives advocacy organizations access to analytics and a rich dashboard. But for most social cause groups, the free version will do just fine.

A production note: Glitch in Adobe Premiere Elements 10

A production note: I recently bought Adobe Premiere Elements 10 and spent several weeks trying to produce this video. What I liked:

• The easy-to-use interface made it easy to add image stabilization (I didn’t bring a tripod), color correction and a brighter hue.

• But: the audio was out of sync, and a bug in Elements 10 on my Mac Pro prevented me from fixing this. So while it looked better, the out-of-sync audio ultimately forced me to scrap it after weeks of trying. And back to Final Cut Express I went.

Related

• Gov 2.0 resources: A directory from Socialbrite

The post PopVox: How to advocate your cause in Congress appeared first on Socialbrite.