June 24, 2009

Using Blogs To Back Winners

NARAL Pro-Choice America started its blog during the 2004 election cycle to talk to constituents about pro-choice issues related to the races. The Washington, D.C.-based organization maintained its blog for the 2008 elections, with nearly 150 posts on reproductive choices and candidate positions, and expanded its political outreach by talking to supporters – and did a bit of listening.

“What we know about folks out there is that it’s empowering them. It’s the percolate up and not the tricking down of a nonprofit’s work,” said Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL.

The organization decided to amp up the communications with supporters by creating a NARAL presence on sites like Facebook and MySpace in addition to a micro-site, MyFreeWillPower.com, aimed at the 18 to 34 year-old demographic. “It’s connecting with people how they are communicating with friends, family and colleagues. We can educate them on an issue but then it goes viral and goes out to their networks as well,” said Keenan.

And the two-way communication seemed to work for the organization’s “protect and elect” strategy, which encouraged voters to keep pro-choice Congressional candidates and elect even more, according to Keenan. In a National Journal survey of 21 interest groups that supported congressional races deemed competitive by The Cook Political Report, NARAL-backed candidates won all three of the supported Senate races and 14 out of 19 supported House races. “We educate [supporters], but we also mobilize them,” said Keenan.

Interest groups that tackled political races in 2008, from presidential to congressional, said ongoing, quality communication with constituents was pivotal to their successes. Human Rights Campaign (HRC), which promotes for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equal rights, updated constituents as much as possible and HRC-supported candidates won all five Senate spots and 22 out of 32 House slots classified as competitive by the Cook Report.

“For us it’s a matter of right or wrong or who is good on our issues, which candidate is going to stand up for equality and which candidate is going to stand up against discrimination and for fighting rights for gay people,” said Dane Grams, HRC online strategy director. Grams explained that in addition to national newsletters, the organization sent some newsletters to specific states that had gay-rights ballot initiatives, like California, and included a list of HRC-endorsed candidates, election party sign-ups and a donation link.

The emails also detailed on-the-ground operation updates and polling information, making it as easy as possible for supporters to vote. “We gave people a lot of information in these ‘get out and vote’ emails. It wasn’t just ‘go and vote.’ It was very specific – more so than we have been in the past,” said Grams. Although ballot initiatives HRC opposed ended up passing in Arkansas, Arizona, Florida and California, the organization raised more than $4 million through state political action committees to work on the state level, including $3.4 million to combat California’s Proposition 8, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman in the state constitution.

“Fortunately for us, over the past five years or so we’ve built a file of almost 900,000 people and we are now able to communicate with those folks on a regular basis and those are our grassroots activists. Those are the people who we can turn to, to take action and reach out to get out to vote,” said Grams. “I think it’s critical for any political organization begin to build a file and understand who those folks are and what motivates them. Then communicate with them effectively, but not over-communicate with them. And as this world is changing faster and faster, try to keep up with the new technologies and try new things.”

It’s really about sending the campaign to the grassroots. “It’s no longer completely a top-driven campaign. You are really leveraging your supporters to do a lot of the work for you,” said Vinay Bhagat, Convio founder and chief strategy officer. Online may be redefining what grassroots campaigns mean. While some grassroots supporters will take part in an organization’s walks or bike rides, some online grassroots supporters will become a fan of an organization’s Facebook page or post a fundraising widget to a personal blog.

Bhagat explained to run successful campaigns nonprofits need a nimbleness to react to emerging technologies and continue to personalize messages. “More savvy groups are starting to realize they need to treat a new constituent differently and go through a welcome series,” he said. “They are no longer blasting a one-size-fits-all message to all constituents. They have become very thoughtful about how they communicate with different audiences and segment for maximum effect.”

“People come based on their own life experiences,” said Keenan about the NARAL constituency, and those personal familiarities with reproductive issues shape what they want to focus on with the organization. The audience ranges from young adults worried about the price and access to birth control, to parents concerned about quality of sexual education in schools to a generation that saw Roe vs. Wade first upheld in the United States Supreme Court, according to Keenan, and those varied perspectives need to be addressed by the organization.

Creating the MyFreeWillPower micro-site allowed a younger demographic to get involved with the organization, with petitions, personal declarations and even a T-shirt context. “If you look at the NARAL traditional Web site that might not be something [the 18 to 22 demographic] find particularly enticing. It’s not their generation, in a way. But the micro-site provides an opportunity for them to decide. It becomes theirs, even though we host it. It’s a way for young people to express what their view of what it is to be pro-choice versus what our view is,” she said. “This is a generation who are empowered to lead themselves and see that. They don’t depend on having a position of authority to lead. And I find that extraordinarily exciting because I think they are going to stay involved.”

According to Kristin Koch, NARAL’s deputy director of communications for online strategies, “If they have a passion and they don’t find the organization quickly that meets their needs, they are going to create their own Facebook group or go beyond that.”

Koch said based on the organization’s experience, NARAL will continue to use a variety of online communication methods, like Twitter, and will try to refine those practices. NARAL experimented with posting videos She also said while most organizations can anticipate open and response rates for email, comparable to metrics for direct mail, other technologies such as Twitter and social network sites are harder to quantify -- but are still important to implement in an overall strategy.

“A lot of young people really don’t even use email that much anymore. They contact their friends over Facebook or text messaging. So for us, having easy to understand information in all those venues is key. And we also try to provide different levels of opportunity. So if you don’t have a lot of time and all you can do is read a status update saying ‘vote tomorrow’ – that’s fine. If you want to get involved on a deeper level, we do provide that,” said Koch.

Bhagat explained that most organizations, which still make a majority of their fundraising revenue through direct mail, should recognize that a compelling Web site might make a difference. “In our research, a lot of first time or direct mail donors will go to the Web site to consider making a contribution through any channel,” he said. Organizations should focus on coordinating their direct mail with their Website and email program, he said, before moving into the mobile communication realm.

“When we think about the future generations, the Gen Yers, that’s when text messaging and social media really become important.” Bhagat said some Gen Yers are “inaccessible” via email and rely more on text messaging and social networks to connect with friends and family, and that measures should be explored for those communication channels in the near future. “We really haven’t necessarily established protocol for what people find acceptable or not right now, but with the appropriate permission structure in place, I believe that for Gen Y mobile and social media strategies are going to be very important.”

HRC and NARAL have already dabbled in text messaging. Keenan said NARAL sent out nearly 36,000 text messages during the campaign. HRC sent more than 30,000 text messages on Election Day reminding people to vote, which the organization keeps those numbers filed within the HRC Mobile Action Network for breaking new and action alerts unless subscribers decide to opt-out.

“Unlike email addresses, mobile phone numbers are now staying with people for their lifetime. People tend to have only one mobile phone number at a time, as opposed to multiple email addresses, so communicating with someone on their phone can be really effective,” said Grams.

Koch recommended staff involved with a nonprofit’s online strategy to sign up for as many email lists and Facebook groups as possible. “Participate in other organizations and really keep an eye on someone else who is doing something exciting that you might want to emulate. You really learn from each other all the time,” she said.

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This article is from NPT TechnoBuzz, a publication of The NonProfit Times.

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