Advocacy

No matter the size of your nonprofit, advocacy campaign testing should be a key component of everything you do digitally. Testing allows you to find out which tactic, message, strategy, etc., is the most effective in accomplishing your goal. Instead of relying on a hunch of what the best thing to do is—which we are often wrong about—tests allow us to find what really works.

Get ready, I’m about to crack advocacy budgets wide open (pun intended, and it won’t be the last). I know you’re on the edge of your seats, but this is really no chicken and the egg conundrum I’m about to solve for you. When you’re looking to develop an advocacy program, your budget should always come first. This may seem counterintuitive when you begin talking to consultants (like you’re tipping your hand and about to get taken for a ride), but it’s really important for a few reasons:

Advocacy mail does not always get the credit it deserves. Part I of this post takes you through the basics of putting together a letter package for your advocacy mail campaign. Part II walks you through making the most of a letter package that includes a reply device (buckle up!).

Advocacy campaign testimonials have a unique ability to highlight the human impact of your issue. By recruiting community members who have been directly affected by your issue to share their stories, you can make the seemingly arbitrary stakes of policy decisions more tangible for people.

Sure, we’ve all seen an engaging advocacy video online and we know how effective can be in leveraging support. It’s an effective advocacy tactic that can help bring more engagement around your issue. But what can a smaller nonprofit with an even smaller budget do to create an online video that will really stand out? The great news is that developing an engaging video for advocacy doesn’t need to be hard or expensive. In fact, you can even create a strong video for your advocacy organization from your iPhone. All you really need is a good story to tell.

The art of crafting a well-integrated advocacy strategy is akin to making a great book-to-film adaptation. When you find out a book you love will be made into a movie, you hope the story, characters, and message won’t be lost in translation across mediums. A good adaptation will capture the theme and boil the plotline down to its most important elements—after all, few among us have time to catch a twelve-hour movie (though I personally would be on board with a marathon re-cut of The Shining).

I have yet to encounter a client that doesn’t need to grow its advocate and/or donor bases, and letter packages are here to help! (Yep, I’m shouting about letter packages.)  advocacy mail letter packages are not the answer to every advocacy campaign’s needs, but in the world of direct mail, they can pack a pretty great one-two punch. They are statistically proven to be effective (people open them), and they can be formatted with a reply device, so you can actually list build with them.

Everyone has a story to tell. For politicians, advocates, and change makers, how you tell your story is essential. A great way to do this is through writing a book about your life. Every major politician of the last few decades has penned an autobiography, telling their story of how they achieved the American Dream. Political advocacy books include how the writer grew to overcome obstacles and persevere to make the world a better place.