Advocacy

Advocacy strategies have changed a lot over the last 20 years. When I was a chief of staff in the New York State Legislature, I don't remember there ever being a real advocacy campaign around public support of an issue that focused on legislators. The main way groups moved legislation was to hire a lobbyist and that was really it.

Running a non-profit is not easy. but your non-profit board can help your organization go from drab to fab. Fully utilizing your non-profit board can make the difference between a sluggish or vibrant organization. Here are some tips to up your board's performance and give them a meaningful experience.

We understand what it’s like to operate a campaign on a tight budget, so we’ve found some free tools to include in your campaign toolbox to help you along the way.  We hope you will find them useful as you launch your campaign or look for ways to better organize it. to ve clear no campaign tool will solve all of your campaigns problems.  Whether fundraising for a nonprofit, managing an independent expenditure campaign, or seeking office, a few of these tools will surely help you along your way.

Recently Facebook launched cross-device reporting for Facebook ads, which will help in measuring conversions of all of an individual's devices. We have grown beyond just using desktops. Now folks are using multiple devices and advertisers and publisher are adjusting to connect with consumers.

Last week we released our first ebook: Political Direct Mail In The Digital Age. The book explains why with all the technology we have, political direct mail in the digital age is still relevant. We explain how you should decide on direct mail and targeted communications strategies for political and advocacy campaigns. We also discuss the cost of direct mail, micro-targeting strategies and how to use direct mail for GOTV.

Advocacy campaigns get inspired by GOTV.  Get Out The Vote, has come a long way. A good GOTV program can give a political campaign a big lift and those tactics are now being used for advocacy. you can read more about GOTV techniques here and here. GOTV techniques have transcended their former use as “valued election tools”, and are now the core component of modern GOTV Tactics.

Advocacy and fundraising don't always mix but when they do it can be magic for an organization. I have written over the past year about the difficulty of getting true engagement for nonprofit advocacy groups. The ice bucket challenge has done an amazing job of engaging people who have not participated in advocacy in a long time as well as getting folks who had done some advocacy work but never for ALS.

Last week, The Campaign Workshop hosted a interview training event for Code for Progress at our office that included a stellar cast of entrepreneurs, TCW staff, and an amazing group of fellows that are about to take the job market by storm.

These days, everyone is online. And if your nonprofit isn’t online, it should be! It’s easy, cheap and one of the best ways to stay engaged with your supporters. Here are five things we think every nonprofit should be doing online.

Over the last two Presidential election cycles, the Obama campaign has done some really innovative work online. There has been a lot of discussion in the progressive community about how other campaigns and organizations can take some of these tactics and apply them to their own causes.