K Street Cafe

I was inspired by Amanda Phraner’s post, Foursquare for Advocacy. I have been using Foursquare for nearly a year now and love it (in fact I am the Mayor of Toscana West on I St, NW, DC between 13th and 14th… great place for lunch in the bar).

The idea of using Foursquare for advocacy makes a lot of sense, taking the flash mob notion to another level. Because Foursquare lets you post the address where you are and a brief comment, it is a great way to tell the world about demonstrations, events, and other activist activities you want people to join.

This has great potential, and it doesn’t matter that there are only 1 million Foursquare users, which is rather a lot, anyway. Not only is Foursquare mobile, allowing you to check in from anywhere, but it can post your check-in message and address to Twitter and Facebook. This immediately reaches out to all of your followers and friends and taps into the viral potential we all know and love.

(more…)

From Stephanie Vance, Advocacy Guru:

I want to let you know about an important upcoming event that may have the potential to change how you conduct citizen-based advocacy campaigns. On Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 from 8:30am to 12:30pm, George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management will be hosting a forum on the ethics of grassroots. In light of recent advocacy-related events, including the sending of fake “grassroots” letters to Capitol Hill, angry citizens yelling at members of Congress during town hall meetings, and policy persuasion campaigns based on inaccurate or misleading information, this forum will address the question “is it time to consider an ethical code of conduct for grassroots advocacy practitioners?” As one of the organizers of the event, I can tell you that we want and need your opinions on this topic. You can view a draft code of ethics at the registration site, which is www.gspm.org/ethics. Attendees will have an opportunity to review the proposed code and share their views before, during and after the forum — as long as you do it nicely with no yelling .

Among the sponsors are ASAE, the Public Affairs Council, Women in Government Relations, the American Association of Political Consultants, the Congressional Management Foundation and a host of others. Speakers include Dave Wenhold of the American League of Lobbyists, Brooks Jackson of factcheck.org and Frank Sesno of the GW School of Media and Public Affairs. In addition to an interesting topic discussion, this event will offer government relations practitioners the opportunity to network with others in the field and get up to speed on the latest developments in the field of grassroots.

Anyone involved in the practice of grassroots advocacy should plan to attend this event. It is free and open to the public and will be held at the Jack Morton Auditorium at 805 21st Street NW in Washington, DC. Again, there is more information at www.gspm.org/ethics.

We hope this will prove to be a groundbreaking conversation and we sincerely hope you’ll be a part of it.

This morning at the Public Affairs Council’s National Grassroots Conference, former Member of Congress J. C. Watts spoke on what makes an effective grassroots advocacy strategy. Obviously, every Member of Congress has their own unique perspective, but it was helpful to hear from someone on the “inside” who advocacy organizations are trying to influence.

One interesting point Watts made was that he and his staff took notice of the volume of communications from constituents on any given issue:

“When I ask my staff, ‘Have we heard from constituents about an issue?’ and they say that we have received 47 calls, that does not impress me. But, if we receive 547 calls, then everyone sits up and takes notice. I think there must be something legitimate going on. We need to take notice.”

And then later, during a question and answer period he said:

“When the staff tells me we received 721 communications on an issue it makes me say, ‘Something is going on here – we need to find out more and take notice.’ ”

Watts then outlined some tips for Grassroots practitioners who are trying to influence Congress. He spoke about the good, the bad and the ugly:

(more…)

I recently gave a lecture at American University’s Public Affairs and Advocacy Institute on how to use social media and other online strategies for advocacy. You can watch it here.

It took a recession, but resumes finally are receiving renewed scrutiny. The ability to embellish and obscure shrinks when one out of every six workers is under or unemployed. More than ever, recruiters want to see accomplishments, not responsibilities; numbers, not adverbs. (more…)

In case you missed it, the Hill ran my column “Promoting a Cause Through YouTube,” about the State Department’s use of social media as a powerful diplomacy tool used to promote democracy around the world.

Much can be learned by studying State’s Democracy Video Challenge user generated content campaign.  Launched last year, the Video Challenge invites citizens worldwide to submit videos completing the phrase “Democracy is…”  The campaign had more than 900 video submissions and was successful in engaging the public through social media.

The Democracy Video Challenge provides many good lessons for advocacy organizations trying to recruit and mobilize supporters both here and around the world.

A question came up about the new media activities of 501c3 organizations hosting social media platforms for the public (Thank you to Debbie Miller for her assistance with this research):

Question: Can a 501c3 private foundation or public charity put its tax-exempt status at risk by hosting a social media platform?  Specifically, could the advocacy and electioneering activities of individuals and groups using that social media platform be treated as the direct action – or facilitation of direct action – by that foundation of activities inconsistent with its tax exempt 501(c)(3) status?

(more…)

Today YouTube announced the official launch of YouTube DIRECT, a tool that allows organizations to collect, moderate and then display videos from users directly on their organization’s web site or an associated YouTube channel. The stated intention of the tool is to allow news organizations to develop an array of user-generated stringers who can upload video reports and commentary to a news web site while maintaining the news site’s editorial control. (At the time of writing it was not 100% clear whether the tool was limited to official news services only – let’s hope not).

But let’s think outside of the box here. Why limit this to news organizations? Could you image what a forward thinking non-profit or advocacy group could do with this kind of technology? (more…)

Yesterday, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Communication Center hosted a panel discussion on calculating your ROI for social media campaigns. I was fortunate to join three terrific panelists presenting at the event including Adam Conner from Facebook, Laura Howe from the American Red Cross, and Paul Argenti, a Professor from Dartmouth. (more…)

Over recent months, more and more advocacy organizations have started capturing testimonial footage from their constituents and producing short feature videos highlighting priority advocacy issues. Videos can be a powerful tool to deliver highly personalized messages to the Hill and can be easily leveraged through YouTube, Facebook and other social media sites to virally generate attention for a cause.

One recent example is from the American Academy of Dermatology who just launched a moving video about their Camp Discovery program for children with severe and chronic skin diseases. Please take 5 minutes to watch the video. Click here. (more…)