K Street Cafe

I’m Maddie Grant, an association/nonprofit industry blogger on social media and online community building. I’m very happy to have been invited to be a regular poster on K Street Cafe.

This is my first post here, so I’m still getting the lay of the land as to what kinds of topics will interest K Street readers. I am an avid blog reader and definitely consider myself a “content curator”; Here’s the kind of stuff I read and write about on my blog.

So I thought I’d do two things. First, I want point you to a few PR/Public Affairs/Advocacy related blog posts I’ve found very interesting recently – and ask you to tell me if these float your boat or not. Check ‘em out.

(more…)

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.

The Use of the Internet in Advocacy Campaigns (C-SPAN)
Alan Rosenblatt, Associate Director of Online Advocacy at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, discusses the many uses of the Internet for advocacy campaigns in his online video.

The Politics of Twittering – in India (The Stump)
One blogger gives his take on the impact of social media in developing democracies around the world.

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.

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…)

The K Street Café editors posited this thoughtful question to its contributors this week: How should advocacy organizations adapt to stay relevant in the changing paradigm of constituent engagement with Congress and the Administration that largely removes the need for any sort of intermediary presence?

The idea behind the question is that the government becomes SO transparent and easy to interact with that professional associations, nonprofits, and (gasp!) advocacy vendors become obsolete. My reaction is three-fold: 1) Add value to the raw data of government; 2) Provide expertise for interacting with government online; 3) Continue to use the aggregate power inherent in organizing.

(more…)

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about the change in online communication habits from email to Social Media, suggesting that communicating via social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter could some day replace more traditional email communication as the method of choice for activists.

Many of the follow up comments I received after the post went something along this line: Excellent – I agree, but how can I convince the ‘higher-ups’ in my organization that we need to use these new tools?

At the most recent Innovative Advocacy conference, two attendees asked one of the panelists similar questions:

How can I convince my Executive Director that we should include Facebook in our advocacy strategy when he or she thinks it’s simply a fad for their high school kids? And, how can I get approval for a policy blog when the general counsel’s office is nervous about not having control over what the public can write in the comments section? (more…)

Mobilizing online activists is the bread and butter of many advocacy organizations. But successful campaigns need to go beyond signing petitions and sending emails to policymakers. Yes, these remain important elements to any campaign, but it is equally important to use the internet as a persuasion vehicle. While campaigns are driving activists to take action, they should also be working to spread the message of the campaign across the web.

One way to achieve this is to incorporate a fundraising appeal specifically designed to raise money to run online ads for the campaign. Online ads are not only affordable, but they can also be very effective at persuasion and shaping the language of a policy debate.

We have been using this approach recently at the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Our two current campaigns, How Did This Happen?, a campaign to educate the public about how conservative policies and ideology are the root cause of the current financial crisis (HowDidThisHappen.org), and the Golden Pledge to protect Social Security from privatization (GoldenPledge.org) each supplement an action request with a fundraising appeal to help run online ads promoting the campaign’s message (see the ad images below).

While funds raised in this manner may be modest for some campaigns, it doesn’t take much to make a difference. For example, running the ads on blogs, rather than major media sites, can be very cost effective. For each $1,500 raised, an ad can be served nearly a million times. That is enough exposure to reach tens, if not hundreds of thousands, of new eyeballs; people who are not already on your email list.

And if you build a tell-a-friend feature into the campaign, so that anyone taking action or donating funds on your website is prompted to send the link around, you have the potential to reach even more people.

Crossposted on Mediafuturenow.com.

Twitter is not a broadcasting medium.  Much has been written about Twitter as the first “true” realization of the power of real-time social media.  Twitter is an advocacy medium.  Just ask Shaun Dakin.

Dakin is a former FedEx executive and, among other things, a big Twitter advocate.  He’s done something kind of amazing.  Dakin is CEO and founder of The National Political Do Not Contact Registry, a campaign to restrict “robo” calling and other less automated telephone calls for political and advocacy campaigns.

Perhaps not a particularly glamorous grassroots campaign, the Registry is exactly the kind of political “process” campaign that seeks to better participatory democracy in this country.  It’s the nuts and bolts of the workings of elections and advocacy campaigns, and it is worth both the attention of political professionals and (for our purposes) good study by the media and technology communities.  It is effective. (more…)