Choosing Between Digital and Boots-On-The-Ground Advocacy
This post comes from Helen Anne Travis at CQ Roll Call. In addition to providing news, scheduling, and legislative tracking solutions, CQ Roll Call also offers advocacy tools to grow, manage, and increase engagement among memberships. We asked Helen to tell us about digital advocacy and explain how CRM-integrated apps like CQ Roll Call can help.
Since its founding in 1968, the Center for Community Change has seen advocacy communication tools evolve from typewriters and telephones to text messages and Twitter updates. As technology has changed, so has the Center’s engagement strategy. What started as a boots-on-the-ground campaign to fight for the rights of low-income people has grown into a multi-platform mission with millions of active advocates who engage remotely. While it still maintains a strong brick and mortar presence, some of the Center’s most recent initiatives take place in a purely digital space.
We caught up with Emilia Gutierrez, the Center’s Director of Digital Strategy, to chat about the differences between on-the-ground and digital advocacy, and how combining the two enables organizations to make the greatest impact.
Digital Benefits and Challenges
In 2009, the Center’s sister organization, the Center for Community Change Action, started RI4A: Reform Immigration For America. The advocacy campaign exists wholly online and has a base of nearly two million social media followers and email/SMS text subscribers. Like any digital initiative, the beauty of the program is that anyone can participate, even if their state isn’t a hotbed for immigration issues. No need to drive hours to the closest rally; advocates can use their computer or phone to drive results.
Over the past six years, this online-only campaign has driven millions of contacts to Congress, the White House, corporate targets, and state and local representatives. Lately, contacts are much more likely to hear about a campaign on Facebook or Twitter than to see a flyer, get a mailer, or drive by a protest.
“With online organizing tools you’re able to reach a larger and more diverse community,” said Gutierrez. “You have greater access.”
But it’s not all sunshine and daisy emojis. Digital campaigns have their challenges. Interactions can feel impersonal and advocates often work in isolation. How do you make a supporter who signs an email petition feel the same sense of community and satisfaction as someone who attends a rally on the White House lawn?
“Digital organizers have to work a little harder to make sure people feel the impact of their actions and feel like they're part of a bigger movement,” said Gutierrez.
To accomplish this, the Center shares stories about the people directly affected by advocates’ work. Organizers use webinars and Twitter chats to bring everyone together under the same digital roof. Individual volunteers are recognized on social media to create a sense of community.
Determining How To Spend Your Time
For organizations trying to figure out whether to devote time and energy to digital or ground game advocacy, Gutierrez’s advice is to do both. Check out our post on tips for engaging your community to build effective advocacy.
While RI4A is entirely digital, much of its success comes from its collaboration with the Center’s offline initiatives. Protests, informational sessions and community meetings – all very much on-the-ground efforts – are all promoted online. If one of the Center’s partners is having a rally in California, the center promotes the event to local advocates by using its online tools to send emails and SMS texts. As technology is employed to scale fundraising and advocacy impact for many nonprofits, and the connection between strong technical presence and support and the ability to reach a broad audience and effect major change is glaring.
Gutierrez said there is a common misconception that the people who sign an online petition are somehow different from those who lace up their sneakers and walk around with a clipboard on a Saturday morning. Part of her job is bringing people into the fold and driving them up the ladder of engagement.
“Someone may come to us as an online petition signer and leave ten years later as the local leader in their home state,” she said. “I encourage people to remember that digital tools and digital platforms are only one tactic for organizing. When combined with grassroots organizing and long term vision, the potential is incredibly vast. It’s very much a dual strategy.”
Want more tips for making an impact? Watch our webinar with CQ Roll Call to learn more tips for simplifying advocacy and taking engagement to the next level.
