Tips, tools and ideas for grassroots campaigning and organizing.

Contents

[edit] Organization/Groups

  • Biggest thing I took away from powershift: Assign people roles, not tasks. Then they are committed.

[edit] Misc

  • Don't say "I'm here to help you if you need anything." Always offer specifics: "I can give you trainings, I can connect you to experts in XYZ realm, I can help you facilitate meetings, I can help you write a campaign plan with the matrix"
  • Online Organizing - Great ideas on the challenges/benefits of traditional vs online organizing.

[edit] Safe Space Ideas

The idea of safe space is to set up a list of things that make people feel comfortable. These are not rules, but they are things that everyone in the group should know about. They can contradict one another because they are just things that everyone should know about.

  • Be raggedy
  • Be on the edge of your comfort zone - That is where you learn the most
  • (maybe) Ask directed question instead of asking questions to the group. Even if it feels weird, it helps get the discussion going.

[edit] Groups Tips

  • At SPROG we had a "warm fuzzies" table where you write notes to other people. At OSU, they have a permanent warm fuzzies board where people can write notes to each other. Brilliant!!!!!

[edit] Recruitment

  • Three reasons people join a group
    • Interest - Because they are passionate about the topic
    • Professional development - Something for their resume
    • Social - Hanging out

[edit] Brainstorming/Visioning Session

  • Vision
    • Break into 2-4 person groups
    • In your group, write down vision for group/conference on separate pieces of paper. Short term. Long term. Specific goals, nothing too vague.
    • Pick two of the things from your small group and put them on a wall in front of large group.
    • As a large group, sort them into groups based on similarity. Make those groups into "columns"
    • Make another call for your small group to add anything that hasn't been put up there anywhere.
    • Ask the groups to talk for 3 minutes about which thing on the board they are most interested in.
    • Give the "columns" as a whole back to groups that are interested in each group.
    • The groups can talk about the strategy of how to accomplish that goal.
    • Place strategy under the goals column. Talk about your strategy afterwards.
    • Then move on to tactics.
    • Figure out timeline based on that information.
    • Figure out next steps immediately to get rolling on timeline

[edit] Facilitating

  • When you need to do some aggressive facilitating (cutting someone off or changing the subject) it helps to start all of your statements with "as the facilitator".
  • When having a decision-oriented meeting with a lot of proposals and voting, this is a good format to follow
    • Proposal is made
    • Clarifying questions are taken (be very strict about the difference between an opinion and a clarifying question)
    • Ask if there is any dissent to the proposal
    • Among those who dissent, ask if anyone has an amendment to make that would allow them to vote yes for the proposal
    • If the presenter likes the amendment, it is accepted.
    • A vote is then taken

[edit] Campaigning


[edit] Resource Docs

[edit] Web Design

[edit] Media & Messaging

[edit] Email Blasts

  • Emails should have short to the point paragraphs and the appearance very quickly of the first link
  • Emails receive the best open and click through rates when sent in the middle of the week, in fact fridays other than weekends are the worst - statistically
  • The most important part of an email is the subject line. The subject line needs to really grab people and make them want to open the email, and then the first sentence is the second most important
  • You should never point people to a one and done action. I'd recommend embedding the google form sign up inside your website - I can help you with this - and in the confirmation pop up pointing them to another page in the website to learn more or take another action.

[edit] Tactics

  • Letters to the Editor (LTEs)
    • These are the most effective way to reach your senators/reps. Especially if you can get it in the state/hometown newspaper.

[edit] Wisdom/Tips

  • Strategy and Tactics
    • In latin, a tacticum is a soldier. The strategy is the general who sits on top of the hill and observes the whole battlefield. The tactic is the soldier who executes that.
    • Jenny: The strategy is how your tactics fit together and relate. If you decide your tactics without a strategy, they won't fit will together and there will be too much tension for them to be executed perfectly.
    • If their strategy changes based on whatever or whoever is in front of them, there is no strategy. - Rands Source

[edit] Videos

[edit] Action Examples

[edit] Other Inspiring Videos

[edit] Other Climate videos

[edit] Power Shift 2009


[edit] COP15

[edit] News

[edit] Historic Moments in Youth Climate Movement

[edit] Actions


[edit] Tools


[edit] Group Communication/Collaboration/Task Tools

Hosted:

Self-hosted:

Paid:

Other:

[edit] Meeting tools (notes and scheduling)

[edit] Websites

  • Weebly - Free place to create a public-facing website for your group.
  • Google Sites - Great for an internal "wiki" for your project. Not great as a public website.

[edit] Mailing Lists

  • RiseUp.net - Provides large mailing list hosting? Maybe Google Groups would still be better, but this lets you add people manually.
  • MailChimp - Large free mailing list hosting.

[edit] Conference Calls

  • Free Conference Call - Most popular. Let's you mute everyone with * 5 if you call in as "call host". Same as normal access code, but with a * at the end instead of a #. Instructions Even though it assigns you an access code, you can really just make them up. You won't get a call summary afterward, but you can spell things out that are easy to remember.
  • Go Conference Call - Same options for muting/unmuting all. Also lets you have a web dashboard of who is muted/on hold and who is on the call.
  • No Cost Conference - Allows you to mute individual people on the call if you enter the "moderate" code. No "mute all" button. Not a great level of control
  • Free Conference - Decent controls. Forces you to record your name and it announces it when you arrive or leave. Good and bad at the same time.


[edit] Survey/Poll

  • Doodle
  • QuestionPro - Free survey tool with great options for range voting. Allows tons of responses.
  • SurveyMonkey
  • Poll Everywhere
    1. Ask your audience a question
    2. They answer using SMS text messages, Twitter, or the web (try voting!)
    3. Results update live in your web browser or PowerPoint

[edit] Twitter

One of my favorite tactics. Get your supports to text "follow TwitterUserName" to 40404. Bam! Instant text loop to keep everyone updated!

  • Tatango - Create a real text loop! Unlimited number of people and texts. Minor ads
  • TxtSignal - Same as above but costs money. Possibly better if you have the money!
  • Act.ly - Social change with twitter petitions and events.
  • Every tool ever for PR 2.0
  • HootSuite
  • Tweet Later - Let's you automate many twitter tasks. Like sending thank you notes to new followers, etc.
  • SocialToo - Another service for autofollowing people.
  • Twitter Mail - Let's you send picture messages to an email address and update multiple twitter accounts from one phone!
  • Email Twitter - Same as above, but different. :)
  • GroupTweet - Let's multiple users update one account. Alternative to Twitter Mail. Takes any direct message sent to it (on an authorized list) and retweets it!
  • ReTweetBot - (Account must be approved). Let's multiple people send direct messages that the bot retweets.
  • TwittBot
  • http://twitterfeed.com/ - Can be used to let create 2+ accounts and let one person update each of those accounts. Twitter feed can then merge the 2nd account into the first.
  • HOWTO: Build a twitter community
  • Twollow - Follow people who use certain keywords (like your @username)
  • ReTweetRadar - Nifty tool to show popular twitter trends

[edit] Mass/Group Text Messaging

  • Tatango - Great service. Gotten worse over time. A little spendy new. Allows group import
  • TxtSignal - Decent. Fairly cheap. Only works if you know what carrier the person is on because it sends email texts to all the people.
  • Penny SMS - Doesn't seem to be functioning anymore ----- Awesome! You can send messages form an email or using an API. Pay as you go.
  • TextMarks - Unlimited free ad-supported texts. Totally opt-in, though.

[edit] Fundraising

  • Photo Donations
    • Get donated photos. Display them for 2-3 days. Take donations of $20 each.
    • 8.5 x 11 is a good size.
    • Never sell the last photo until it's almost over. Have 2-6 copies of each. If you are down to the last photo, ask the person if you can take their money and deliver it to them when you have time to print more. If they say no, don't worry! Having the photo up will likely attract a couple more people who are willing to accept a delivery instead of it being instant. More overall sales that way! You can also deliver it in person and get the money then!
    • (note: Contact Marshall McFarland for ideas on how he did it for their event).

[edit] Trainings

[edit] Personal Planning

Everyone always thinks this is going to be the lamest training.

Way to improve it:

  • Needs a new name
  • Need to address the fact that most organizers leave their "old friends" behind and get really REALLY busy with organizing. Saving the world always comes before self care. Especially when some of the people you care about aren't involved in organizing, it's really hard to make time to see them.
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