12 Things To Do for Your Association's Grassroots Success
By Amy Showalter and Elizabeth Welsh
We've all been there: it's 2:00 p.m. on a Tuesday afternoon and you got word that your bill is up for a committee or floor vote in 48 hours. You are frantically getting your grassroots mobilized, posting your online content, trying to find out if you have any members who have a personal relationship with key lawmakers, and wondering what you are forgetting. Unfortunately, this is what many government relations executives use as their recruiting strategy. But, it's obviously the worst time to engage in grassroots recruitment. Why does it persist? Because we don't think ahead. It's best to have a strategy in place long before your bills come up for consideration.
While most associations and not-for-profits don't have an off season, we can learn from what do sports coaches do in their down time: They look back at the past season, plot improvements for the next year, recruit, try out, and train new team members. Off season is not the time for R&R, but E&R (evaluation and recalibration). What worked? What didn't? What are your patterns of success and failure?
Liz Welsh recalls, "I'll never forget that Friday afternoon when I got a frantic call at about four in the afternoon because an organization just found out that their worker's comp bill was coming up on Monday, and it had a provision that they just couldn't live with. We had to start from scratch, identify the largest employers in each committee member's district, reach the C-levels in those companies over the weekend to tell them what was going on, elicit their support and have them contact their legislators with a plea to kill the bill unless they removed the undesirable provision, all before Monday. While we were successful, you can bet that was an expensive endeavor that could have been avoided. By building that database and communicating with those high-ups ahead of time, pulling the trigger on the spur of the moment (or at 4:00 on a Friday afternoon) would have been a more manageable and more cost effective process."
Here is our top 12 list on what you should be doing now to reduce your stress, improve efficiency, and have better results with your grassroots activations.
Mind the patterns. Which legislative districts are most responsive? Do you know why? Review all e-mail open rates, click throughs, forwards, and page visits. You probably do this after each grassroots mobilization campaign, but look at the broader pattern and build on what's working. Review all of your metrics. How many individuals did you have to touch to find one advocate? How many advocates did you have to call to action to produce one meaningful communication?
Talk to your true believers. Survey your regular responders. What do they find compelling about your calls to action? What are their recommendations for getting more responses? Do this in a methodical way in order to produce meaningful response data that can be incorporated into your strategy to improve your results.
Build the team. The e-mail-as-panacea crowd has now realized that we have to move online volunteers to offline activity. However, you can't do this unless you have a grassroots path for them to walk. You need a well-lead, well-managed offline structure. Remember the origins of true grassroots, which was people talking with other people.
Find unusual suspects and recruit them to your cause. Legislators expect to hear from your industry on your concerns. But how much greater is the impact when they hear from their constituents who are not your industry insiders? What about individuals outside your industry who donated to their campaigns? What about community leaders, local officials, area employers, heads of other industries?
Recruit and educate outsiders. Once you identify third party advocates for your position, take the necessary time and steps to nurture your relationships with them. Educate them; tell them how the issue may impact them. Arm them with the knowledge to speak out passionately and intelligently when the time comes. This is especially critical on complicated or technical issues. This takes time, so start now.
Build your database. Determine who your inside and outside supporters are, the level to which they agree with your position and what they are willing to do for you. Also make sure you understand how they (each one individually) prefer to be contacted. You'll likely experience a significant increase in your response rate and ultimate impact by finding out, recording, and then utilizing this simple and easily tracked information.
Stay in contact. Informed and engaged advocates will likely do much more than click an e-mail link when you need them. They will write personal letters to legislators or the editors of publications, make phone calls, engage their friends, families and associates, find opportunities for intervention with their legislators, even attend public hearings, or visit face-to-face with legislators, all because they believe in your cause and are well-informed and passionate about your issue.
Think about, budget for, and prepare new and different ways to touch and talk with your advocates. Receiving a logoed trinket, a friendly thank you call, or hand-written note from time to time goes a long way in engaging your volunteers. Let them hear from you, even when you are not mobilizing them, with thoughtful tidbits of information or affinity items. People like to know they are being thought of, that they belong, and they will be less likely to feel that they are just being used.
Ask the customer. Survey with your key legislators to determine your true effectiveness. They will tell you how you compare to other groups, if your members' communications are on target and on time, what your grassroots advocates do well, and how you might improve your impact.
Delve deeper with the legislature. Do you know who the legislative aides are in each office for your industry? Have you asked them whether they would prefer e-mails, calls, letters, faxes, or petitions? You will be amazed at what you can find out simply by asking!
Audit your mobilization process. What are you doing because it's always been done that way? What tools aren't you using? If there are snags in the process, where do they typically occur? With whom (staff or volunteers) do they typically occur?
Ask the pros. Make it your business to stay on top of what is and isn't working. Are you reinventing the wheel every time? Are there tools and techniques that are working for others that you haven't discovered yet? Most professionals are willing to share their expertise with you just for the asking, so learn from the experts.
Build the ark now! One thing is certain: the political rain is coming. You have all the necessary tools and materials to build your ark before the storm hits.
Amy Showalter owns The Showalter Group, Inc., which advises organizations on how to increase their grassroots and PAC effectiveness. She can be reached at 1600 Scripps Center, 312 Walnut Street, Cincinnati, OH 45202; 513-762-7668; amy@showaltergroup.com. Elizabeth Welsh is president of Executive Communications, Inc., and recipient of 17 American Association of Political Consultants' National Pollie Awards for political communication campaign excellence. She can be reached at 10300 Linn Station Road, Suite 100, Louisville, KY 40223; 502-412-5450.