April 22, 2009

While President Obama's team was staggeringly impressive in its grassroots organizing and turnout efforts during the campaign, it has been less so with its issue-advocacy arm, Organizing for America (OFA).

OFA's efforts to influence the Congressional debate over the federal budget are widely seen to have fallen short. But that should not reflect poorly on the effectiveness of grassroots advocacy generally, or even on OFA itself. It does, however, provide us with a case study of how organizations can make their grassroots programs more successful.

The Obama presidential campaign was a national movement. Combining Obama's personality and beliefs, the dissatisfaction and anger felt by the majority of the American people about the direction of the country, modern communication tools, and a commitment to establishing ground games across the country, his team built a 13 million member grassroots army. One of the things that made this movement so successful was the integration of tried-and-true political organizing - the old "neighbor-to-neighbor" outreach - and new, efficient online communication tools.

While OFA's methods may not have changed, creating a national movement based largely on emotion, personality and a desire for change is a fundamentally different task than engaging people on an issue, even one as important as the federal budget. Without minimizing the intricacy of organizing a successful national campaign, the action of voting is a relatively simple thing for most people to do. We are familiar with it and by Election Day we know the candidates and something about their positions. The candidates have to move voters to the polls, but once there the action of pulling the lever is easy.

But in a grassroots issue campaign we ask people to learn enough about a complex issue and how it affects them on a personal level so they are motivated to take an action that is outside their comfort zone. The action of writing, calling or even sending an e-mail to an elected official is a task many find daunting.

So it is not surprising that the Obama team has not yet been able to translate its election grassroots success into the same legislative success.

Nevertheless, there are things that OFA has no doubt learned from their recent attempt to turn Obama supporters into an army of issue advocates. These principles apply to any effective grassroots advocacy campaign.

Plan ahead when possible. Identify, engage and educate your supporters before you need them. They will then be better educated and able to make your message their own and deliver it more effectively.

Know your grassroots supporters. Use research to identify and recruit advocates who are most likely to support your issue. Research should also tell you what messages will capture their attention and motivate them.

Integrate the old with the new. While educating your supporters using e-mail is cost-effective, it may not be the best method for getting an adequate number of messages delivered to important legislators. This will change over time, but we are still at a point that an e-mail advocacy campaign alone rarely generates enough messages to individual legislators to have an impact. Making phone calls to advocates in key states or districts asking them to call or write their legislator is still the most reliable method to ensure adequate coverage for the most crucial targets.

Understand your legislative targets. Take the time to learn who they listen to and what kind of message delivery has the most impact. In a recent survey of state legislators conducted by The Hawthorn Group and Executive Communications, legislators said that the most important element in grassroots is to hear from constituents who understand the issue and who take time to write or e-mail a personal note (not a form e-mail or letter) or to make a personal phone call.

Vary the methods of communication to legislators and, when there is time, cascade e-mails, letters, phone calls and constituent meetings over time. A slow, steady stream of concerned constituents will capture a legislator's attention.

Make it local. A media relations effort that generates local coverage, constituent grassroots programs, local allies and coalitions, and sometimes local advertising all work together to surround legislators with a visible demonstration of how much voters care about the issue.

The budget battle was a shakedown cruise of sorts for the Obama grassroots organization. They mastered many of these tactics during the presidential campaign and I expect they will fine-tune their efforts for the next battle. In the meantime, organizations engaged in or considering grassroots as part of their arsenal can learn some valuable lessons from their first effort.