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Lessons of Make Poverty History
Thursday, May 3rd, 2012
It was reported this week that there will be a big joint campaign to coincide with the UK taking the chair of the G8 next year. With a focus on hunger, it will bring together development and environment campaigners with other civil society groups. Making big coalitions work is difficult but important work. In 2006, Firetail wrote the official end of campaign evaluation for ‘Make Poverty History’. Circumstances have changed a lot since then, but many of the lessons from that campaign still apply. The evaluation is available for download here. READ MORE
Do you know Janet?
Friday, April 20th, 2012
The Obama for America 2012 re-election campaign already looks like an incredibly powerful marketing machine. This fascinating analysis by ProPublica demonstrates how a recent fundraising email was customised with different asks for specific audiences. One email introduces “Janet” as “a mother and grandmother” and asks for $25. Another highlights “a new super-easy way to donate” and asks for $3. These tailored messages are increasingly based on sophisticated analysis of personal information. READ MORE
Westminster contacts in an app
Wednesday, April 11th, 2012
PR firm Portland have released an app for iPhones and iPads that provides contact details for members of the government, opposition and select committees. Useful for campaigners, it’s free to download from the app store. READ MORE
Kony2012 – how they did it
Monday, March 19th, 2012
It feels like we are late to the party mentioning Invisible Children’s Kony2012 campaign, even though the video was only uploaded two weeks ago. However, this technical campaign analysis gives a good insight into how they did it. The two main findings are that i) the campaign launch was based on pre-existing youth networks cultivated by Invisible Children over the years and ii) the campaign built in tools to grab the attention of targeted celebrities to multiply its effect. It’s notable that these networks were strongest in medium-sized US cities like Oklahoma City and Pittsburgh, primarily among Christian student and youth groups. It didn’t “go viral”. Invisible Children had an “invisible network”. One unsurprising lesson might be that the secret of overnight success online is long term investment in offline grassroots networks. READ MORE
38 Degrees crowdfunding advocacy
Monday, March 12th, 2012
Our fundraisers don’t campaign. Our campaigners don’t fundraise. We hear this sometimes and think it reflects charities’ internal divisions more than supporter’s preferences. The new 38 Degrees campaign challenges these common assumptions. In less than a couple of weeks they have raised nearly £275,000 to pay for billboards to challenge the government on the NHS bill. Charities get themselves in a muddle trying to decide whether this is advocacy or fundraising. Your supporters don’t think like that. READ MORE
Tumblr, new model campaigning machine
Tuesday, November 29th, 2011
The “Stop Online Piracy Act” is a witless bill passing through the US Congress. Last week, New York blogging startup Tumblr ran a great campaign opposing the bill, initially censoring user’s posts and then turning the whole site into an advocacy machine. Users could sign up to get a call from a Tumblr staff member, get some talking points and then connect to their representative. In partnership with the site Mobile Commons, they generated over 87,000 calls to Congress in one day. READ MORE
Three cheers for the slacktivists
Tuesday, November 1st, 2011
“Slacktivism” by its very name, has a bad reputation. A new study from Georgetown University reveals that people who have promoted a cause online are just as likely to donate, twice as likely to volunteer and four times more likely to take a political action than those supporters who have not. Just because your supporters are doing something easy doesn’t mean it is all they are doing. READ MORE
Ben & Jerry’s support Occupy Wall Street, too
Tuesday, October 18th, 2011
Corporates are often targets for campaigns, but corporates that campaign themselves are a far more interesting proposition. Expensive ice cream business Ben and Jerry’s have released a statement in support of Occupy Wall Street claiming that “the inequity that exists between classes in our country is simply immoral”. In contrast, parent company Unilever has said that it “maintains a neutral stance with regards to social movements”. This sort of pledge raises all sorts of questions about authenticity, but it’s fair to say that seeking solidarity statements from businesses isn’t the first thing campaigners think of. READ MORE
Vibe and Occupy Wall Street
Monday, October 17th, 2011
Occupy Wall Street appears increasingly significant. If nothing else, their use of social media is exemplary. One of the new tools powering the movement is Vibe, an app like Twitter. Updates are anonymous, time-limited and location-based. As a result, updates aren’t attributed or recorded and you can choose to update only those people within a 160ft radius of you. READ MORE
The proof is in the pendulum
Friday, September 30th, 2011
The history of digital activism is “a swinging pendulum in which activists tactically innovate and repressive governments respond”. This is one of the first findings of the Global Digital Activism Data Set, which is an open source effort to document digital activism around the world. It currently holds 1,200 cases from 140 countries, which can be downloaded at the site. READ MORE