What it Takes to Win Online Campaigns

Matt Holland:

what is success? what really bombed?

Tactical success and Outcome success

Not sure how affect social change.

How online compliment offline.

small # of places where people getting skills.

Effective targeting.

What is incentive for action? How do you motivate them?

Motivate communities that are not online.

Matt:

What is success? Not a session on here is my massive thesis on how i win campaigns. The point of the campaign is to change something in the world. and There are pieces that you have to operate.

what is the internet good for? Aggregating a lot of little things and group them together for big things.

Congress is very good at avoiding email messages, but still can be effective for local/state people.

What is your theory of change?

Notoriously difficult to get people who deal with oil to care about anything other than oil. Who to focus on then becomes the big questions.

Very seldom does an online campaign succeed by itself. Need to choose focus, choose allies appropriately. Multiple factors come together to work. Where is the leverage point that you are going to lever? Whats the way you use that leverage point to make change, push it the right the way to reach the right people at the right time?

Whats the environment that this campaign is happening in? What can we really expect to get?

David: I get really nervous with online campaigning. It is so much more than that. Online is just a tool. Online can have succesful tactics that can support our theory of change. Online campaigning is not just always big wins all the time.

Palm oil campaign: Target Cargill. Government doesn't give a fuck. So we decided to do a markets campaign. Sometimes it is a secondary or tertiary of the target. (Like general mills because they buy palm oil for cereal). Online is good at exposing or blowing up an issue. Raised profile of issue but not sure of on ground change. (ask David about GIRL SCOUTS CAMPAIGN if you are interested in this issue.)

Social media day of action is a cool new tactic for online.

Food for thought: People of power will find ways around it. Novel environments to find tactics that work elsewhere. Immune system: Baseline keeps moving. What debriefs or contextualize campaigns can happen to recognize. We still do petitions because of the funnel.

Mushy middle: Ladder of engagemment from online to offline is HARD! Big lists ---> Super activists. Organizing is hard. Go out an need an organizer that go out and engage. Abadoned grassroots organizing cuz it's too hard.

Democracy for America - DNA is elctoral campaigns but good at organizing. Moms Rising - another good example.

Match what trying to do with stakeholders.

In the end, facilitate relationships and trust to build things. Tools are facil to management.

What is funding the success? what is making them happen? 100% funded by members. Most cases ---> funded by the members.

Pros: Focused on things that are going to work. (What has really bombed? -->Trying to change people's minds using online!!!! Finding the people that are going to be on your side. Education in small pieces over time.)

Cons: Need to do the things that are popular.

Success example: True majority - ask MATT Holland.

where people get skills, is there enough capacity?

There is not a repositories of case studies.

4 programs: New Organizing Insitute. Aspiration - eAdvocacy Capacity Building Program. New Media Mentors Program - New Roots Program. Progressive Technology Project.

Mistakes we made: We take best practices from people theories of change. Apply frames based theory of change.

2 Awesome things:

1. Retargeter adds.(Chevron employees) PR Add agencies that are serving clients for children's books. Using the filter bubble against them. It's like your personal rain cloud.

2. Phone call in, cycle through all the employees phone numbers. Flood and impact of their business processes tools.

From CPEHN: Meeting people in their space and get the email address. Meet people where they are at.