The following excerpt from our white paper “Advocate Recruitment for Successful Advocacy Campaigns” breaks down where to start when acquiring advocates. Download the white paper here to read the full text!
Step one when acquiring advocates? Define your audience.
Some groups have members, others have followers, and others rely on the general public to mobilize around issues on an ad-hoc basis.
a. What % of your base actively gets involved and responds when it comes to advocacy, donor drives, and/or other actions?
b. Does your base have characterizations that would help you describe your ideal or typical advocate? For example:
- Does your ideal advocate need to be geotargeted? For example, do they live in a specific district, state, or province?
- Are they within a preferred age range?
- Are they of a specific gender?
- Are they members of or associated with a specific political party or group?
- Do they have specific ideological thoughts or positions on specific topics or issues?
Define success: how will you gauge how you’ve done?
Getting noticed or heard is the goal of any grassroots advocacy campaign and your organization has a position and a message that needs to be conveyed. Every advocate is a constituent of an elected official and has the right to communicate with that official around issues of importance. You want to start conversations and “turn heads,” but you need to ask yourself:
a. Is the goal of your advocacy meant to educate or inform members about an issue, are you rallying support around a cause, or are you trying to prevent unfavorable policies from gaining traction?
b. How much time do you have to accomplish your goals?
c. How many messages over a given period would constitute success?
d. How many targets are there for your campaign?
- Am I focusing on a Committee or Sponsor/Co-Sponsors?
- Am I trying to educate and bring attention to an issue for an entire Chamber or the full legislature?
Many organizations realize that they have the right messaging but lack the number of advocates to accomplish their advocacy goals.
