GUEST POST // Nonprofit Advocacy: How to Plan Your Next Campaign
By Craig Grella of Salsa
Advocacy campaigns are effective tools for raising awareness about your organization’s mission and driving positive change. Plus, these campaigns have the added benefit of strengthening your nonprofit’s relationships with supporters, helping you to acquire new ambassadors for your cause, and ultimately empowering you to be more successful in all your efforts.
Advocacy campaigns require extensive forethought, planning, and the right tools in order to succeed and help you reach your goals. After all, they require the mobilization and organization of a broad range of people with different levels of experience in lobbying and advocacy.
Before you launch an advocacy campaign, it’s important that your organization has a clear idea of where you are, where you want to go, and how you’re going to get there.
The goal of this guide is to empower nonprofits with the tools they need to implement meaningful advocacy campaigns. If you’re just getting started with your advocacy campaign planning, we have five tips to help your organization make the most of the effort:
Set a goal for your nonprofit advocacy campaign.
Define the campaign’s message.
Build a strong team to run your campaign.
Implement the right strategies and activities.
Track your advocacy campaign’s progress.
Grassroots advocacy campaigns have made a huge impact on a wide range of pressing issues. Your nonprofit could launch the next big campaign, but only if you invest plenty of time upfront to make it a success. Let’s get started!
1. Set a goal for your nonprofit advocacy campaign.
Advocacy campaigns rely heavily on volunteers, many of whom have minimal experience in lobbying or legislation. Therefore, it's your responsibility to provide clear guidance about how they can make a difference.
The first step to ensuring everyone has useful assignments is setting a clear goal for the campaign. Frequently shifting goals and objectives can cause confusion and ultimately lead to disgruntlement among your supporters, so you’ll need to make sure the goal you set is clear and comprehensive.
Advocacy campaigns can have a wide range of desired outcomes, from political impact to legislation reversal to community awareness. Regardless of the exact nature of your campaign’s desired outcome, we recommend you follow the SMART template. Your advocacy campaign’s goal should be:
Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Relevant
Time-based
For example, the goal of an environmental nonprofit’s advocacy campaign may be passing legislation to restrict fishing in a certain region. In this case, it should be made clear who the relevant policy decision-makers are, the action or decision needed from them, and a deadline by which the nonprofit would like them to act or decide. Establishing these boundaries on your campaign’s goal will set you up for success from the beginning.
Once your campaign’s ultimate goal is established, you’ll likely need to set smaller benchmark objectives along the way. Some of these types of objectives within your advocacy campaign might involve:
Acquiring a certain number of shares on a social media post
Collecting a certain number of signatures on a petition
Directing a certain number of calls or tweets to the appropriate representatives
Setting smaller, tangible goals on the way to your campaign’s ultimate desired outcome helps to focus your supporters and drive consistent engagement in pursuit of the larger, shared goal. Salsa’s list of successful nonprofit advocacy campaign strategies describes some other ways a campaign’s goals can be accomplished, like through click-to-call programs and advocacy events. So take the time to choose the right actions and milestones upfront to set your advocates up for success.
2. Define the campaign’s message.
You may be tempted to think that the work of establishing your campaign’s foundation is complete after setting goals. Unfortunately, there’s more work that needs to go into planning. Only having a strong goal doesn’t mean that your nonprofit’s advocacy efforts will necessarily be effective.
Once you’ve established a concrete and achievable goal, craft a messaging campaign and strategy that unites with your goal and consistently steers your advocates in the right direction.
Before you go public with your campaign’s message, you’ll need to communicate with your team to hammer out the strategy you’ll use. Try to gather all of your campaign’s messaging and marketing copy together behind a single, common theme.
Mixed or muddy messages tend to discourage participation because your potential advocates aren’t clear on the what or why of your campaign. Meanwhile, strong, cohesive messaging tends to encourage strong, cohesive action on the part of your supporters and the broader public.
Make it clear how each action that an advocate takes relates to the overall goal. Knowing how their participation makes a difference is essential to properly incentivize advocates to take part in your campaign.
Once your message is solidified, consider how you’re going to market the campaign to your audience. What channels will you use to reach your supporters? Double the Donation’s advocacy guide explains that a modern advocacy campaign may use the following outreach channels:
Email. This channel is most effective when you segment your supporters, personalize your messages, and create eye-catching subject lines.
Social media. Some of the most popular sites you’ll want to consider are Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for their convenience and shareability.
Text. Today’s advocates are on the go, striving to make your campaign successful. Sending quick updates via text allows those who support your cause to get the word out wherever they are.
Be sure not to simply copy the exact same content from one channel to the next in an attempt to unify your campaign’s messaging strategy. “Unified” doesn’t mean “identical across all channels.” Instead, vary your message according to what engages individuals on that particular platform. For example, Tweets might be more punchy, succinct, and casual, while email might contain more background, explanation, and storytelling.
3. Build a strong team to run your campaign.
For a successful advocacy campaign, you’ll need the right people to support your efforts. In order to mobilize a large volume of your supporters and the broader public, fill several essential roles with qualified candidates. Consider the following positions:
A single leader who acts as the face of the campaign
Administrative support
Software professionals
Marketing specialists
Subject matter experts
Don’t hesitate to reach out to your base of supporters for additional volunteer support as well. While some volunteers may already be trained in certain jobs or roles, others will need supplementary training to be effective contributors to your campaign. You might consider using virtual training resources to help your team develop a digitally-accessible training program for advocates.
Engaged and passionate supporters will certainly appreciate the opportunity to become more involved, and your team can no doubt use volunteers’ extra assistance.
Regardless of the exact makeup of your campaign’s team of support, make sure to prioritize effective, frequent communication among all wings of your campaign. With a unified team, you’re more likely to build a unified voice of support among the public and make the difference you want to see.
4. Implement the right strategies and activities.
Once your nonprofit has set a goal, crafted a message, and recruited the right people, it’s time to get to the most important work: executing your plan to make a difference. Your implementation plan will need to answer these questions:
Who will you reach out to, when, and at what frequency?
How will you assign and complete objectives to eventually accomplish your goal?
What will you ask your supporters to do?
What is the timeline for you to implement your various strategies?
As mentioned earlier, there are a variety of ways your nonprofit can raise awareness and effect change. Depending on your nonprofit’s goals and resources, you may choose to host a town hall regarding your issue, collect signatures on a petition, direct calls to representatives, or choose other strategies to get the word out about important issues.
Consider the order of these events, too. Early on, it may be beneficial to ask advocates to complete less time-intensive activities like signing petitions. Once you’ve established a base of support and acquired momentum, it’s the perfect time to ask supporters to dedicate more time or effort to continue furthering the cause.
To help plan your campaign’s activities, communicate with your advocates, and track your campaign’s progress, you’ll need an effective and intuitive platform. Intuitive advocacy tools can meet this need by providing a centralized hub for your campaign’s tracking, communication, and activities. Your team and your advocates will appreciate having all of the pertinent information in one convenient place!
To maximize impact from your advocacy software choice, try to find a platform that either has a CRM built in or one that integrates with your organization’s existing donor database. This will allow your organization to take full advantage of every advocate’s support by keeping their contact information on file for future outreach efforts.
5. Track your advocacy campaign’s progress.
Because you set your campaign goals and objectives to accomplish tangible results, it’s essential that your nonprofit carefully tracks your efforts toward reaching your goals. Assessing progress along the way requires a reliable tracking method for your activities and supporters’ engagement. Advocacy software and other nonprofit technology can come in handy here, too.
For example, if one of your incremental objectives is to secure 1,000 signatures on a petition, you’ll need a way to keep track of the number of signatures that you receive (other than counting them one-by-one). Advocacy software can keep track of these actions and report insights on a dashboard for your team to monitor.
With the most up-to-date information thanks to proper data management, you’ll be able to make informed decisions about your strategy throughout the campaign. Plus, knowing where your nonprofit stands in pursuit of every goal allows you to update your advocates with the most recent information and incentivize them to continue their efforts. Managing your supporters and volunteers effectively means you should always know where the campaign stands so you can lead them in the right direction.
Advocacy campaigns can drive meaningful change and spread awareness about your nonprofit’s cause in addition to increasing your supporters’ engagement with your organization. However, advocacy campaigns require advanced planning to be successful. Follow the tips we’ve covered to have maximum impact on your nonprofit’s mission. In no time, you’ll mobilize your supporters and drive true change on the societal and political issues your organization cares about.
This guest post was written by Craig Grella.
Craig Grella is a Content Marketer at Salsa Labs, the premier software for growth-focused nonprofits that combines CRM and engagement software with embedded best practices, machine learning, and world-class education and support. In his role, he serves thousands of nonprofits and advocacy organizations across the U.S.
Craig focuses on digital strategy using email marketing, online advertising campaigns, SMS campaigns, CRM management, reporting/analytics for KPIs, and more. He’s also the founder of Think Big Campaigns, a full-service consulting firm that specializes in political consulting, digital organizing, and issue advocacy.
