For United Ways, an early grade reading issues campaign can bring LIVE UNITED to life. So how do we do that? We learn what it means to work differently in the new business model and we adapt a model borrowed from the playbooks of successful politicians, causes and social movements: the issues campaign.
Issue campaigns get people behind a cause and then get them to do something to advance that cause. Issue campaigns raise awareness, educate the public and then inspire people to act based on what they’ve learned.
It’s the tried-and-true model organizations take to engage people and move them to action - whether that’s a 3-day walk to raise money for breast cancer, emailing one’s member of Congress about Medicare legislation or supporting a local education ballot issue. In each case, a coalition targets key supporters, enlists them in the effort and then enrolls them and gets them to act by making a donation, volunteering or advocating.
In these examples, campaign professionals are the ones behind the scenes, with written campaign plans, public opinion polling and research to refine messaging, community leader outreach, advertising, social media and media outreach.
But that’s not required, any United Way and its partners can develop and execute an issues campaign with whatever resources are at hand. It’s all about communications, coalitions and the call to action. Download a tip sheet on these three mission-critical components, The Three C’s of Issue Campaigns to share with staff and partners. Wherever you are on the impact journey, an issues campaign can help you connect the mobilization dot and galvanize your community around an issue in order to move the needle.
It starts with tapping into the community. The best issue campaigns are rooted in the community, a reflection of that community’s concern and an embodiment of that community’s willingness to take action on that issue. Sometimes they bubble up from the “grassroots” of the community. Examples of “grassroots” campaigns might be a neighborhood petition drive for sidewalks in a low-income community or a citywide bond issue to support a new neighborhood library.
One well-known example is Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), the decades-long effort to reduce drunk driving. (Download “MADD: A Case Study in “Grassroots” Lobbying” here.) It started with one mother and grew into a massive effort to change Americans’ behaviors, driven by advertising. It campaigns at the state level, federal and state-by-state legislation and incentives and local MADD chapters raising the public’s awareness of the dangers of drunk driving.
That’s not to say that community (or “grass tops”) leaders cannot devise and carry out issue campaigns. They can and should lead the charge, but leaders should not create an issues campaign around a board table, then present it fully formed to the community. There must be intentional and ongoing efforts to engage with people from all across the community to listen, to inform the campaign, to understand how people are seeing the issue and then later to enlist and enroll individuals and institutions to join the effort.
United Ways can leverage our strength—our ability to reach over 50,000,000 individuals who work in companies across the United States, our relationships with key corporate and community leaders and major donors, our ability to raise significant dollars to support our community impact work and our partnerships with a wide range of partner organizations and our broad knowledge about the community to get the job done. When we adapt the issues campaign to our world, we’re creating (with our partners) a powerful effort to:
- Identify – Intentional strategy to identify potential supporters (individuals and institutions).
- Educate – Aggressive effort to educate potential supporters (corporate and individual) on the issue (facts and stories).
- Persuade – Compelling messages known to work used to persuade potential supporters to raise their hands.
- Activate – Galvanize supporters to act with a meaningful call to action.
And our issue campaign must be fueled by:
- Strong communications effort (advertising, media coverage, public relations events, social media, opinion leader outreach, Speaker’s Bureaus), and grassroots marketing that connects with people wherever they are.
- Ongoing engagement of individuals and institutions (including but not limited to donors) to grow the “coalition of the willing.” This involves using relationship management strategies and tactics, as well as careful coalition building (or joining).
