The Campaign Workshop Blog

Campaign unionization is important. Just because you work on a campaign doesn't mean you can't unionize.

It seem obvious that Democrats should be supportive of campaign unionization… right? Not necessarily. Democrats have long campaigned on being the party of the working people. For decades, we have proudly led the labor movement by fighting for higher minimum wages, pushing for better labor standards, advocating for unions and fighting against right-to-work laws. The creation of the first campaign union this past year and the subsequent…

Your Issue Advocacy Campaign Startup Guide

Issue advocacy campaigns start with the best of intentions. We begin with a coalition who cares about your issue and want to make a real difference. But without a bit of campaign know-how, you will fall off track.  Here are ten common, advocacy campaign mistakes along with tips on how to avoid these errors. 10. Lacking a goal. Make sure you know what your goal is. When you're working with coalitions or…

Advocacy Strategies: Lame Duck Sessions Can Help Achieve Advocacy Goals

After election season is over, it’s easy to just want to pack up and go to the beach and shut off our political brain for a while. But across the country, as well of as well as in Congress, we are about to go into the legislative season and lame duck sessions. Now is the time to be prepared for short-term and long-term legislative and advocacy fights ahead. As we prepare for advocacy campaigns this year and next, here are some suggestions for advocacy strategies for the…

Not matter your age, you can move people to take action through community advocacy. 

Here are some great community advocacy campaigns started by young people: https://www.malala.org/ http://www.outhudson.com/ www.AlexsLemonadeStand.org https://pottest.wordpress.com/about/ As we have seen, both globally and locally, the best advocates for change are people who can tell a…

Just because your political campaign is over, doesn't mean it's the end.

Whether you won or lost your political campaign, the 2018 Election Cycle is over. Like us, you're probably pretty exhausted. These past months you've likely been getting your hands dirty and working tirelessly on your campaign cause, and we want to help you clean up both your literal and figurative mess. Here are our tips on how to end a campaign: 1. Make sure to end on a good note.  Be equally organized about your campaign clean-up as you were with your campaign plan.…

The Importance of Digital Political Ad Transparency. What Digital Ads are My Opponents Running?

Digital political ad transparency has been an elusive thing. In a world of fake news, hacked sites and independent expenditures from groups you have never heard of, actionable information on digital spending is important. For years, you have been able to find out what opponents are spending on television and radio. Now, digital publishers a re starting to focus on  digital ad transparency. They are making it easier to see what folks are doing with…

Get Your Groove on with These GOTV Campaign Theme Songs

GOTV! We are officially in the last 30 days of the 2018 election cycle. It's time to knuckle up and carry your campaign over the finish line. I wrote earlier about the best songs for a mental break, but now is the time to power through! Time is rapidly passing and it is now or never to increase voter turnout. This list will channel whatever ounce of energy you have left by providing a soundtrack as we get over this last hump. Here are 5 songs to get you through GOTV. Pump It – The Black…

Political Digital Ads: No GDPR but a Growing Variety of State Laws

Election meddling has made national news starting with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which took effect in Europe this summer. In response, many folks in the states took a look at their own privacy policies and laws surrounding political digital ads to see what they could do better to be more transparent. Companies like Google and Facebook created their own policies to verify users and target who was actually paying for political digital ads. Lawmakers in states…

Harness the power of social pressure to get out the vote

Does social pressure work? We care deeply about social norms. Our desire to be liked and accepted by our peers shapes our behavior more than we’d like to admit. We lie about our bad behaviors and exaggerate our better tendencies to fit in. What’s more, we do things when we think other people are watching that we’d otherwise never bother with. That’s…

Make a plan to vote! How BallotReady can help you improve your GOTV strategy

BallotReady is an online voter guide for local, state and national races. This week, we interviewed Alex Niemczewski to discuss how BallotReady can be used to amp up your GOTV campaign strategy. How can a campaign use your product for GOTV ? BallotReady's Make a Plan to Vote tool is based on behavioral research that demonstrates that voters who make a plan to show up at the polls are far more likely to follow through. Campaigns can use our product to help voters commit…