Political Strategy

Should I use Substack for Non-Profit communications?  Substack is primarily a newsletter and blogging platform. Think of it as a more user-friendly version of Medium that has garnered a large following. Many people I know regularly post on Substack. Initially, I explored Substacks focused on branding, organization, and food, but the platform's political content has grown, and I now follow a few political Substacks.

As a former Obama White House Staffer, seasoned campaign organizer, former Harlem Children’s Zone team member, and now the Executive Director of Rust Belt Rising, co-author Paul Kendrick brings a fresh take to the idea that what’s past is prologue.

A Down-ballot campaign is a great starting place for first-time candidates or folks who want to start working on campaigns. Getting involved in your local or state government is an important and noble task. State and local governments combined spend more than the federal government and some county governments are bigger than state governments.

Digital Advocacy is on everyone's mind. Last month, I attended the Nonprofit Technology Conference in Washington, D.C. and one panel caught my eye: New Tools From the 2016 Elections That Nonprofit Techies Need to Know About. Given that our clients are both campaigns and nonprofits, it was a perfect fit. 

Name recognition or Name ID, is usually judged by political polling to determine how many people know Candidate A vs. Candidate B. We start with a simple question that asks whether people have heard of either candidate. Then we compare the candidate’s name ID.

Whether it is your first or last advocacy or political campaign, one thing never changes—numbers matter. Learn what campaign metrics you need to track.

We are happy to announce that we are launching The Digital Advocacy Webinar Series sponsored by EveryAction. This four part webinar series will cover advocacy topics ranging from digital ad buying, developing a winning advocacy strategy, and goal setting for digital advertising campaigns. The first webinar in the series will be on content marketing for advocacy campaigns.

There is a lot of talk these days about programmatic buying and how digital advertisers use it as the primary way to buy digital advertising.

Advocacy strategies have changed a lot over the last 20 years. When I was a chief of staff in the New York State Legislature, I don't remember there ever being a real advocacy campaign around public support of an issue that focused on legislators. The main way groups moved legislation was to hire a lobbyist and that was really it.

One of the roles I enjoy most is teaching folks how to run for office and run campaigns. Any campaign training we run usually starts with essential political consulting advice on the three key resources of a campaign. The three main resources you have in any campaign are people, time and money. Below are descriptions of each of these three critical campaign resources.

The recent off-year elections may not have gotten a ton of national press, but for people living in states where major offices were decided, they were extremely important. In some ways, a campaign is a campaign, and your online communications program should be reflective of that.  In others though, off-year elections are pretty different, and planning your digital strategy with those differences in mind can yield some great things.