By Abbey Piazza

Digital advocacy efforts are vital for enabling nonprofit organizations to cut through the noise and win campaigns.

Without digital advocacy, it can be difficult to measure the success of your campaigns — or even know if you’re winning, at all. In fact, 94% of advocacy campaigners believe the opposing side is winning, and 86% believe they should embrace more impactful tactics.

It is time we step up our digital advocacy efforts.

Whether you’re a seasoned campaigner looking to go back to basics or are completely new to digital organizing and don’t know where to start — you’re in the right place.

Here, let’s explore five questions you’ll want to ask when starting a digital advocacy campaign.

5 Questions to Ask for a Successful Digital Advocacy Campaign

1. What is your goal?

Before starting any digital campaign, it’s important to understand what you’re trying to achieve.

Think about what you want to accomplish. Do you want to turn the tides on a policy decision currently on the table? Do you want to help de-stigmatize an issue in your community? Do you want to mobilize your supporters to publicly support your issue ahead of an upcoming election?

Marshall Ganz is a scholar at Harvard and activist who has studied powerful movements and what led to their success. Through his research he found a framework for setting goals.

Ganz determined that effective campaign goals should:

• Be measurable and tangible to improve the lives of your supporters. You should be able to clearly measure the incremental progress towards the goal.
• Focus resources strategically to achieve your goal. Consider what you have in your back pocket– can you put your organization’s skills and strengths to use to achieve a single outcome?
• Build capacity for your organization internally. For example, when working towards this goal will you recruit and engage volunteers? Will you gain valuable experience or resources, exposure and clout that will help you with your next goal?
• Use points of leverage where you can use your communities strengths and/or capitalize off of your opposition’s weakness
• Focus on a single motivational issue that has a direct impact on your supporters’ lives.

2. What is your theory of change?

It is incredibly important to show your supporters that their actions can have an enormous impact.

In our research report on Full Spectrum Engagement, we found that it’s essential to show how change is possible. Providing a blueprint for that path — and showing how you get from A to B — will help supporters understand the steps it takes to win, and they’ll directly see their role in that change.

Google’s research into civic engagement attitudes shows that those who do not take action are held back in part because they didn’t believe their actions would have an impact. When people see how their small action plays into a larger strategic plan, they will be more likely to …read more

Source:: HubSpot Blog