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SURVEY: The quest for people-powered campaigning metrics

  “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it", as they say in business circles. In the progressive advocacy world, we could easily swap out “manage” with the words “fund”, “support” and “defend.” Finding a coherent set of people-powered campaigning metrics is...

Need some summer inspiration?

These are not easy times to be doing social change work, but folks we’re working with continue to push bold, innovative new projects that aim to heal our world, our hearts, and our culture. We’re not in the habit of writing the ‘look how busy we are’ kind of newsletter, but in the hopes of inspiring you, here’s a peak at our full summer workbench.

Wary of consultants?

Sometimes I cringe a little when being introduced as a consultant, especially in these anti-establishment times. It’s almost as if some folks keep a garlic necklace handy to fight off an unwanted bite. I’m certainly no fan of many consultancies that build in...

The simple “tech stack” behind leading people-powered campaigns

Overall, we observe that the tools and systems used by distributed organizing leaders are relatively inexpensive, “plug and play” – in the sense that they can rapidly be set up and deployed to support programs – and accessible in the sense that they are user-friendly or based on platforms that supporters and organizers already use and therefore do not require special training or a long adaptation period.

Ready for a distributed organizing deep dive?

As campaign innovation geeks we’ve been tracking the evolution of distributed organizing over the years but have to say we’ve never seen such rapid adoption of this trend since the 2016 U.S. election. With the Bernie Sanders primary campaign and its Big...

Your boss needs to read this book

If you've still got too much "old" power driving your institution, here's something to share with your boss, board and management team. New Power, by Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms is just the thing to create a stronger sense of urgency and alignment towards updating...

Report: a proven way to activate grassroots power and win campaigns

For the past year we’ve been helping a new advocacy tools startup called New/Mode. We believe in the power of their "targeted engagement" tools to support the progressive movement to build our people power and target that grassroots energy at decision makers so that...

NetChange in New Zealand – upcoming trainings

Thanks to the New Zealand Drug Foundation, we’ll be heading back to the Asia-Pacific region next month to share our insights into modern organizing and mobilizing techniques with progressive movement kiwis.

Digital Teams in 2018: the new landscape of digital engagement

The health of teams working on digital strategy, platforms, and tools at non-profits has long been an indicator of their adoption of or resistance to wider trends around innovation and impact. Last fall we asked 80 advocacy-oriented nonprofits about the state of their...

A theory of change that made the impossible possible

Of all the hot campaign trends from the past few years, the one that’s probably most commonly implemented on new campaigns is the “theory of change”. A critical part of storytelling and engagement, having a credible one helps smart but cynical audiences decide whether...

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