e.politics: online advocacy tools & tactics

Change.org Application Brings Advocacy to Facebook

Ben Rattray with Change.org wrote in this morning with the news that the organization has developed a Facebook application specifically to enable advocacy in the Facebook universe. How does it work? Once you install the app, you can choose from a variety of causes that others have created or you can make your own.

After you’ve added a cause, it appears in your profile and visitors can click through to view more information. You can also directly invite friends to join the cause, just as you can invite them to add other Facebook apps. Advocacy groups and political campaigns are going to be particularly interested in this feature: causes can be associated with particular nonprofits or candidates, and Facebook users can donate to them directly through the Change.org application. Interestingly, anyone who’s joined a cause can suggest fundraising targets — I just added National Environmental Trust to the list of possible Global Warming beneficiaries, for instance. Coming soon: the ability to run advocacy email campaigns. I asked Ben how that will work, particularly with the various email deliverability issues involving Congress. Here’s his reply:
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Add comment July 3rd, 2007 Trackback Bookmark on del.icio.us

Great Details on the Edwards SMS Fundraising Campaign

Alan Rosenblatt has put together a very cool “virtual interview” with Amy Rubin, the new media strategist for John Edwards, in which she answers many of the concerns I’d raised last week in a piece about the campaign’s text message-based fundraising effort. In the process, we get a great deal of detail about the considerations behind the successful use of SMS for supporter communications — the Edwards folks seem to have thought this one through really well. And, they’re happy to share the kind of information that campaigns are often reluctant to reveal. Thanks to Amy for being so forthcoming, and of course to Alan for pulling the article together and for providing excellent commentary on her responses.

BTW, an email discussion with Alan about Amy’s mention of the need to provide different channels of communication based on supporters’ preferences was a prod for me to write yesterday’s piece on going where your supporters are.

– cpd

2 comments July 3rd, 2007 Trackback Bookmark on del.icio.us