To learn how CitizenSpeak is empowering small grassroots organizations and individual activists, see the case studies below.
We all remember when a million people marched in Los Angeles against the punitive anti-immigration legislation HR4437 in 2006. Well, before there was the march, there was the CitizenSpeak campaign.
In late 2005, Ken Montengro, a part time technology staff person at The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA) realized that this now infamous legislation was scheduled to be fast-tracked for a floor vote. This legislation sought to criminalize over 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the US and punish US citizens and permanent residents who came in contact with them.
At this point HR4437 had not caught the attention of larger organizations and had not in any way become the rallying cry that it later became. Realizing the punitive nature of the bill, Ken got the green light to launch a CitizenSpeak campaign to try and nip the legislation in the bud.
In addition to being a part time CHIRLA staffer, Ken was also a law student. During a particularly boring contract class, Ken created his CitizenSpeak campaign. (Go campus wireless network!) The next night during an equally boring legal writing class he posted the URL on the CHIRLA website. Then, he kind of forgot about it. (Can we say finals?)
However, a couple of young CHIRLA staffers posted a link to the campaign on their MySpace sites. Traffic started pouring in. Because of CitizenSpeak’s reporting functionality, the campaign turned out to be a great way to identify and educate a younger constituency about their organization.
Summary: Rogers Park Community Action Network (RPCAN) is a multi-issue, membership-based organization working for community empowerment and social justice on the local, state, national and international levels. Over the last year, RPCAN has mixed online eAdvocacy tools with traditional mobilizing efforts to protect the rights and community life of Rogers Park.
Representing one of the most economic and racially diverse communities in the country, Rogers Park maps the city of Chicago in terms of economic and ethnic diversity. Right on the lake front, with easily accessible beaches and small parks, Rogers Park is now considered an up-and-coming neighborhood and, as such, has attracted the attention of powerful real estate developers that prefer multi-unit condos to one story dwellings and open spaces.
RPCAN has been at the center of much of the community mobilizing efforts to combat the effects of gentrification. Since many of RPCAN’s members are not online largely due to economic reasons, RPCAN relies mostly on traditional mobilizing tactics. In fact, they don’t even have a website. Yet Francis Tobin, an RPCAN long time volunteer, discovered that new eAdvocacy tools have lowered the barrier for entry enough to make eAdvocacy practical and effective for small, volunteer-run organizations with constituencies that don’t mirror MoveOn members’ IP-oriented profile.
In 2003, RPCAN stumbled on a tool called CitizenSpeak – a free email advocacy service for grassroots organizations. Francis was skeptical at first. Given the economic diversity of their neighborhood, would enough people have access to the Internet to make an online campaign worthwhile? Would targeted representatives care? Realizing there was only one way to find out, Francis created an account on CitizenSpeak and launched an email campaign to support the community’s fight against the city’s plans to cut public transit service.
“I was really surprised by how easy it was to launch a MoveOn-like email campaign,” Francis said. To create a campaign, Francis entered the email address for Mayor Daley, added text for the letter and hit save. CitizenSpeak generated a web page address specific to his campaign which he then posted on a community listserv.
Francis was surprised by the impact of the “personal statements” that people added to their emails. “In theory, we all know how important public transportation is, particularly in our community where many of us rely on the bus to get to work. But there’s nothing like getting a personal statement from someone who says that service cuts will leave them without a way to visit and bring food to a homebound mom.”
RPCAN launched a couple of other email advocacy campaigns to protect local hiring at local projects and access to affordable housing. Because of CitizenSpeak’s “tell-a-friend” feature and downloadable participation reports, each campaign generated new supporters that RPCAN could reach out to for support with future online and traditional activities.
At the end of 2004, RPCAN took on a developer that had surreptitiously purchased two lots across from a neighborhood elementary school to build 18 condo units. One of the two lots has been a garden, so allowing the construction of a large condo building would reduce much needed green space. The local councilmember gave the developer the go-ahead without consulting the neighborhood. RPCAN engaged in some limited traditional organizing to delay the project but they couldn’t get the time of day from their councilmember.
Then RPCAN launched an email campaign. “The really amazing thing was that only 25 people participated but it was enough to catch our councilman’s attention and agree to meet with us. People from the city said that the emails demonstrated real opposition to the condos and support for more green space.”
“Fighting powerful real estate interests for limited green/garden space is tricky to say the least. While we’ve only had one meeting and we still face a long struggle, easy-to-use online eAdvocacy tools are helping us to protect our right to open spaces. They expand participation by giving people a way to do something that might not come to a meeting but will click on a link. And they send a powerful message to representatives that there’s an organized constituency out there that means business.”
Public Education Under Attack:
The East Side of Providence, RI is a wealthy part of a larger and poorer City. Its affluence has contributed to a tale of two educational systems: an educationally rich private school system that accounts for 50% of all students in the East Side and a public school system where four out of five students live below the poverty level.
This two-tiered system came to a head recently when a number of parents organized around the Providence School Board’s threat to close Nathan Bishop - the only remaining middle school for East Side families - and turn it into a temporary high school.
On Thursday, March 30th, a group of parents met to discuss the possible school closing. They called themselves the East Side Public Education Coalition (ESPEC). The next day the Superintendent dropped a bomb. He announced that the board was going to vote on the closing that Monday and that he would advise they vote to end Nathan Bishop as a middle school.
The parents couldn’t believe it. It was Friday afternoon. How could they possibly affect - over a weekend - a vote that was going to take place that Monday?
CitizenSpeak to the Rescue:
One of the group’s organizers, Thomas Schmeling, remembered hearing about CitizenSpeak - a free email advocacy service for grassroots organizations. With nothing to lose, he decided to launch a campaign himself. Faced with an immediate deadline, CitizenSpeak’s ease-of-use was critical for this campaign’s success. According to Thomas, “Once we agreed on the text for the letter, I was able to launch a campaign in 30 minutes.”
ESPEC forwarded the web address to about 80 email addresses that they had collected from their previous meeting and from an earlier public hearing. The campaign targeted the Superintendent, school board members, three local city council members and they mayor.
Much to their surprise, over the course of the weekend 65 people participated. Even more surprising was the Superintendent’s and School Board’s response. On Sunday they started returning emails agreeing to a number of the parents’ demands. They agreed not to put high schoolers at Bishop and to reopen Bishop as a middle school in 2007.
CitizenSpeak played a key role in this turn around as evidenced by the email sent to campaign participants by the School Board President Mary McClure. She wrote, “We have received a very large volume of emails about the superintendent’s recommendation to close Bishop and wanted to be sure that anyone who wishes to attend tonight’s meeting could be accommodated.” Convinced that the parents represented a large constituency, the board moved the meeting from a conference room to an auditorium.
According to the Providence Journal, Superintendent Evans was forced to reconsider his initial plan after hundreds of East Side residents protested the proposal at a recent public hearing and after “an extensive e-mail campaign directed at elected officials, including Mayor David N. Cicilline.”
“I’m a political science professor but I have no direct organizing experience and no expertise in city politics,” said Thomas. “I just saw that something needed to be done. CitizenSpeak delivered right into our elected officials’ in boxes the message that we’re big and we’re organized and we intend to be heard.”
Even though ESPEC has a long fight ahead of them, CitizenSpeak helped them get off to a good start, build their list and prove how effective they can be even at the midnight hour.
How the Free Schuylkill River Coalition Used Email Advocacy, Blogs & Constituent Mail to:
*Grow their list of supporters more than ten-fold
*Line up elected official support at the local, state and national level
*Increase participation at local rallies
*Force a major railroad company into a negotiating position
The good news is that a $14 million pedestrian pathway along Philadelphia’s Schuylkill River is finally close to completion. The bad news is that CSX Railroad, one of the largest rail networks in the United States, is threatening to close existing crossings that allow Schuylkill River Park residents to cross over the company’s railroad tracks to get to the new path.
To the surprise of many, the powerful railroad company is finding itself forced to rethink its plans due to a small band of residents that used the Internet to organize disaggregated constituents and elected officials into a dynamic force called the Free Schuylkill River Coalition.
Free Email Advocacy Tools
For their first action, the residents launched an email advocacy campaign to see how many people they could get to email the Governor objecting to the grade closings. To launch the email advocacy campaign, they used a free email advocacy service for grassroots organizations called CitizenSpeak (http://www.citizenspeak.org).
They created a CitizenSpeak account, and filled out a form that asked for the text of the email letter and the email address of the Governor. CitizenSpeak automatically generated a unique web address specific to their campaign. The coalition emailed this link to their local neighborhood association’s members - or at least the 50 members that the association had email addresses for.
The results were overwhelming. Remember, they only emailed 50 people to participate in their email advocacy campaign. Yet over 150 people participated in the first week, thanks to a CitizenSpeak “Tell-a-Friend” feature that allows participants to easily forward messages to their circle of contacts. Using CitizenSpeak’s reporting functions, the Coalition was able to download the 150 participants’ contact information and their personal statements.
An overwhelming percentage of participants provided personal statements in their emails which helped refine the group’s issues. Personal statements resulted in a broader list of demands which were reflected in a second email campaign that netted a 30% increase in the group’s list of supporters, once again, at zero cost.
The Blog
In the text of their email advocacy letter, the coalition invited readers to link to their newly created blog (www.freetheriverpark.org.) The blog provided additional information about the campaign, including pictures of grade crossings in other cities that refuted CSX’s liability concerns.
To create their blog, the coalition used TypePad (www.typepad.com), a low-cost and easy-to-use hosted weblogging service that gives users a rich set of features to immediately share and publish information. With TypePad, it’s easy to create photo albums, add text, invite and manage comments, add trackbacks, and monitor weblog stats. No HTML skills required.
Constituent Mail
To keep in regular contact with their growing constituency, and to maintain high levels of interest and readiness to participate in future actions, the Free Schuylkill River Park Coalition signed up for Constituent Mail (http://www.constituentmail.com) – an affordable and easy-to-use online email management service that lets organizations maintain and segment a database of users for personalized, HTML email communications with click through and open tracking capabilities.
The coalition used Constituent-Mail to email their list of supporters and invite them to attend the First Free Schuylkill River Park Presidents’ Day Rally. The email directed them to the blog where visitors could download flyers to promote the rally and learn more about their cause. Despite freezing temperatures, more than 100 people turned out for the rally. Reporters were on hand from KYW Radio, three TV stations and the Philadelphia Inquirer to help spread the word about their cause.
Campaign Outcomes
As a result of integrating various internet tools with traditional organizing strategies, the Free Schuylkill River Park campaign has multiplied their list of supporters ten-fold, averaged over 40 hits on their website a day, totaled over 4,000 hits on their blog’s photo album, and most importantly won a major concession from CSX. Despite the railroad company’s previous hard line refusal to meet with their group or city officials, CSX has now agreed to engage in negotiations with the city and to address the Coalition.
Dan Robinson, California based Howard Dean supporter, recently learned that Ralph Nader was considering a second run for the presidency in 2004. Using CitizenSpeak - a free grassroots email advocacy service - Dan launched an email campaign urging Nader not to run.
Dan posted his campaign’s web address on a couple of popular Dean mailing lists and invited people to participate. The response was overwhelming. Within days of launching the campaign, some 400 people had already participated.
Dan was particularly impressed with the CitizenSpeak Advanced Service’s reporting capabilities. “With CitizenSpeak Advanced, I was able to download a report with all the participants’ contact information. Keep in mind, I started this campaign by announcing it on a listserv. I had no idea who might care about this issue. Yet within one campaign, I had the contact information - names, email addresses, even personal statements - of over 400 like-minded people.”
Dan concluded that his message really hit a nerve. “The Internet alone is not the answer for political mobilization. It’s about solid content that can resonate with an identifiable constituency. The Internet and tools like CitizenSpeak expedite the coming together of these forces.”
“Using CitizenSpeak, I was able to identify and reach into a constituency that cares about this issue. I was able to harness the viral nature of the Internet and create a solid base for future campaigns.”
Summary: Founded in 1991, the Container Recycling Institute (CRI) is a 501(c)(3), nonprofit organization that studies and promotes policies and practices that shift the social and environmental costs associated with manufacturing, recycling, and disposal of container and packaging waste from government and taxpayers to producers and consumers. CRI plays a vital role in educating policy makers, government officials and the general public regarding the social and environmental impacts of the production and disposal of no-deposit, no-return beverage containers and the need for producers to take responsibility for their wasteful packaging.
Last year, in an April 14th speech at the National Press Club, the then USEPA Administrator Mike Leavitt referred to the “emergence of a new environmental consciousness” in the 1970s. Living in Oregon at the time, Leavitt said he had “a clear memory” of Governor Tom McCall of Oregon proposing the nation’s first bottle bill. “It was controversial, but I got it. It resonated with me.”
“We couldn’t believe he said this,” said Pat Franklin, executive director of CRI. “Did he realize the can of worms he was opening up?” According to Pat, bottle bills are opposed by one of the most powerful lobbying conglomerates in the country. For the past 30 years, Coke, Pepsi, Anheuser-Busch and their bottlers and distributors have lobbied against taking responsibility for their beverage containers by blocking new bottle bills while working to repeal existing bottle bills in state legislatures across the country.
CRI knew that Leavitt’s comment presented a unique opportunity that they had to jump on. But how was a small grassroots organization with limited funding and resources going to turn on a dime and launch an effective attack. By using CitizenSpeak – a free email advocacy service for grassroots organizations – CRI was able to launch an email campaign that afternoon broadcasting what Leavitt had said and enabling people to take action.
“One of our interns found CitizenSpeak, created an account and launched an email campaign,” said Pat. “All she needed was the email address for Leavitt and some pre-crafted text from me for the letter. She emailed our base of supporters the link to participate and we were done. If CitizenSpeak had been any harder to use, it wouldn’t have happened.”
Over 250 people participated in their campaign asking Leavitt to urge President Bush to back “The National Beverage Producer Responsibility Act.” This bill, sponsored by Senator Jim Jefforts (I-VT), would require beverage producers to put a refundable 10-cent deposit on their bottles and cans sold in the United States. The letter also included compelling evidence in support of the bill. It noted that the 10 states that have implemented bottle bills recycle twice as many beverage containers per capita each year than the combined 40 states that do not have bottle bills – saving energy, conserving natural resources and reducing litter.
Over a quarter of the participants included personal statements in their emails. Some of them were just a sentence but some were long paragraphs providing powerful testimonials from people all over the country including,
*An activist in Maryland who unsuccessfully fought for the passage of a bottle bill in Maryland against the beverage industry,
*A New Yorker who referred to a survey in which 78% of the state residents supported a bottle bill,
*An Arkansas resident that noted that 75% of plastic soda bottles were either being landfilled or thrown out on the side of the road,
*A Hawaii Pacific University student that spends a day a month with other students taking plastic bottles and cans from students that would have otherwise thrown them away, and
*A recycling employee with the Wisconsin Dept. of Natural Resources who wrote about the advantages of the bill to his state.
The campaign served as a shot of adrenaline for CRI. They were so inspired by the personal statements and overall support, CRI called Leavitt’s office and requested a meeting. At first Leavitt’s office wasn’t aware of the emails, but after they gathered them up, the office agreed to a meeting between CRI and Thomas P. Dunne, the Acting Assistant Administrator at the USEPA Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response (who reported directly to Mike Leavitt) and five other high level employees in the department.
During the course of the meeting, Pat and the other CRI representatives impressed upon Dunne the need for the EPA to show leadership on this issue, for environmental as well as economic reasons. Americans throw away 130 billion containers each year clogging up landfills rather than feeding a recycling industry which is alive and well but held back by limited recycling feed stocks. Since the meeting, CRI has been invited by the EPA to participate in multi-stakeholder meetings this spring that will focus on beverage container recycling.
“If it hadn’t been for easy-to-use and affordable eAdvocacy tools, we would not have been able to capitalize on the window of opportunity that Leavitt’s speech opened up,” said Pat. “We might have posted a note on our listserv asking people to write a letter to Leavitt. Maybe 20 people would have taken the time and energy to tediously cut and paste the text and email it off to Leavitt. CitizenSpeak empowered bottle bill supporters and made the process of “speaking out” painless.”
In May 2003, the Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence (RICADV) launched a CitizenSpeak campaign as part of their lobbying efforts to pass a protective order gun ban in Rhode Island.
RICADV knew they were in for a long battle. Many of the Rhode Island legislators have shown a resistance to gun control legislation. Despite the compelling testimonials and turn out at hearings and meetings, RICADV could not get their bill out of the Senate Judiciary committee.
Just as it seemed the bill would fade into obscurity, the tragic murder of a Providence woman by her batterer reignited the group’s efforts. In her memory, RICADV organized a rally in front of the State House. At the same time, they heard about CitizenSpeak. They realized the value of an email campaign but weren’t sure if they had the resources to organize both a rally and email campaign at the same time.
“You can imagine how hectic it was preparing for the rally,” said Patricia Loomis, senior policy associate at RICADV. “Luckily, we were able to create a CitizenSpeak campaign in about 30 minutes, on our way out the door to the State House.”
To promote their campaign, RICADV distributed flyers at the rally and emailed their action alert list inviting people to participate in their email campaign. Their goal was to prove to legislators the broad support for the bill. And that they did.
Over 200 people participated in their email campaigns - achieving a 25% participation rate. The secretary for the Senate Judiciary committee chair printed out a stack of emails - an inch thick - in support of the bill and only two emails against it.
Before the rally and the CitizenSpeak campaign, RICADV couldn’t get their own bill’s sponsor to return their calls. But one rally, good press coverage and 200 emails later, legislators were soliciting meetings with RICADV.
“Legislators were amazed by the flood of emails they were receiving,” said Patricia. “At the local level, legislators simply aren’t used to hearing from such large numbers of constituents. It definitely played a role in winning the support of the Senate President who cares what constituents think.”
“Not only did CitizenSpeak influence legislators, but it helped rejuvenate our campaign. 70% of the participants provided personal statements. They were personal and powerful. It reminded us of why we work as hard as we do.”
In the middle of the residential Summit Neighborhood is a large hospital that wants to get larger. “Not if the neighbors can help it”, says Jon Howard who heads up the Summit Neighborhood Association anti-expansion campaign. As part of its struggle against the hospital, the Summit Neighborhood Association is using a myriad of tactics including petitions, lawn signs, letters and now email campaigns.
Using CitizenSpeak, neighbors were able to invest themselves in our cause with little effort. “While many households in our neighborhood might be against the hospital’s expansion, our cause is only one issue in their busy lives,” said Jon. “It’s easy for residents to feel helpless against powerful interests armed with highly paid PR firms and lawyers.”
Jon credits CitizenSpeak with providing a solution that helps educate neighbors and enables them to take action. “The service is successful because it accommodates our daily routines that already include email. With little effort, CitizenSpeak enables busy individuals to know what’s going on in their neighborhoods, and more importantly, to take action.”
Easy to use service means projects meet deadlines with less hassle. Volunteer based organizations regularly see their projects derailed by labor intensive activities. For example, letter writing campaigns require someone to write copy, merge letters, buy stamps… In each one of these steps, there is an opportunity for delay. Someone goes away, someone’s mother gets sick. “It can be weeks from the time we decide to launch a letter writing campaign to the time we complete it.”
“With CitizenSpeak, one person can put the whole email campaign together in a few minutes without getting out of their chair. They can be back at work in no time.”
Members want to hear from us to find out what we’re doing and how they can help. “As a direct marketer for non-profit organizations, I’m amazed by how often my clients think that people don’t want to be contacted for help or money. True, people don’t want to be asked out of the blue to buy a new phone plan. But when someone gives you their contact information and asks for information, they’re mad not glad when they don’t hear from you. If you’re not following through you’re actually doing harm. We took a lot of names and said we were going to do something. CitizenSpeak let us do exactly that.”
Participants don’t just send an email, they tell you what motivated them to do it. “The thing that I wasn’t anticipating were the comments,” said Jon. “They were really powerful. Organizations that launch traditional letter writing campaigns don’t get the personalized statements that each letter contains. With CitizenSpeak, we were able to find out what specifically were the hot buttons for residents. We learned that most people were angered by the hospital’s arrogance, their exclusion from planning as well as specific problems - the lights, the trash, the parking… Those are concerns that we need to know and do something about to truly represent the residents of this neighborhood.”
For more on the Summit Neighborhood Association, please visit: http://www.sna.providence.ri.us/