Salsa Scoop

Salsa Labs on Facebook, Twitter

We've been tweeting for some time @salsalabs ... and now you can find us on our (re-)deployed Facebook page as well.

We'll be your friend if you'll be ours.

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02:00 PM Sep 28, 2009 - 4 comments permalink

Transform legislative campaigns with Actions 2.0 targeting and reporting

I was happy to have the chance to wander up to Democracy In Action's offices in Dupont Circle in Washington DC for Third Thursday training in September to talk about why my organization, Clean Water Action, has been using the (still-in-beta) Actions 2.0 module for just about year. Two things that go a long way toward helping us achieve our organizational goals are 1) better targeting and 2) detailed reporting.

Better Targeting

Clean Water Action is a national organization but we do a significant percentage of our work on the state legislative level where the relationship between legislators and NGOs is a little bit closer than on the Federal level. With the Advocacy module we got a lot of feedback from legislators that they were getting messages from outside their districts. This was particularly damaging in our work with legislators who were not entirely supportive of legislation or other changes that we were working to get passed.

Better Reporting

Have you seen an Actions 2.0 report? Well, if you haven't, you're going to be amazed, and your organizers/program/campaigns people will be too if they're anything like my folks.

The reporting on Actions 2.0 gives you almost all the features you'd want (I can't very well say all because I'm sure someone will need something I haven't thought of). The report tells you:

1. how many total actions have been taken

2. how many unique supporters took action (because yes, sometimes supporters come back and send the letter or sign the petition again)

E-mail on this action went out on a Wednesday for a California state legislature session that closed on Saturday. Even though this was a small response, precise targeting helped defeat this bill.

3. what the count of messages is per target, whether that's custom targets or legislator or executive targets

Detailed information on which legislators received how many e-mails allowed our campaigners to go to Sacramento armed with hard facts and not just a "feeling" about how our supporters' (the legislators' constituents) thought about this bill.

4. if a message was customized - with the added bonus of being able to view those customizations right in the report screen

A quick glance can tell us if our supporters are just sending what we provided as sample text or if they're getting more involved.

Being able to view the customizations right in the report helps us to identify the level of involvement supporters have with a given issue. It also helps us determine whether or not our forms are being abused for purposes - such as using an action we set up on the Clean Water Restoration Act to lobby Congress on other issues - that don't align with the organization's mission.

But how does Actions 2.0 help us better achieve our organizational goals? In a couple of ways:

It significantly reduces the number of out-of-district messages our state legislator targets are getting. By easing this burden through better district matching, we're able to use the information we have on our online actions more effectively. But that's not all.

Actions 2.0 allows me to maximize the resources we do have in my department because all of its processes are streamlined into one simple interface.

In 2007 Clean Water Action used the Advocacy module to promote passage of the Clean Water Restoration Act. We did four rounds of actions and blast e-mails. The first two rounds were what is called "thank and spank" actions. This required that for each round of "thank and spank" I build a separate action for each group: 2 rounds x (1 Thank you + 1 Spank) means that I built 4 actions.

For 2009 we're now promoting passage of the bill through the Senate and, yes, doing "thank and spank" actions but this time we're using the Actions 2.0 module. We've done two rounds of actions so far and I've built 2 unique actions because the Actions 2.0 module incorporates this type of multi-content target action right into the tool.

While Actions 2.0 is technically still in beta testing and there are still some glitches, and while I know that the fabulous staff at DIA has some improvements planned, the good in Actions 2.0 outweighs the still kinda hinky.

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04:03 PM Sep 24, 2009 - 0 comments permalink

How Obama Used Data to Win the Election

Although this lecture is a few months old, it's a new-to-me find via the Stanford itunes library: Googler-turned-Obama campaign man Dan Siroker gets into the weeds on the data analytics that made Obama '08 such an online juggernaut.

(It's an hour-long lecture that might take a little while to pull. The mp4 is 188 mb.)

WMV

MP4

It's certainly not news that the Obama campaign is chock-a-block with lessons for new media campaigners, but Siroker gets beyond the pat takeaways -- and is actually careful to downplay the degree to which one can generalize "lessons" -- and really exposes some of the methodology used in optimization, all the way down to the specific ROI figures on different mailing and conversion tests. He gives a great template for any organization that has to approach these sorts of challenges ... and that's any organization at all. Even without a fistful of different recruitment videos to test and a multimillion-dollar budget, one can crib from Siroker to think systematically about end goals and what strategies might be tried to reach them.

What I think might be particularly noteworthy are the number of areas that come up in the Q&A section where there simply weren't tests executed, or there were things tried that went awry, or there were opportunities for evaluation that slipped away in the day-to-day pressure of an election. It's somehow heartening to know that even the Obama fundraising machine shares that frustrating "never time to do it right" experience that shoestring e-campaigners everywhere are familiar with ... and it hints at the magnitude of evolution the tools and techniquesfigure to undergo in the two-plus years before the next presidential election cycle hits.

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12:03 PM Sep 18, 2009 - 0 comments permalink

Donor Relations Win

This isn't a Salsa story, except that it's a human story, and at the end, however much technology may reshape the landscape, it's still really about the humans and not the gadgetry.

At its best, the relationship between a cause and a supporter creates a memorable life experience. So donors and fundraisers alike should appreciate this story, told by a formerly disgruntled donor who moves from this place:

I sent the organization an email with some advice on donor relations and letting them know they had lost me because they had simply neglected to say thank you.

... to this one:

You do a great job with donor relations. Now get back to work doing what you do and stop worrying about me and my whining. You've got me for life.

Now that's a memorable life experience.

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11:40 AM Sep 16, 2009 - 0 comments permalink

Calling All Developers!

Things are going gangbusters here at the Salsa HQ and we simply have too many great ideas that we're eager to implement.

We are actively looking for Salsa partners and developers (no experience with Salsa necessary) who are interested in some short-term paid development projects on top of the Salsa platform. Not only will you get to develop applications that will benefit the entire progressive community, you'll have the added benefit of getting training on how you can easily develop your own applications on Salsa and sell/distribute them to a broad audience.

Our new rapid development environment makes this all possible, lowers the barrier of entry for developers, and helps us build a true collaborative platform. You'll simply need to brush off your Javascript skills, as Salsa is built on the most widely programmed language in the world, and you'll find out things about Javascript that we guarantee will surprise and delight you.

This is an excellent opportunity to take on project work or a side project that will have significant exposure and benefit over 1,000 progressive and democratic clients. The projects are interesting, too! Think iPhone applications to contact congress, to GOTV and volunteer management, widgets, phones, turf and other field organizing tools, integration projects with 3rd party apps, etc, etc.

Learn more about developing on Salsa here: Read more...

06:17 PM Sep 03, 2009 - 1 comments permalink

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