Here is an excellent resource that could be extremely useful for local
vicug's doing advocacy work.

Kelly


Now Hear This: The Nine Laws of Successful Advocacy Communications

With words of wisdom from more than 25 leading experts


(Introduction letter)

Not too long ago, the former US Secretary of Housing and Urban
Development (HUD), Andrew Cuomo, spoke to a group of nonprofits and
progressive organizations assembled together on the eve of the 2001
Presidential Inaugural.  He said something that struck a particular chord
in me: "Compassion and competency equal success."

Most of the work we do to improve the lives of others and the lives of
generations to come is born of our compassion and stubborn hope that, if
we just keep at it, we will make a difference.  We will guarantee in
practice that everyone has equal protection under the law.  We will not
let American children die in poverty.  We will help millions in far away
places conquer the raging killer, AIDS.

But our persistent hoping and sometimes aimless grinding away, and yes,
our compassion, are only good for so much.  Ultimately, we are effective
only when we are competent - when we buy or develop the right skills for
a job, think creatively, focus resources, exploit opportunity and come
out of our world long enough to listen to the people in the worlds we
want to talk to.  The change we seek will elude us forever if we do not
bring the right skills and the rights strategy to bear on the problems we
so desperately wish to solve.

This report, written by Kristen Wolf of Fenton Communications, is about
competence - and really, common sense in communications.  Communication
is not an end.  It can be a powerful means to changing hearts and minds
and changing votes.  We live in the information age and negotiating our
time and place in history requires good communications.

The "no nonsense" voices of communications professionals and advocates
for social change, who were crucial in helping to develop "Now Hear
This," challenge us to hold fast to our compassion and dedicate ourselves
to competence.

- Maggie Williams


Now Hear This

Introduction

Nonprofit organizations are at work on issues of critical social
importance.

To succeed, they face the challenge of trying to educate, motivate and
mobilize a public that is too often stressed out, overextended, even
apathetic.  This process has never been easy, but now it is harder than
ever.  Even interested and well-meaning people are cynical, confused, and
difficult to reach.  Public opinion is not easily moved.   People hear
more "noise" than ever and they tune out far more than they tune in.

This document is not intended as a blueprint for creating communications
campaigns, but offers a way of thinking about campaigns from a strategic
marketing and communications perspective.

Quote insert: Good communications cuts through the clutter, it doesn't
add to it.  It does this by getting the right message, in the right
medium, delivered by the right messengers, to the right audience.  End
quote.

People working in the nonprofit world sometimes have trouble adopting a
marketing mindset, but in the end, the goal is for people to "buy" our
ideas - ideas for a better world.   That means we need to find or create
willing consumers.  And we can't simply hit them over the head.
Browbeating is rarely a successful sales technique.

Quote insert: "Nonprofits are experts on the issues that affect all of
us, but are not always experts on the best way to communicate what they
know.   They have staff who believe, who care, and who are really
passionate about what they do.  They just need to learn how to harness
that enthusiasm."  Candy Cox, DDB

From a marketing perspective, when nonprofits conduct communications
campaigns they have assets:

- They have tremendous public trust.
- They have credibility.
- They work on inspiring issues that by their very nature garner
attention.
- They have a strong record.


They also face challenges:

- Sometimes they go from being right to being righteous, losing
supporters along the way.
- They often want to win the battle and the war in one step, when history
tells us this is not the way it works.  They have to be committed for the
long-term.
- They often build campaigns and initiatives on assumptions - not tested,
well-honed strategies.
- They sometimes think the issues are too complex for simple, concise
messages.

Quote insert: "It's not about being righteous, it's about being righteous
and smart." Bobby Muller, Co-founder, International Campaign to Ban
Landmines.
In preparing this report, we searched for common denominators that helped
to define the most successful campaigns - as well as the Achilles' heel
of some failures.

One conclusion: there are three MUST HAVES for any successful campaign:

1. Clear, measurable goals.
2. Extensive knowledge of whom you are trying to reach and what moves
them.
3. Compelling messages that connect with your target audience.

We all know this, yet too often we move forward on campaigns without
using these three criteria as our guide.  How do we ensure these three
core components are at the center of the campaign?

4. Start with systematic planning that is reviewed and then revised.
5. Specify for people what to do, how to do it, and why.
6. Make the case for why action is needed now.
7. Match strategy and tactics to target audience.
8. Budget for success.
9. Rely on experts when needed.

What follows is a closer look at these common denominators, along with
words of wisdom from some exceptional communicators from the nonprofit
sector.

1. Clear Goals, Measurable Progress

Winning campaigns have clear, measurable goals.  Ban landmines.  Secure a
federal management plan for North Atlantic swordfish (Give Swordfish a
Break).  Decrease litter on Texas highways (Don't Mess with Texas).
Decrease incidents of drunk driving (Don't Drink and Drive).  These are
clear goals.  A communications program can be put in place to support
such goals.

We can measure our progress toward achieving these goals.  How many
countries have signed a treaty to ban landmines?  How many chefs have
said they won't serve swordfish until a fisheries management plan is in
place?  How much have we saved in Texas highway maintenance fees because
fewer people are throwing trash out the windows of their cars?  Are drunk
driving-related accidents going down?

Quote insert: "People start from the wrong place and have the wrong goal.
Ask yourself: what behavior do you want to achieve and by what degree.
Is it doable...?"  Bill Novelli, AARP

 Many organizations were talking about the problem of landmines, and the
toll they were taking on humans, especially children, around the world.
But no one had articulated a plan of action.  Bobby Muller, who
co-founded the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, was sitting in
his office one night and said, "Why don't we just ban the goddamn
things."  He'd just articulated his goal - so clearly that everyone
understood what the International Campaign to Ban Landmines was out to
do.

According to Bill Novelli of AARP, picking the wrong goal is one of the
mistakes nonprofits repeat the most.  "Too often, people create an
elegant campaign around the wrong premise or the wrong goal."

"A successful campaign, no matter how we define it, has got to start with
very clear, realistic, measurable goals," say Barbara Beck of the Pew
Charitable Trusts.  "Campaign goals that are not explicit and realistic
are very hard to evaluate.  You've got to evaluate so you can see where
you've made mistakes.  You need to know where the holes are.  That's how
we move forward."

Jon Haber of Fleishman-Hillard reminds us that goals need to come before
everything else, especially in coalition politics.  "Is your goal to have
a pure coalition of people you agree with or is your goal to save the
trees?  Is your goal is to save trees, let's figure out how to do that,
and it might mean picking up people who are not normally politically on
our side, but will help us win."

Quote insert: "You can never really say what you've accomplished, or
whether you've accomplished anything at all, unless you have very
specific and quantifiable goals against which you can measure your
effect." Carl Safina, National Audubon Society

2. Audience Identification and Segmentation

There's an old saying in advertising: If you want to sell fish, don't use
skywriting.  Fish don't read.  People often spend a lot of time figuring
out what to say, without a lot of consideration of to whom it should be
said.

Don't say you are trying to reach "the general public."  While this may
be true in a very broad sense, the more pertinent fact is that you need
to persuade the small group of people who can actually change things.
The trick is to find out who those five, 50, or 5,000 people are.

Quote insert: "Today's social marketplace is increasingly crowded and
competitive.  Targeting and segmentation are crucial to breaking through
and having the edge to persuade."  Celinda Lake, Lake Snell Perry and
Associates, Inc.

Consider the "Give Swordfish a Break" campaign.  The goal was to get a
strong fishery management plan in place.  The US Secretary of Commerce,
who oversees the National Marine Fisheries Service, is responsible for
fishery planning.  How does one put pressure on the Secretary?  A group
could get masses of US consumers to agree not to eat the fish, but that
could take a long time.  Action was needed within two years.  It takes a
lot of money to get to individual consumers one at a time.

Who makes the decisions  about food for consumers?  Chefs, among others.
SeaWeb and the Natural Resources Defense Council, the groups behind the
"Give Swordfish a Break" campaign, targeted chefs as the second most
important audience for their campaign (the Secretary of Commerce being
most important).  And they didn't need every chef in the country, they
needed the famous chefs, the trendsetters, the ones who regularly appear
in the media.  The audience target has been refined from massive to
manageable, e.g. from the general public to famous chefs.  Now that
campaign can create messages, materials and outreach programs to reach
this very specific audience.  This was much easier, and a far more
strategic thing to do, than trying to reach the general public.  In the
end, "Give Swordfish a Break" had more than 750 chefs not serving
swordfish.  This captured the attention of the press, and, ultimately, of
the Secretary of Commerce.

Once you know who to reach, you need to figure out how to reach them.
You must asses their belief system and find common ground.  "We have to
study our target audiences and find out what we can say that will make
them change their behavior," note AARP's Bill Novelli.

Quote insert:   "We don't pay enough attention to who the ultimate
audience is.  We don't assess where they are on a certain issue so that
we can be more sophisticated in our messages to them."  Vikki Spruill,
SeaWeb

In Texas, they had a litter problem. When GSD&M, the ad company hired to
develop a campaign to decrease litter on Texas highways, conducted
research to find out who was responsible for the majority of litter, they
identified their target audience: young men 15-24 years old.  Once they
knew who they needed to reach, they created a theme and position that
resonated with this group - being cool and macho.  GSD&M made it uncool
to litter.  Andy Goodman, a communications consultant to foundations and
public interest groups, notes that when guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughn
uttered four magical words "Don't Mess With Texas," within 12 months,
litter decreased statewide by an astonishing 29 percent.

Quote insert: "Most organizations have limited resources.  It's not
strategic nor practical to spend time and money reaching audiences that
can't help you.  Put your PR dollars to work more effectively by
targeting and prioritizing your audiences."  Robert Bray, SPIN Project

The Children's Defense Fund (CDF) wanted to reduce teen pregnancy rates.
Their target: teens.  They could have made the mistake that Bill Novelli
says nonprofits often make - starting with messages that appeal to them,
as opposed to developing messages that actually resonate with the target
audience.  We may be inclined to tell teens to abstain from sex for moral
reasons or that teen pregnancy often leads to poverty, but these messages
may not be nearly as effective in preventing teen pregnancy as developing
messages that are credible and have an immediate relevance to teens'
lives.  For example, as CDF did, tell them about the serious negative
consequences sex has on a teen's lifestyle, like how they look or what
parties they can't do to.  This they can believe.

CDF took this approach and disseminated these kinds of messages.  The one
message that tested best with the teens featured a close-up picture of a
pregnant stomach with the words "If You're Embarrassed By a Pimple, Try
Explaining This."

CDF staff personally preferred some of the other ad concepts created for
this campaign.  There was one that said, "It's like being ground for 18
years."  The visual is a young woman holding an infant.  But when CDF
tested their concepts in front of teens, teens themselves connected most
with the "pimple" concept.  The target audience is the most important
critic of your message and approach.  It is essential to go with what is
most effective in reaching your key audience, not what most appeals to
those within your organization.

Vikki Spruill of SeaWeb thinks we need to pay more attention to the
target audiences' beliefs and attitudes.  "We think we are the audience.
We don't pay enough attention to who the ultimate audience is.  We don't
assess where they are on a certain issue so that we can be more
sophisticated in our messages to them.  Nonprofits don't listen to the
audience and they don't pay attention to how the audience perceives the
problem.  If anything, they are condescending about what the audience
doesn't know."

Remember: It is easier to motivate someone around something they already
believe than to convince them of something new.

Media wizard Tony Schwartz has written about "responsive chords" -
plucking a value in your audience with your issue.  Good persuasion,
according to Schwartz, doesn't tell people anything new; it reminds them
of something they already know.  The "Don't Mess With Texas" campaign had
nothing to do with litter and everything to do with being a Texan.  The
goal was to associate the idea (cleaning up litter) with something the
target audience (Texans) already believed (being from Texas is special).

Identifying your audience's key values will help you persuade them
initially.  You will also have an idea where your effort may be
vulnerable to messages from your opponents.  This will enable you to
prevent, preempt or defeat those attacks.

Think strategically about your audience and the best ways to reach them.
Only then can you create effective messages.

Whenever you think: "The fact that I am right should be enough," think
about the nerd at the frat party, who, around midnight, starts warning
people about the toxicity levels in beer.

3. Clear, Simple, Concise Messages

Clear goals and measurable steps toward them are supported by simple,
concise messages that resonate with target audiences.  And that resonance
is important.  Making an emotional connection that touches a pre-existing
belief turns passive support into action.

Messages are designed to achieve goals.  A winning message takes into
account what will work with the audience to build support.  This does not
mean restating your goals.  It means making your case in a way that will
be compelling to your target audiences.  According to Billy Shore of
Share Our Strength, "Nonprofits suffer from literal sclerosis.  They are
so literal about everything that they don't translate things into
language that people can understand."

"Everybody else in communications makes big bold claims for things that
they don't really know. 'The best part of waking up is Folger's in your
cup.'  Is that really the best part of waking up?"

Some nonprofits would argue this last question for weeks, hold a summit
on it, and then decide they couldn't make the claim without more
documentation.  They would stick to outlining the numerous physical and
psychological benefits of caffeine ingestion when trying to get going in
the morning, buttressed by data and charts.

One method sells coffee.  The other puts people to sleep.

Let's go back to litter in Texas.  As we said in section 2, this was a
problem.  In 1987, $2 million in tax revenues went to pick up trash, and
that cost was escalating 15-20 percent every year.  Yet by 1997, trash on
Texas highways was down 76 percent.

How did this happen?  Andy Goodman asserts that the "Don't Mess With
Texas" campaign is a case in point of how important the right message can
be.  The goal of the  anti-litter campaign was to protect the environment
and save taxpayer dollars.  However, the litterbug population, 15-24 year
old men, was indifferent to messages about scenic beauty and oblivious to
the costs of cleaning up the roadsides.  Clearly restating the goal of
the campaign was not going to work.

Quote insert: "We realized our audience was 15-24 year old males and that
'crying Indians' were not going to appeal to them."  Judy Trabulsi,
GSD&M.

GSD&M, the agency charged with developing a campaign to decrease litter,
did not assume that a) littering is bad, b) everyone knows it, and
therefore, c) Texas Department of Transportation simply needs a creative
way to tell people to stop littering.  GSD&M's research showed the public
didn't care about litter.  As Andy Goodman notes, "Once GSD&M identified
they needed to reach 15-24 year old males, they were able to come up with
a compelling message: Don't Mess With Texas.  If they'd had Stevie Ray
Vaughn saying 'Come on, everybody.  Let's put litter in its place!" it's
doubtful if anybody would be writing about this campaign.  But when
Stevie uttered those magical four words, he tapped into something deep in
the heart of every Texan: state pride."

The message "Don't Mess With Texas," which didn't sound anything like the
goal, "Keep Texas beautiful and save tax dollars" did the trick because
it persuaded the target audience to take the action needed in a way they
understood and that resonated with them.

Messages need to be "spot on" from the get-go.  "Once you've defined the
playing field, the game is over," says Jon Haber.  "If it's birds vs.
jobs, you're dead.  You lose.  If it's corporate greed versus protecting
the forests, that's good.  We should be going after companies that pay
off their junk bonds by razing forests.  That's a winning message."

Another good example comes from Michael Shellenberger of Communication
Works.  "We are developing a campaign plan to stop the expansion of the
San Francisco airport's runway because it will require paving up to two
miles of the Bay and destroying wildlife habitat.  The airport is
justifying the expansion by promising fewer flight delays.  So first we
have to go after the airlines for over-scheduling flights - a major
reason for the delays - and then we'll propose alternatives like a better
radar system.  It may be that we'll talk about the impact of noise
pollution before we talk about habitat destruction.  That's where people
are at."

Shellenberger continues, "A lot of nonprofits want to speak the whole
truth to power.  Once the whole truth is known then everyone will
follow - so the thinking goes.  Advocates need to identify wedge issues
and specific messages that capture the public's attention if they are to
succeed."

The point is: create messages that help you meet your goal.

Chris DeCardy of Environmental Media Services says nonprofit
professionals often have a hard time doing this: "There is a great TV
episode of The Simpsons where Homer gets Marge a bowling ball for her
birthday that has the name 'Homer' engraved on it.  This is what
environmentalists do all the time.  We try to give bowling balls to
people who don't bowl.  It wastes time and money.  If you know the people
you need to reach and know what they like, give it to them.  The great
thing about the environment is that it's all around us and means
different things to different people.  If we weren't so hung up on
winning for 'our' reasons, we'd be smarter about listening to everyone
else's reasons and appealing to them."

Some people still balk at tailoring their messages to their target
audience.  They want to win campaigns, but they want to win them with
arguments that are complex, hard to follow, and highly nuanced.  In other
words, they want to win based on their own knowledge and beliefs.
"Inevitably the messages will be too detailed and not persuasive to the
target audience," says Jon Haber.

No one likes to be preached to or talked at.  As Judy Trabulsi says, "A
non-preachy message has a better chance of cutting through."  Candy Cox
of DDB agrees, "Nonprofits spend a lot of time telling people that they
should do things.  Most of us do very little simply because we should.
Rather the message from consumers is often 'tell me how I can have
everything I want and still feel good about myself.'"

Motivating messages need to hit an emotional chord.  People are busy.
They resist change.  In order to get their attention and support for
change, you have to connect with people by plugging into their belief
system, not trying to rewire it.

In other words, you need to capture hearts first, then minds.  Every
imaginable gimmick has been employed by commercial marketers to raise
what Malcolm Gladwell calls 'the stickiness factor,' a way to involve the
consumer more effectively by linking emotional experience to purchases.

The nonprofit community can be seduced by the complexity of issues,
losing their audience in scientific ambiguities.  It isn't necessary to
be inaccurate or to dumb down issues.  But it's essential to engage
peoples passion, whether the issue is the environment, their children's
health or social justice.  You need to reach people emotionally first,
and only then educate them.  Hearts first, then minds.

Messages also need to distinguish you from the opposition.  "Nonprofits
are often too soft," says Jon Haber.  "They tend to see the world as good
versus evil.  The problem is that reporters, elected officials and others
see the world as light gray versus dark gray.  The key therefore is to
use your messaging as a way to distinguish yourself from the opposition -
and to do so in a factual, non-inflammatory way and in a manner that your
audience will understand and accept."

"Nonprofits forget that Americans experience sophisticated, high-quality
messaging all the time," says Candy Cox of DDB. "They're used to it and
they expect it.  If you create something that isn't high quality, it's
not likely to grab people's attention.  It may be a perfectly good
message, but if people aren't listening, it will do nothing to advance a
cause."

4. Planning

We all know it pays to plan before executing a big campaign.  But let's
define "good" planning.

1. Spent time and money planning.  Plan for the best-case and worst-case
scenarios.  Look at the issue from every angle.  Understand the problem
backwards and forwards.  Review potential solutions.  Who are your allies
in pushing a specific solution?  Who are your enemies?

It does cost money to plan, but thorough planning means clearer goals,
more concise messages, the right target audience and a road map leading
to success.

2. Think strategy before moving to tactics.  Jon Haber of
Fleishman-Hillard says the                       laziest thing people do
is go right to tactics."  A pres breakfast is a tactic. You have to start
with what you are trying to get done, who can get it done for you, what
you have to tell them, and who has to tell them to persuade them.

3. Pursue communications activities that move you closer to your goal.
As you put together the elements of your marketing/communications
campaign, ask yourself with each strategic and tactical choice: does this
move me closer to my stated goal?  If not, don't do it.

4. Find your niche.  There are a lot of campaigns out there; how is yours
adding to the landscape?  Assess what others are doing.  Review who is
doing what in research, advocacy, and legislative efforts; identify gaps
and duplication.  Figure out what you can do that adds value.

5. Base every campaign on research - not assumptions.  For example: when
the federal government launched its "Just Say No" campaign, no one did
the simple research to learn that teens trusted their peers more than
anyone else.  One of the last people they would listen to was Nancy
Reagan, and certainly not Nancy Reagan telling them what they should do.

The Truth.com didn't make the same mistake to get teens to say no to
tobacco.  They wanted to develop a campaign that resonated with kids so
they asked kids.  In the end, they decided to let kids do the whole
thing.  The moral: test your ideas before going forward.

6. Pre-test.  Nonprofits often have limited budgets, making it critical
that every communications dollar be spent wisely.  This can lead
nonprofits to "skip" pre-testing.  Unfortunately this increases the
chances that the goal, messages, or target audiences are wrong; and
instead of finding out early when you can still change strategies and
tactics, you only find our after spending $95,000 on a full-page ad in
the New York Times.

Pre-testing actually saves time and money.  Pre-tests need not be
prohibitively expensive.  If you can't afford focus groups and a national
poll, simply take your messages directly out to your audience.  Troll a
shopping mall and show people creative materials with your draft
messages.  Ask them for feedback.  They will give you a reality check.

7. Be flexible.  According to SeaWeb's Vikki Spruill, "Communications is
90 percent opportunistic."  Long-term campaigns encounter obstacles and
moments of serendipity.  Your campaign needs to be adaptable enough to
overcome hurdles and leverage opportunities as they occur.  If the
environment changes, rethink your plan.

8. Keep planning.  Like a book, campaigns have a beginning, middle and
end.  Plan for everything.  Most energy and resources are usually spent
on the launch.  The middle is often when creative thinking is needed most
to make sure the campaign doesn't sputter out.  And the end is the
legacy.  Too often we declare victory and leave the field before the game
is over.  Have a strategy to ensure that the public education effort was
viewed as important and lasting, and that the work we initiated moves
forward.  Preserving the legacy of the campaign often involved partners.
This isn't an ego thing; it's rear guard protection.  Take, for example,
guns.  Anti-gun advocates have made enormous strides to get stringent gun
safety laws in place, but many go unenforced.  The pro-gun activists say
these laws are a failure.  If gun control advocates don't set the record
straight, the criticism is adopted by the media and then by politicians.
It becomes accepted wisdom.  An exit strategy is just as important as a
launch.

9. Review and revise.  When your campaign gets funded, there is good news
and bad news.  The good news is, you have money.  The bad news is, you
often are given money to do a very specific campaign in a very specific
way.  This creates a disincentive to review strategies and plans.  Yet,
when you wrote that budget at midnight for a five-city television buy,
you may have had too many cups of coffee.  Of those messages you
developed at an internal staff meeting were actually a flop with the
soccer moms at the mall.... You know, the ones we have to motivate to
create social change.  Sometimes a slight modification is in order; other
times, a complete overhaul is needed.  Either way, build expectations
with funders and partners that provide for changes once you're underway.
And it is important to ask ourselves every day: is this working?  Are we
moving closer to our goal?  If the answer is not a resounding "Yes!" go
back to the drawing board.

In the end, funders want successful campaigns.  The only way to ensure
success is to continually review and revise based on new developments,
not the first draft of the communications plan.

10. Secure funding that fits your needs.  When the President of the
United States makes your issue "the issue of the week," be in a position
to leverage this.  Get funding that is flexible enough to give you leeway
to deal with huge unforeseen obstacles and leverage unimaginable
opportunities.  After ingenuity, money is the most important ingredient
for successful rapid-response communications.  Build flexibility into
your grant requests.  Make deals where money will come sooner if you hit
certain goals early.

11.  Measure success.  Everyone involved in your campaign will want to
know: "how are you doing?"  This means funders, mobilized constituents,
even your family.  Have benchmarks in place to answer this question.
Send out frequent reports.  Tell interested parties how you are achieving
your goals every week.  These are your stakeholders; just like in a
business, you want to show that you are meeting and exceeding
expectations.

5. Specify what people should do

You've done your planning right, created messages that work for your
target audience and you have their attention.  Now what?

They have the facts; they know something needs to be done.  They are
willing to help.  Now is NOT the time to give vague instructions: "Stop
Global Warming."  "Save Our Oceans."  "Justice for All."  People have no
idea how to do this.

But "Race for the Cure"?  That's doable.  If you can run or walk, if you
don't mind asking friends and acquaintances for money, you will help
conquer breast cancer.  It's just like "Don't drink and drive."  Short,
sweet and easy to understand.

Quote insert: "People aren't mind readers, don't ask them to be."  Maggie
Williams

To decide what you want people to do, you need to determine several
things, among them:

1. Are you asking for a one-time behavior change or a long-term
commitment to a new way of life?
2. Are you talking to a willing audience or a skeptical one?

The campaign to prevent Sudden Infant Death Syndrome had to get out one
important message: put sleeping babies on their backs.  The audience
(concerned parents) was very willing to do whatever was necessary to
prevent crib death.

Similarly, the Ask campaign run by PAX had one simple suggestion for
parents: before sending your child to play, ask neighbors and friends
whether they have a gun in their home, and if so, whether it is stored
properly.  Again, a willing audience and a simple "ask."

Recycling, however, is a more complex "ask."  People have to separate
their trash, put out recycling on different days, follow instructions
about what can and can't be recycled.  Cities have to provide curbside
pick up.  In this case, the "ask" was still simple and concise: "Reduce,
Reuse, Recycle."  The target audience was less willing to consider these
behavioral changes than the parents for the SIDS campaign or the gun
control campaign.

Before designing a campaign, ask yourself: How many things do you want
the audience to do, which is most important, and what comes first?  Bill
Novelli advises people to start with what you want to achieve.  Then
define the steps to get there.

Our world is really complex and we often feel as though we have little
control over it.  Consider this from Peter Loge of The Justice Project,
"Your dry-cleaner closes at seven.  The earth will eventually fall into
the sun.  We panic about the first, and the second will be forgotten
before you finish this page.  This is true for several reasons: if you
don't pick up the dry-cleaning, you'll run out of clothes; picking up the
dry cleaning is doable - stopping the "earth's collapse" is not.  There
is a timeliness issue with dry cleaning - by seven today. A specific
consequence of failure - wearing your old "Van Halen" tour t-shirt to a
client meeting.  There's a reward - a pressed and lightly starched shirt.
And your action will solve the problem - drive down the block, write a
check, get clothes.  Effective campaigns work the same way."

Another example: at an Eddie Bauer store, there's a sign asking you to
give a dollar to plant a tree.  The sign doesn't say, "The global
environment is being threatened, so do something - here's hoping it
works!"  By making a specific request in response to a specific problem
and providing a specific solution, Eddie Bauer is successful.

Don't make people guess or jump over hurdles.  Give them bite-size doable
tasks that, when finished, help you build support necessary to achieve
your objective.

6. Make the case: action needed now

There is a lot of noise out there.  Forget about competing against eBay
and Amazon.com.  There is also a lot of "social issue noise" out there.
An overload of noise leads to fatigue; people simply want to tune out.

You may think: "But this issue of homelessness is really important."  And
it is.  But people have been homeless for a long time.  People have been
starving for a long time.  Lands are polluted, nations are ravaged and
human atrocities occur every day.  Why is today the day to look at your
issue?  What is special?

Effective campaigns are built on decision points, real or manufactured.
Maybe legislation is possible now or an international conference is
addressing the issue soon or some event has made your issue timely.  Tell
people why now.

Vikki Spruill insists that if there aren't milestones, you have to create
your own.  "For so many issues, we use the campaign to force the issue,
force a dialogue for a debate that otherwise wouldn't occur."

Friends of the Earth wanted to capture the public's attention about
bioengineered corn.  Although not approved for human consumption, there
was concern it could find its way into food.  FOE kept saying this COULD
happen.  They wanted to dramatize the fact that current government
regulations are utterly inadequate.  They had no hook, since the FDA had
no plans to alter its position about bioengineered corn being used in
food.

That is, until Friends of the Earth's Health and Environment Director
Larry Bohlen visited a half-dozen supermarkets, bought 10 kinds of taco
shells and sent them to a testing lab in Iowa.  Sure enough, two of the
samples contained bioengineered corn that had been approved only for
animal feed.  The story hit the headlines and stayed there for weeks.
Now Bohlen had the public's attention.  He could have waited for someone
else to force the issue, but with a lot of ingenuity and a little cash,
he was able to get his message heard.

Drama helps.  "Nonprofits are incredibly literal.  They don't make the
translation from the difference between the what and the so what.   The
nonprofits tell you what they've done.  Fed this many people.  Built this
many trucks.  They don't get to the so what.  The need to legitimately
dramatize what I think is the real power of what we do.  We change
people's lives.  There are millions of people watching which ad exec will
survive on Survivor, as opposed to which kids are going to survive in
Anacostia next week.  That's the really dramatic story," says Billy
Shore.

The public wants to know what to do, how to do it and why now.  Answer
the question by highlighting one of the upcoming decision points.

Brainstorm possible developments that might push your issue into the
spotlight.  Check the legislative calendar.  Look for state action.
Think of related lawsuits, anniversaries, and big announcements.  If
there aren't any, think like Larry Bohlen and get creative.

7. Match strategy and tactics to your target audience

You've thought about the goal, the audiences and the message.  You've
done your planning and pre-testing.  Now you will pick how to reach your
audience: what strategies and tactics will you employ?

Your first instinct: earned media.  It's cheap.  Your staff calls
reporters.  The articles will help you change the world.  Hold a press
conference and all will be well.

If only this were true.  Too often, we go for the "tried and true" rather
than think about who we are trying to reach and how best to do this.
Maybe it's a letter.  Perhaps chalking the sidewalk in front of their
house.  Think of all the ways to reach the people you need, then decide
which bests fits your resources and goals.  It may be earned media.  It
may be a bullhorn.

Quote insert: "I get discouraged when I hear that part of the strategy
calls for 'the cover of the New York Times Magazine.'  You need to focus
not just on your headlines, but what the impact is going to be."  Barbara
Beck, Pew Charitable Trusts.

"There is a sort of 'Rule of Three' that applies to getting someone to
act on a cause you believe in," says Chris DeCardy of Environmental Media
Services.  "If they hear about it once, they may ignore it.  If they hear
about  it from another source, they may stop and think.  If they hear
about it one more time, they may actually do something.  Our goal should
be to figure out as many ways as possible to reach our target audience."

Quote insert: "Tactics are always the same.  The same people are doing
the same tactics" Vikki Spruill, SeaWeb

"They should read about us in the paper, see us on TV, hear about us from
a neighbor and a friend at a soccer match, have their kid mention us from
school, read about us on the Internet, get a postcard about us in the
mail, see us in skywriting and so on.  There are a million ways to reach
of the 'Rule of Three' but it takes discipline to think of them and to
make sure each avenue really does connect to our target person.  If older
Americans don't watch music videos, then an endorsement by a band on BET
is useless."

"A mistake we make is finding one thing that works really well and simply
applying it all over the place.  In a basketball game, if you find a play
that works, you stick with it until the defense stops you.  In our work,
the rules of the game are rarely the same twice.  And if you focus on
just one way of reaching people - 'I know, let's send an editorial board
mailing' - you limit your chance to get your message in front of the same
person from many different directions.  You fail at the 'Rule of Three.'"

David Fenton, Chairman of Fenton Communications, agrees: "A major goal of
any communication campaign must be to achieve frequent repetition of a
message in a short period of time.  People only learn by repetition -
campaigns should be planned and structured to achieve it.  A one-shot
news event is usually of only limited value, but when backed by other
newsworthy events (legal, Congressional, direct action, celebrity
involvement, etc.), and direct contact with the public (through
advertising, the Internet, and grassroots action), much more power is
achieved for your goal.  Also, politicians respond to a story in direct
proportion to how often it repeats - a one day story has limited
political clout, a two day story much more.  By the third day committees
are being formed and announcements prepared."

Paradoxically, while people learn from repetition, the culture of the
media is structured against it.  It takes careful creative planning to
overcome the media's reticence to report anything that isn't 'new.'"

To break through the noise and get your target's attention: think
differently, try something new.  If you have limited resources, this is
even more important.  The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) wanted
to get the Giant Sequoias of California designated a national monument.
They could have taken out a New York Times ad to get the Clinton
Administration's attention.  Instead they decided to motivate influential
Californians who were most likely to support their efforts to send
letters, emails and faxes to Clinton urging him to act.

Their chosen tactic (with Underground Advertising's help): buy the
biggest billboard in the US to save the largest trees on earth.  They
hung vertical banners on a building on a major corner of Sunset Boulevard
in Los Angeles with attention-getting taglines: "Nobody says let's go to
California and see the largest stumps on earth."  They also went for a
Hollywood appeal - "Around here when you make it big, everyone wants to
take you down."  The effort generated tremendous local media attention
and lots of website traffic.  In August, Clinton declared the Sequoias a
national monument.

Think different.  There is so much fog out there already that doing the
same old stuff often won't cut it.

"It's about calculated risk," says Chris DeCardy: "Wall Street
understands smart risks and diversifying tactics.  In an investment
portfolio, you mix stocks with high risk and return with those of lower
risk and return.  You know the high flyers may not hit, but when they do
you get a big reward.  Too often, we act without thinking through the
risks.  If we do think them through, we shy away from those that may
fail.  A lot of foundations have guidelines that reinforce this cautious
approach.  The problem is that if we avoid risks - even smart risks -
every time, we miss the big opportunities.  Failing shouldn't be seen as
a negative, as long as the effort was well thought out."

There are many strategies and tactics you can consider when deciding the
best way to get messages to your target audience.  Below are a few to
consider:

Picking messengers

When researching the messages your audience will find persuasive, you
need to know who your audience trusts.  "The American public listens to
people, not organizations," says Denis Hayes of the Bullitt Foundation.

Hayes also says in many cases, lack of an effective messenger is the big
hole in a campaign.  "If you ask people to name a consumer advocate, they
say Nader.  If you say, 'name a feminist leader,' they say Steinem.  If
you say, 'name a civil rights leader,' they say Jackson.  But ask them to
name an environmental leader....   Not having a well-known spokesperson
limits the effectiveness of our communications.  You have to have
somebody who takes command of the issue."

Find the BEST spokespeople to raise the profile of your issue.  If you
want to bring an issue into the mainstream, use mainstream spokespeople.
"When AIDS was an issue defined by perceived extremists," Hayes says,
"marketer and advertisers had a tough time getting behind it.  When it
became a cultural issue to everyone, when entertainers and the media got
involved and spoke out, all of a sudden companies, foundations, everyone
started jumping on the bandwagon to support AIDS-related charities."

Messengers can also be used strategically to thwart the opposition.  The
Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids used children as spokespeople.  Kids were
compelling on this issue; they were also a tough target for the tobacco
companies to attack.  In many ways, CFTFK inoculated its messages from
attack by having kids say the messages.  The same messages coming from
adult advocates, lawyers, etc., likely would not have had the same
impact.

Considering both "earned" and "paid" media

Whether to advertise or rely on "earned media" is often a question.  Both
are important vehicles to consider when disseminating messages.  Earned
media is often cheaper, but harder to control.  Your message can take a
real beating when it goes through a reporter, editor or producer.  Also,
"earning" the coverage is sometimes impossible; your issue just isn't
getting the attention it needs.   When considering earned media, always
think about the downside.  What can go wrong?  Once the media has
characterized you, it is difficult to recover.  The front-page article
that denounces you as "on the fringe" has moe impact than the correction
several days later on the inside.  Advertising can be quite costly, but
you get exactly what you pay for.  You get to say what you want, but you
still need to think about the audience reading it.  Will they read a
text-laden ad?  Do they care if many allied groups signed on?  Coalitions
often are challenged to produce effective ads while still meeting the
needs of the coalition.  Remember the audience.  If it isn't the heads of
a coalition you are trying to persuade, then using them as your focus
group is a mistake.  Have someone outside, you doesn't know the internal
politics, write the ad for the intended audience.

Quote insert: "There is a downside to creating advertising by coalition
or committee.  Group gropes invariably result in muffled, mediocre messag
es."  Art Silverman, Fenton Communications

Getting interactive

People receive information differently in the age of the Internet.  The
first place many people look is the web.   It's a new and different
beast.  To communicate effectively with target audiences, we have to know
how to reach them online.  Be familiar with tactics like viral marketing.
The interactive components is key.  Consumers expect tailored, easy to
read, eye-catching information in  this format.  It's not as simple as
digitizing a brochure.

Using experiential approaches

Sometimes our issues become stagnant.  It happens.  The stream is still
polluted, racism is still a problem, but there's nothing new.  Consider
an experiential approach.  The Virginia Cooperative Extension put this
idea into practice with great success.  Low-income people face all sorts
of obstacles in daily life - a reality that the higher-income majority
may realize but never experience.  This organization puts on a realistic
welfare simulation program, designed to give participants an idea of what
the typical low-income family experiences.  What was initiated as a
one-time program has now been implemented 60 times throughout the state
with a total of more than 3,000 participants.  Past participants, drawn
from churches, health and social services departments and volunteer
groups, report higher awareness of poverty issues and an increased
interest in lending a hand in their communities.

Branding

Branding - associating a cause or goal with an organization or person and
imbedding that combines image into the public's brain - is today's hot
communications buzzword.  Is it right for your organization or cause?  As
a strategy, branding should undergo the same scrutiny as any other
strategy or tactic because branding, like everything else, is not a
communications panacea.  There are several types of branding to consider.

Organizational branding.  There are good institutional reasons to brand
an organization: to reach membership goals, to increase credibility among
policymakers and simplify messaging, among others.  Organizational
branding usually takes tremendous resources.  Only do organizational
branding if it clearly will contribute to the organization's objectives.
Greenpeace uses its brand to draw attention to issues it deems important.
Companies worry when they hear "Greenpeace is on site."  It works for
Greenpeace, but it may not work with your organization.

Issue branding.  There is also issue branding, where an organization or
coalition frames a specific issue.  In the early 90s several groups
decided to "brand" breast cancer.  They wanted to set it apart from other
cancers and make it the disease of the decade.  They did it 1) to raise
awareness about the prevalence of the disease to improve prevention - get
mammograms, do monthly breast exams, 2) to raise its profile and generate
new funds for research, and 3) to make the point that this disease
affects everyone - countless women and their families.  The raised
profile benefited many groups and helped to achieve their goals.

Behavior/lifestyle branding.  The Truth.com, a campaign developed by
Crispin, Porter and Bogusky, aimed to convince kids to stay away from
tobacco.  Faced with the fact that the coolness of smoking is a higher
priority than health risks, CP&B focused less on teen morality and more
on the fact that teens were victims of manipulation and duplicity by a
callous older generation.  Teens, upon hearing that tobacco and
advertising industries were colluding to cavalierly take teens' money and
abuse their bodies in return for billions in profit, got mad.  This anger
provided the key to a new brand: "The Truth."  The campaign effectively
unveiled a new (and evil) oppressor and made the rejection of cigarettes
a hip way to strike back.

8. Budge for success

Money may not be the root of all evil, but a shortage of money is nearly
always a recipe for failure.  Budget realistically, fundraise vigorously,
and don't start a campaign you can't afford to see through to a
successful finish.

Spend part of your resources on planning and testing.  If you don't plan
right, you will waste money on untested assumptions.  R&D is rarely a
waste of money.  It is smart to plan for ways to best use your resources.

Candy Cox of DDB says, "A planning budget needs to be inversely
proportional to the budget for the campaign.  Small budgets often tempt
project managers to reduce or even eliminate planning, unintentionally
placing the success of the effort at risk.  A small budget requires
laser-like targeting and strategy and cannot afford anything else."

Quote insert: "Unrealistic goals that try to change entrenched attitudes
are really difficult if you are not going to throw a boatload of money at
it.  You have to have a lot of resources."  Barbara Beck, Pew Charitable
Trusts

The campaign takes off beyond anyone's wildest dreams.  The response from
the target audience is overwhelming.  Problem is, there's no budget for
wild success, just regular success.  If possible, make deals with a
funder to have a "reserve" of money to kick in if things go better than
expected - more people want to get involved, the opportunities are
greater than anticipated.  When opportunity knocks is not the time to be
writing fundraising proposals.

Keep an open line of communication.  Generally funders know that
everything will not go 100 percent as planned.  Keep them in the loop.
Usually they would rather know the "real deal" and hear about changing
circumstances than keep the project on a track that leads to defeat.

Success often means more money.  Plan for it.  Success brings
opportunities that weren't possible at the start of the campaign.

Benchmark. If you are spending money to create impact, show what that
impact is.

Tap corporate partners, when possible; they bring a lot of the table.
Billy Shore of Share Our Strength found this out when he joined forces
with American Express for the "Charge Against Hunger."  Over three years,
Amex spent close to $40 million branding this annual Share Our Strength
event.  Amex got the glory; SOS got $40 million worth of exposure.

Work with allies to enhance efforts and leverage resources.  If one group
has a great report that supports another organization's goal, combine
resources to disseminate it.  It is more cost-efficient to use existing
research and spend pooled resources promoting it, than it is to fund new,
duplicative research, just so the information is proprietary.  The
Justice Project found out that Professor James Liebman of Columbia
University's School of Law had a report coming out about the error rate
in death penalty trials.  This research would help The Justice Project's
efforts to pass federal legislation to reduce mistakes in capital trials
that lead to innocent people wrongly sentenced to die.  They agreed to
fund the dissemination of a report that didn't have their name on it.
Liebman got the exposure and The Justice Project raised their profile as
a valuable resource to the media, moving their cause forward.

9. Bring in the experts

Some people reflexively think they have to do everything themselves
rather than relying on people who have the core competency to do
communications really well.

The nonprofit world brainwashes people to believe they don't have access
to these kinds of resources.  Billy Shore gave this example: "An unnamed
university brought together 12-14 brain scientists to spend a morning
presenting research on cognition, nutrition and early childhood
development.  These were the smartest people you've ever heard.  Then
they spent the afternoon talking about how to communicate their research
results, but they don't know anything about that.  They know how to do
brain research.  Their conversation about communications was at the level
of 'let's have a bake sale.'  It's a real problem."

Quote insert: "When you are working on really important issues, use all
the firepower you can get your hands on."  Ken Cook, Environmental
Working Group.

Effective communications is a key component of a successful social change
campaign.   It has value just like fundraising, grassroots organizing,
and lobbying.  If you want to communicate effectively with target
audiences, hire strong communications counsel either in-house or
out-of-house.

This doesn't necessarily mean hiring a firm with a big retainer.  Find a
board member, a friend, somebody that looks at issues from a marketing
and communications perspective and get their advice.  Ken Cook of the
Environmental Working Group notes, "I find people who eat, live and
breathe communications to be valuable and useful.  It provokes me to
consider methods not always readily apparent on first blush."

"Americans in France are convinced that if they simply say is LOUDER and
s-l-o-w-e-r they will get directions to EuroDisney.  It doesn't work,"
says Peter Loge of The Justice Project.  "Policy experts make the same
mistake - details about Medicare Part B don't make sense at any volume.
Smart tourists hire experts - guides - to translate for them.  Smart
nonprofits do the same.  They bring in communications experts to bridge
the gap between policy details and public motivation.

Conclusion

The key to creating and implementing successful advocacy communications
efforts is to honor the process.  Make sure you account for all nine
components when contemplating communications activities to support your
goals.  Use the checklist to the right.

List:
Clear goals
Target audiences
Concise messages that resonate
Good planning
Tell people what to do
Make a case for why action is needed now
Match strategies and tactics with audience
Budget for success
Rely on experts when needed

If we go through this rigorous process, campaigns will be stronger and we
will meet the common goal of running incredibly successful social change
campaigns.

Our issues not only deserve this kind of attention and thoroughness, they
demand it.


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