Lola Elfman, Senior Organizer at the New Organizing Institute, talks about how her organization is teaching non-profits across the US how to leverage technology to organize themselves, raise awareness, raise money, and save the world.

Jed Sundwall: Can you tell me a little bit about the New Organizing Institute and what you guys do?

Lola Elfman: The New Organizing Institute was created after the 2004 Presidental Elections, when there was a group of people working on a variety of fronts, mostly in the political spectrum in technology and in organizing, who had been sort of frustrated with the old way of doing things, the sort of paper and pen, phone booking, literally cutting turf with maps. As things started changing in ’04 with the Dean and Kerry campaigns and other campaigns using the web, the Internet and technology, afterwards, these people said, well wait, there’s something here, we’ve got to keep working on this and make it better. And, more importantly, we need to make it more accessible.

And so, from that, Judith Freeman, Zack Exley and a number of other folks came together and started NOI and saw that there were really big opportunities for the use of technology and politics, both on political campaigns for C3-C4 organizations, non-profits, anyone doing some sort of civic engagement work. And so what we’ve been seeing, in addition to that, is that there’s these tech-savvy citizens also winding up in the wings, who started writing on blogs and getting more invested, themselves, in technology, but also in politics. And so, it’s really been harnessing this power of this whole movement. So, NOI does trainings for non-profit organizations, labor organizations, civic engagement, anyone organizing, doing further outreach, targeting and using new media and technology to help the progressive movement, essentially.

When you mentioned a few technologies that people are going after, what are some of the best technologies that you’ve identified are most likely to train people?

Well, our approach, we’ve actually been doing a bunch of statewide trainings right now. And the approach we’ve been taking with those statewide trainings is sort of two tracks. There is an organizing and communications track, and then, there’s the field and data track. The division there is sort of focused on who’s doing what work and where, and the special tools that they need and the special skills they need to do each one. So, the organizing and communications is more of an organization’s e-mail program, their online fundraising program, how they’re integrating with their website, what they’re doing with their communications team to get out messages, working with bloggers, how to write the best e-mail messages, how to optimize their websites in that kind of work.

And then, the field and data track is really where people are doing voter outreach and voter contact, mobilization and working with tools like The Voter Action Network (the VAN), voter registration programs and tools to look at the data of how to target and mobilize people. So, that gets into a little bit more nitty gritty of how to actually move people to make elections win and organizations get where they need to go.

The VAN works with both the Democratic Party and campaigns, but also they have a non-partisan arm, as well. So, they can work with C3 and C4 organizations and labor organizations. And they take the voter file and all of the information that’s in that voter file and help build it and make it accessible for these organizations to use it for their voter targeting. So, say, an environmental organization is going to go canvassing, they only want to knock on the doors that are going to be friendly to them or they think that they can get something out of. And so, through intensive data research and targeting, using a tool like The VAN, they can then create walk lists or phone call lists that are going to get them the best results, rather than sending a representative of an environmental group to knock on a door of someone who is known to support drilling oil in the Alaskan wilderness. They don’t want to go to that door. The VAN helps them save time.

So, the New Organizing Institute has an arsenal of tools that you know about which you understand well and other people know about? You’re not creating any new technologies, you’re just identifying best practices?

We identify best practices and connect organizations and individuals with other people, using those tools in the best ways. So, we put on trainings here in D.C. and around the country for organizations. We go to their trainings, as well, to help teach them in those best practices, of how to use new media tools and online organizing tools.

And this is what I presume you’re going to New Orleans today to do?

Yes, I’m going to New Orleans for the Operation Big Vote Training Academy, which is being put on by the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation. This is their conference that they’re doing, and a network of organizations. They’re bringing everyone down to New Orleans and doing two and a half days of training. One of the sessions is specifically on how to use technology for their organizations and their mobilization. So, I’m going to be talking about how to move people from online to offline, and how to use online tools to help organize offline events and volunteer programs.

Now, are there any case studies that you cite often or success stories you’re able to share from these trainings like what campaigns have worked?

Yeah, I’m going down to do this training, and my background is working on political campaigns and then, as a consultant for non-profit organizations. So, I have some case studies from that experience. But, we also try and touch people who are also working in the field, so they use their own case studies. We try and tailor it to, if they’re a bigger or smaller organization, what fits for their needs, like what will translate for them the best.

So, in this particular case, I’m taking a campaign that Planned Parenthood did in Pennsylvania a few years ago. While it’s a few years ago, a lot has changed, the fundamentals of it are really quite great. They were running an online campaign about an issue around choice, and made a really fantastic offline component, where they hit all of the art walk nights, street fair nights, and farmers markets with these great big cutouts, and people could take pictures with them. They passed out these great flyers. It was all working in tandem with what was going on online. And they made a point to brand everything that they did with the same name, text and images, regardless of whether they were offline or online. And then, through that, we were able to recruit tons of volunteers and generate a huge amount of buzz, both in the media, in blogs and the community about the issues that they were talking about. So, for this group because they’re trying to organize offline events and volunteers, I’m trying to put that together for them. How do you use all of the pieces in your campaign to make it work in a cohesive way?

Right, and what this sounds like to me is marketing. I know you probably call it outreach, but it's as if you were mentioning the branding using the same text and making sure that the message is consistent across the board.

Well, it’s definitely very similar. I was having a conversation with someone last night about I don’t know if you’ve seen the Dixie Chicks Documentary, “Shut Up And Sing.”

I haven’t.

Are you familiar with what happened with their album in 2003? The lead singer, Natalie Maines made this comment, sort of in passing, saying that she was ashamed that the President of the United States was from Texas. And this spurred this huge outrage, and they were banned and boycotted. People were burning CD’s and all of this stuff. And then, two years later, when they had their new album and they were trying to remarket themselves, sort of re-pitch themselves to a new audience, there was, similarly to what happens on the political and civic engagement side, a lot of research that went into it and data, and trying to figure out who’s our audience, who are we targeting, and how are we going to target them? And so, it was very similar, the approach was similar. They realized one audience was no longer their target. They had to find a new base. So, the language, I think, is a little different, but the thinking is very similar.

Right. I would presume that in the social benefit or non-profit world, there might be an aversion to marketing just because of it’s relationship to business and consumerism and all of this. Social benefit organizations generally have the benefit of doing things that people are already passionate about, so you’re always able to attract kind of a base of people who really care. What I’m seeing, where you guys come in, is really bringing in a science around mobilizing people that I think, oftentimes, sort of gets ignored. Do you see that or not?

Yeah, well I think it’s two-fold. One of the things that we talk about a lot, a lot of organizations are a little obsessed with building their list, “I want a huge list, I need a really big list, I want Barack Obama’s list!” And that’s going to be really hard for a lot of these organizations. They’re just smaller. They may have an issue that they care so passionately about because they’re working for that organization that’s around animals or around a specific environmental issue or around a specific health issue. They are totally gung ho for it. And other people may be affected by it and feel moved by it, but not in the same way that they are.

So, there’s two things that have to happen. You do have to reach out to new people on a constant basis. You have to be finding people who never considered your issue before and make them consider it, and become passionate about it, or at least, somewhat interested enough to give you their e-mail address. Once you have that, then you move into the cultivation of your list and your membership or your supporters. And that’s a really important piece that some organizations, I think, forget about.

OK, you may grow this huge list. You’ve got to take care of them once you have them there. You have to keep them updated, you have to engage them, you have to give them easy ways to be engaged, not ask them to build you a castle out of gold. You have to donate one small brick and be a part of that bigger effort by doing something small. And so, those two things really go hand in hand. So, the marketing that you’re talking about does come into play, and it’s something that the non-profit and political world has had a little bit more trouble sort of mastering than the commercial world. But, we definitely play off of one another and try and mimic.

Unfortunately, these non-profit organizations don’t have the money that these larger commercial companies do. So, buying the online ad space or doing the paid marketing is sometimes more tricky for them. But, there are ways, and we do talk about this and try and include this in our trainings about how do you market yourself well, what’s a good audience for you to market to, what’s the best way if you only have $5,000, $10,000, $20,000, if that? That’s a huge online marketing budget for some organizations. What’s the biggest bang for your buck? What do you need and what are you going to get from this? And we can help people figure that out or at least connect them with others, who are professionals in the advertising field, and connect them with that, as well.

For the benefit of NetSquared, what are some of the ways that you recommend? I’m less concerned with knowing what gets the biggest bang for your buck because I imagine it’s things like search and e-mail if they’re done effectively. Maybe not, but have you had any success doing like social networking or using Web 2.0 type tools?

Yeah. Some organizations have had not tremendous amounts of success. I think what the thing to remember is that nothing is a silver bullet in this, and that it’s all of these pieces put together that help make an organization have a successful brand and marketing strategy and outreach strategy. So, if you’re running a really great e-mail program, in conjunction with some smaller ad buys, maybe some banner ads or blog ads, Google ads, in conjunction with a Facebook fan page that’s messaging the folks and friends on Facebook that’s simultaneous with what you’re doing in your messaging campaign, connecting with some bloggers who are particularly interested in your organization, helping push out some communications, as well as your communications staff, whatever they’re doing to the more traditional or mainstream media press, all of those pieces are working in conjunction.

That’s what’s going to help you have a successful campaign in a well-known organization. It’s when all of those things are working separate from each other and not talking to each other that it doesn’t work. So, one of the things we’ve been working with is talking to not just the Internet directors or the online director, media director, whatever new title they may have, but it’s talking to the communication directors, finance directors and development directors and the ED’s of these organizations or senior level management to help there be a larger institutional buy in to what these new media tools and technologies can help do across the board for an organization. And realize that it’s not just this separate thing over off on the side, but it has to be integrated into everything the organization is doing.

So, I think we’re seeing this more definitely with the political campaigns and with some of the larger non-profits, like I know the Human Rights Campaign does it really well. The Save Darfur Coalition does it really well. Organizations like American Rights At Work are doing it more and more. The Humane Society has a really impressive social networking outreach program that’s definitely tied into everything else they’re doing, working in conjunction with their larger programmatic goals.

Is there anything else you want to make sure our readers hear or know about the institute or anything?

The New Organizing is running a series of trainings, both in the D.C. area and around the country. We’ve run eight statewide trainings so far this summer. We still have a few more coming up in Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota and North Carolina. So, if you are interested in coming to any of those or know people in those states who would benefit from those trainings, visit us at www.neworganizing.com.