How to Share Sweet Victory

The Day the Internet Turned Red

Beyond a Following – Expanding and Activating Your Audiences on Twitter

Science Speakers Series

The Power of Storytelling: The Faces of Immigration Reform
By Beth Kanter, Senior Vice President and Emily Lowe, Account Executive

Stories are powerful. A well-told story lets the listener experience the world through someone else’s eyes and experience a life completely different from her own. That’s why storytelling is such an important part of what we do. Whether it’s fixing our schools, protecting threatened species or improving health care, stories can make complicated, wonky issues more relatable and personal. Really good stories can even inspire audiences to take action.

Stories are the driving force behind the Keeping Families Together campaign, a collaborative effort led by the Center for Community Change and the Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM), a coalition of the country’s largest immigrant rights organizations that came together to demand comprehensive, compassionate immigration reform now. Keeping Families Together is collecting stories from across the country of real families torn apart by the country’s broken immigration system. The campaign shares these stories through its website, social media networks, speeches, videos and more. These stories put a human face on the 1,100 deportations that occur every day and fuel the movement for immigration reform.

Stories can bring your issue to life and move your audiences from knowledge to support, and from support to action. Storytelling guru Andy Goodman suggests the following tips to craft effective stories:

1. A story should answer these questions: Who’s it about? What do they want? What stands in their way to keep it interesting?
2. Stories aren’t about quickly informing. They are about drawing an emotional response from your audience after they have taken the full ride.
3. Be sure to include scenes with dialogue, details and a sense of immediacy that pulls us in. It can’t be summary alone.

Here are a few other lessons we’ve taken from our work with Keeping Families Together.

• Successful storybanking is user-friendly. The Keeping Families Together website provides a platform for visitors to submit video, audio or written stories; to date, nearly 250 people have shared their personal stories with the campaign through the website. When you’re collecting stories from advocates, supporters and others involved with your cause, it’s critical to make it easy for them to share their experiences. The 1 in 3 Campaign provides another great example of a story-driven campaign with an easy-to-use web platform with clear instructions for visitors.

• Don’t wait for decision makers to hear your stories – take your stories to them. For the national Keeping Families Together Story Tour, more than 500 family members traveled to 19 states and more than 90 cities to visit policymakers and share their stories of family separation. Once you have stories – and storytellers – driving your campaign, connect them directly to your audience target(s). You can do this through in-person meetings, but you can also use advertising and targeted digital media campaigns to drive the point home.

• Stories are just the beginning. Since the launch of the Keeping Families Together campaign, the coalition has turned family stories into op-eds, rally speeches, booking memos for cable news, and viral videos. The stories you collect will be the content at the heart of your campaign, but the possible iterations of those stories are nearly limitless.

Stories not only change hearts, they also change minds. Collect, integrate and share compelling stories that speak to the importance of your cause, and you can tap into the emotional values of your audience and move them to action.

The Bumpy Road Ahead for Health Care Advocates
By Elizabeth Curwen, Vice President

In just a few short months, states will launch new health insurance marketplaces and expand public coverage programs, giving more Americans access to affordable health coverage than at any point in our history. Health care advocates need to be planning their smart communication strategies now, in anticipation of opposition ready to pounce at any indication that health reform isn’t working.

These are exciting times for health care advocates. October 2013 – when open enrollment season lets consumers start shopping for coverage in the state marketplaces – is the first major opportunity to focus on glitches in the system. The next milestone is January 2014, when most of the major provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), including Medicaid expansion for participating states, take effect.

However, health care in the wake of the Great Recession is a political lightening rod, and there are plenty of cynics waiting for it to go wrong. Here are some ways to prepare.

• Remind opinion leaders that we’ve been here before. To many reporters, elected officials and other opinion leaders, health reform feels like unchartered territory. But we’ve made major changes to the health care landscape in the past that felt like leaps of faith at the time. In 1997, states implemented the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, which was the largest expansion of public health insurance coverage for children since Medicaid began in the 1960s. More recently, in 2006, prescription drug coverage changed for millions of seniors with the launch of Medicare Part D. These were both major policy changes affecting large, vulnerable populations – our health care system serves those populations better as a result of those changes, but there were bumps on the road at first.

• Elevate the personal over the policy. Health reform is a major policy change, but its impact will be felt by individuals. We need to hear their stories to have faith that we are on the right path. Advocates may want to look to Massachusetts for stories of what health reform has meant for low-income working families, small business owners and others. But you should also be lining up your homegrown stories now. Find the mother who is working two jobs and will be eligible for Medicaid coverage with her kids for the first time. Find the veteran whose benefits have run out who will be able to seek treatment for a chronic health condition. Find the small business owner who is excited to be able to offer his employees health coverage so he can attract and retain talent.

• Celebrate every success. We can’t stop the media from reporting every glitch but we can use the power of citizen journalism to celebrate success. When you hear a positive story about someone using the new marketplace to find coverage, tweet about it. When you meet a family that will now be covered together by Medicaid, post the news on Facebook. Work with your partners to plan your celebration campaign now. It might be helpful to look back at what worked well in the wake of the Supreme Court decision on the ACA. Be prepared to declare victory.

• Be a resource when it doesn’t work. Celebrating success doesn’t mean ignoring the problems. Start some research now to figure out what the likely issues and opposition will be around ACA implementation in your state. Work with health care providers, clinics, schools, community centers and others to make sure that people looking for coverage know where to go and who to call when they run into problems. Prepare your networks to recognize the need for intervention and to help.

The Affordable Care Act has survived a major legal challenge and countless attempts to repeal the law. Advocates need to be prepared to declare health care reform a success when its major provisions take effect in October 2013 and January 2014. Smart communication strategies and advanced planning can help overcome the opposition and ensure victory.

Often advocates are so caught up in the battle ahead they fail to take a moment to celebrate their wins. This is a big mistake. Rewarding audiences who have taken action – even a small one – builds momentum and makes it likely that supporters will act the next time you ask. This month, we’re giving a shout out to Greenpeace for reinforcing their supporters’ actions by sharing the glow of recent victories.

On April 4, Greenpeace shared the “finger lickin’ good news” that Yum! Brands, the parent company of Kentucky Fried Chicken, announced new policies to prevent its restaurants from using throw-away paper packaging made from rainforest wood. They expect this will affect nearly 40,000 restaurants and help protect endangered orangutans and Sumatran tigers that depend on the Indonesian rainforest for survival.

Only a week prior, they blasted out the news that Asia Pulp & Paper, a major rainforest wood purchaser, announced its commitment to end its deforestation. All their hard work was paying off, delivering major breakthroughs with some of the world’s biggest companies.

Greenpeace could have attributed this momentum to their direct actions, landmark reports, and viral videos to push this issue front and center. But instead, they gave credit to their thousands of supporters with a big thank-you note that said “your emails, tweets, Facebook posts and donations can help make even the biggest corporations change their tune.” They acknowledged that their victories were made possible by a culmination of every small and large action undertaken by their network of advocates and celebrated their supporters as heroes.

Seizing moments to share sweet victory and recognize everyone’s contributions is critical for building a community that is eager to battle with you every step of the way. Andy Revkin of The New York Times wrote that Greenpeace’s efforts on this issue, “deserves a round of applause.” We agree, especially the part where the group gave its members a standing ovation.

In addition to turning your audience into heroes, you can reinforce their actions by highlighting small wins along the way and portraying each outcome as consistent with their values. And remember that people want to help a cause and have a good time doing it – so have fun!

For the full guide to reinforcing your audience’s actions, download Spitfire’s free Activation Point.

The Day the Internet Turned Red
By Mark Shields, Vice President

A long-time example of best practices in effective branding, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) now offers a great case study for successfully promoting a theory of change.

HRC’s “Equal Sign” logo is stamped across the backs of cars across the country.    But the organization and its symbol recently made national headlines by calling on supporters to use a red version of its logo on Facebook and Twitter to show support for marriage equality as the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on marriage.

While there’s obviously a “cool factor” about a call to action igniting millions to take action, the really smart thing about what HRC did is that the action supported their basic theory of change. In the campaign world, a theory of change is an organization’s strategy for how they’re going to create change.

Since its founding, a core part of HRC’s theory of change has been that the more lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people who come out to their friends and families – the more those people, and their friends – will support equality, and vote accordingly. Essentially, they’re creating a “new normal” in which LGBT people are just another part of the American fabric.

In asking members to use the red equal sign as their profile picture, HRC was giving a simple and specific “ask” that supported its theory of change. This time, the organization asked members and allies to come out in support of marriage equality. Once again, HRC is essentially creating another new normal, where the majority of Americans support the cause.

Of the many lessons that can be gleaned from that day, non-profits and foundations looking to follow HRC’s example should make sure that they have a working, clear theory of change, and make sure that their activities support it.

How do your target audiences decide to listen to you or not? How can understanding the decision making process make you smarter and more effective in your communications? Spitfire Strategies and the Communications Network are proud to present the next installment of our Science of Communications Series, with Shankar Vedantam, a science correspondent for NPR, and author of The Hidden Brain: How our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wage Wars and Save Our Lives. Vedantam will talk about how professionals can use the hidden brain to communicate more effectively, how culture influences decision making on key issues and more.

Join us on Thursday, May 30th at 9:00 am ET at the Human Rights Campaign’s Equality Forum (1640 Rhode Island Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20036) – or stream the webcast of the event, available online at www.spitfirestrategies.com

Want more news and information from Spitfire? Follow us on Twitter @SpitfireSays and like us on Facebook.