The Young Voters Battleground Poll, released in September 2006 by Young Voter Strategies, shows that voters ages 18 to 30 are most concerned about education, jobs and the economy, and the war in Iraq. With 80 percent registered to vote, the poll indicates that young people will make a big impact in this year’s elections if the candidates start talking to them about the important issues. The bi-partisan poll, conducted by leading pollsters Celinda Lake of Lake Research Partners and Ed Goeas of the Tarrance Group, highlights the opportunities that politicians and advocates have on both sides of the aisle to connect to young voters. The Young Voters Strategies Web site also offers toolkits, research, and case studies on youth voting trends.

For polling results and analyses, visit Young Voter Strategies.

Women – single, married, older, younger – continue to be a growing political force. Polling experts and trend-spotters Celinda Lake, a Democrat, and Kellyanne Conway, a Republican, decided to find out more about 21st century women’s priorities, values and hopes. In their recent book, What Women Really Want: How American Women Are Quietly Erasing Political, Racial, Class, and Religious Lines to Change the Way We Live, Lake and Conway highlight key findings that show trends in women’s priorities/values today.

 

In their research, Lake and Conway identified 10 major trends that are being driven by women in the categories of work life, family life, home life, aging and public engagement. Whether you are planning an outreach campaign, looking for new supporters, or need new strategies for resonating with women, consider these points:

Women are not one homogeneous audience, but within subsets of women there are common themes that resonate.

 

To purchase this book, please visit Amazon.com. 

A new poll released by USAction & USAction Education Fund shows that the "swingiest" voters in 66 swing districts support investment in education, health care and energy independence. Respondents also supported the fact that these investments would cost money, and were in favor of rolling back tax breaks for corporations and individuals with incomes over $200,000. 

 

Of those polled, 82 percent self-identified as moderate or conservative. Respondents expressed worry about their economic status, the direction of the nation, the deficit, government waste and corruption, and they aspire to do better, especially for their children. They believe in self-reliance, and they want government to empower them.

 

For full polling results, see www.usaction.org/swingnation.

How do you motivate people to give money, take action, or otherwise advance your worthy cause? The answer is marketing, and whether you're a nonprofit executive or a PTA volunteer, Robin Hood Marketing shows you how to sell your mission as successfully as the great marketing minds of corporate America sell their products.

Katya Andresen, a veteran marketer and nonprofit professional, demystifies winning marketing campaigns by reducing them to 10 essential rules and provides entertaining examples and simple steps for applying the rules ethically and effectively to good causes of all kinds. The Robin Hood rules steal from the winning formulas for selling socks, cigarettes and even mattresses, with good advice for appealing to your audiences' values, not your own. Andresen, who is a former journalist, also reveals the best route to courting her former colleagues in the media and getting your message into their reporting.

Whether you have a big marketing budget or none at all, Robin Hood Marketing will help send your message straight as an arrow into people's hearts and minds. They'll be convinced to act - and your cause will be poised for unprecedented success.

To purchase Robin Hood Marketing, please visit Amazon.com.

Using a credible messenger that will resonate among target audience members is crucial to effective communications. A new study on trust puts more weight on peers – or people like me – as the most trusted source for information. The seventh annual international Edelman Trust Barometer, found that peers have skyrocketed among trusted sources of information to surpass doctors and academic experts. In the United States alone, trust in peers has increased from 20 percent in 2003 to 68 percent today.

To capitalize on this finding, savvy communicators can:
Since the messenger is just as important as the message itself, try incorporating peers into your communications efforts when you can to get the most impact.

Also of note, the survey reports that trust in NGOs has steadily increased in the U.S. in recent years. Great news!

Monitoring the media coverage of your issue or organization is crucial to staying on top of your communications strategy. A new alternative to high-priced media search engines like LexisNexis can be found at HighBeam Research.  HighBeam allows users to search through a library of 35 million documents from 3,000 sources. While access to the full-text of many articles requires users to register for membership ($99.95/year or $19.95/month), users can sign up for a free week-long trial, or read free full-text articles from a more limited selection of publications such as National Review, The Advocate, and Campaigns & Elections. HighBeam provides members full-text articles from many national newspapers and magazines such as The Washington Post, Time, Associated Press, and regional newspapers, such as The Rocky Mountain News and The Cincinnati Post at a significantly lower cost than other services.

Words that Work: Messaging for Economic Justice is a new online toolkit offering added resources to advocates working toward economic justice across the country. The toolkit considers the latest trends in grassroots economic justice campaigns and recommends effective framing techniques and other strategies nonprofits can use to leverage the power of the media.

Building on the success of living wage campaigns, Words that Work highlights case studies on grassroots efforts ranging from a fight to keep Wal-Mart out of a Southern California town to a national boycott led by garment workers. Economic justice advocates can use this tool to learn what strategies are working for their allies and to increase the impact of their own outreach efforts. The toolkit was recently released by the Tides Foundation's Bridging the Economic Divide Initiative and the SPIN Project.

The Center for Democracy & Technology recently launched Open CRS - a Web site featuring Congressional Research Reports previously unavailable in a public database. Access many of the short, unbiased and easy-to-read reports issued to members of Congress lawmakers to learn more about issues from the environment to broadcast indecency to energy policy.