Online strategies for lobby days

• example: West Texas Virtual Lobby Day
• example: Oregon ProChoice Lobby Day Blog
• other lobby day ideas

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West Texas Virtual Lobby Day

Because constituents of PP of West Texas live so far from the state capitol, the affiliate set up a blog for folks who couldn't make the trip for lobby day. Organizers posted a schdule of events, talking points, photos, and updates throughout the day. Visit their blog at wtx-speaks-out.blogspot.com!

The blog started with this entry:

We know that not everybody can take off for Austin on a Tuesday afternoon. That is why we are offering VIRTUAL LOBBYING!

We will be blogging about getting ready for March 1 and blogging while we are lobbying. If we are lucky we will be able to upload up to the minute pictures of our day. Regardless, you will be able to be a part of it all.

I will blog on the issues that we will be lobbying our state legislators over. I will give you all the facts and figures you need. All you have to do is comment after the blog entry. We will make sure that your comments reach the people who need to know.

Organizer Susan Crippin had these thoughts to share once Texas Lobby Day 2005 was over:

The lessons learned--

1. If you are going to have a blog you have got to promote it. I created an advocacy campaign and an alert. I set the finish URL to direct members to the blog address. That probably did more to boost hits than anything else. Once the support gets there once, they will more than likely come back to see what is updated.
2. If there are computers in the waiting area of the clinics, have the screen set to the blog. That way the clients can see what is going on as well.
3. Pictures, Pictures, Pictures. I am hoping next time to post video using OnFuego.
4. Get staff, volunteers, and board to send the blog address to supporters not on the Get Active list.
5. Get support for the effort from management. I am very lucky. My CEO (Karen Hildebrand) and VP (Carla Holeva) are very supportive of my suggestions.
6. Now that we have had success with this, I am hoping to continue the effort throughout the Texas Legislative session. Lobby Day is over, but there is still a lot of work to be done. This will be an additional asset to our normal Get Active efforts.

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Oregon Lobby Day Blog

For their 2005 lobby day, Planned Parenthood affiliates in Oregon wanted to find a way to include their supporters who couldn't be there in person, and also to amplify the voices of the activists attending lobby day. Organizers set up a blog and started posting updates the night before Lobby Day. Links to the blog were sent out by e-mail and posted on the PP of Columbia/Willamette web site.

During the event, pictures were posted to the blog and particiapnts wrote their own entries about their lobby day experiences. The website really captured the positive energy of Oregon's ProChoice Lobby Day and preserved it on the web ofr posterity. Visit the blog now!

Here's a blog entry by PPCW Field Manager Tess Fields that was posted the night before Lobby Day. It's a great example of the compelling first-person voice that blogs are so good at expressing.

PPCW Organizers Workin Hard!

So after calling 5,000 people, Planned Parenthood of the Columbia Willamette Field Organizers have successfully recruited 450 people to join us for Pro-Choice Lobby Day. Tonight is the night before the big day, we have all been here since 8am, and are completing reminder calls to all of the volunteers that have registered to remind them about the big day tomorrow--

Organizing highlight- Having several Legislators become irritated with us when we reported to them that they had 50, 60, and sometimes 70 people coming to see them from their district.

Organizing lowlight- realizing when we mailed out the confirmation letters that in spite of our attention to each volunteers specific dietary needs, we neglected to include the date for Pro-Choice Lobby Day.

Biggest fear- managing this blogger site for the first time and watching the only person in the office that knows anything about tech leaving for the day.... ADA...come back!

Nicest Legislator so far- Senator Floyd Prozanski who is working his schedule like spiraled pasta to accomodate the 20 people we have recruited to come and see him.

Rudest legislator so far- Senator Jackie Winters who refuses to book a meeting with us in spite of the fact that we have 20 constituents recruited to meet with her...come on Senator...where is the love????

Phonebanking food of choice- Doritos, peanuts, and chocolate chip cookies.

Here are some afterthoughts from PPCW Communications & Marketing Manager Ada Kardos who set-up the blog:

This was not the first time we've used Blogger, but their interface has changed quite a bit! I had used them for a European Study Tour one of our Educators went on in 2002, and it was really useful for getting middle-of-the-night postings from Amsterdam. We will likely set up another blog for our Global Partners tour coming up to Peru.

Set-up felt a little more complicated this time around since the wrapper was not just straight up html. Thanks, Ruby, for putting the wrapper in! One tag was overwritten, but Blogger's Help info is very useful/friendly and I found it in short order. People who do not know how to read/write HTML/CSS would have difficulty creating their own wrapper, but the template wrappers are very nice.

Technical strangeness: Initially, I had wanted to set the site up to appear at http://www.ppcw.org/blog/. However when I set that up, it simply would not load in IE, although it came up fine in Firefox. I didn't want to spend time troubleshooting it, so I just simply moved the blog to http://prochoicelobbydayoregon.blogspot.com. It worked out fine.

Images are a 2 step process: you have to 1) upload the pics to some other site, then 2) link them from your blog posting. To post photos you must know how to crop them to a useable size, how to FTP them to a secondary site (we used www.ppcw.org/blog/) and then write the img src tag to pull it in.

We had 2 laptops set up, but 3 would actually be ideal. Some people really like to take their time typing stuff in, so you may have a computer being used for a half hour by one person. Opening up both computers to posters didn't allow me to monitor posts/comments, or to work on uploading photos in a timely manner.

Location/accessibility: we had great connection that was set up by the kind IT folks at the statehouse. The room was not the main rally point, but the organizers did a great job of passing out fliers so that both the activists and the reps knew what was going on and where, as well as actively recruiting people to show up to blog. The room itself, however, had been booked for a meeting from 12-1, then from 2:30 to 4:30. Since the 2:30 rep never showed up, there was essentially 2 1/2 hours that people could actually access the room and blog. In the future, more visibility and no double-booked rooms would be ideal.

Recognizing peoples fear of the unknown: I strongly recommend giving a 5-minute introduction to what a Blog is and why you shouldn't be afraid of it to all participants in advance. Many people who wandered into the room seemed fairly intimidated by the concept of writing their thoughts on a computer, or just simply didn't know what the purpose of the Blog was. Younger people were more in-tune, of course, and older people made comments like "It's like a chat room", "Oh, I'll never get near a chat room, I've heard awful things about them...". How to use a laptop in general also was a bit of a stumbling block, but not too bad.

In general, it was really really cool, and I'm really glad we had the experience!

~ada

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Other online tactics for lobby day organizing

Publicize, amplify, and document your events:

• Have lobby day participants post live updates to a web site ("live blogging"). See example at right.
• Post updates from lobby meetings asking online participants to follow-up with online actions and/or call legislators in response.
• Take pictures of lobby day and post them online. See this example from Virginia's 2005 lobby day.

Include supporters who can't attend in person:

• Allow virtual participants post their comments to legislators on a public web site.
• Encourage participants to put up protest "signs" by writing their own slogan and adding them all to a web page. (This was done with PPFA's "virtual rally" for Roe in 2003.)
• Enable virtual lobbyists to post their own photos from home See www.sorryeverybody.com.
• Webcast good speeches. This can be done live and/or after the event.

Do you have other ideas or even experiences doing this kind of thing? Please share them with Ruby. This list will grow as we add your suggestions, you can view the latest version on the online organizing center.

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Updated: 3/3/05