The New Little Black Book of Politics

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RS VOTE
T CONS
TS ITUEN
CONSTITUENT RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT:
THE NEW
OR SUPP
TERS
LITTLE BLACK BOOK OF POLITICS
RS DONO
T h e G r a d u at e S c h o o l o f P o l i t i c a l M a n a g e m e n t
INSTITUTE FOR POLITICS, DEMOCRACY & THE INTERNET
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Constituent Relationship Management: The New Little Black Book of Politics is a publication of GWs Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet. Julie Barko Germany, deputy director of the Institute, is the principal editor of this publication. Peter Churchill (Center for American Progress) is the assistant editor. Ed Trelinski (event manager), John Neurohr (research assistant), Riki Parikh, Ryan Sullivan, Zach Morgan (researchers), and Chris Brooks (nancial manager) assisted with the research, editing and writing. The staff of Adfero Group provided invaluable assistance and helped with the research. Carol Darr, director of the Institute, provided additional editing. Ian Koski of On Deck Communication Studio designed and paginated the publication. This project beneted greatly from the advice and assistance of many individuals. We especially thank all of our authors: Their opinions, however, as interesting and provocative as they are, do not necessarily reect those of the Institute. IPDI is the premier research and advocacy center for the study and promotion of online politics in a manner that encourages citizen participation and is consistent with democratic principles. IPDI is non-partisan and non-prot and is a part of the Graduate School of Political Management at The George Washington University. F. Christopher Arterton is dean of the school. For more information about the Graduate School of Political Management, visit www. gwu.edu/~gspm. For more information about the Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet, visit http://www.ipdi.org. GWs Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet. The editor is Julie Barko Germany. This book may not be reproduced without the expressed written permission of IPDI or the Graduate School of Political Management. The date of publication is March 15, 2007.
CRM: THE NEW LITTLE BLACK BOOK OF POLITICS
Table of Contents
Introduction By Julie Barko Germany ..................3 Part I An Introduction to Constituent Relationship Management Chapter 1 Constituent Relationship Management: How Smart Business Equals Winning Politics By Peter Churchill ...............................................8 Chapter 2 Putting Ideas into Action: Principles and Applications of Constituent Relationship Management By Jeff Mascott, Ken Ward, and Julie Barko Germany ...........................................................14 Part II The Data-Powered Campaign Chapter 3 Its the Data, Stupid! By Peter Churchill ............................................21 Chapter 4 Understanding Constituent Motivation: The Benets of Effective CRM By Jocelyn Bowman ..........................................27 Chapter 5 Get a Clue! The Dawn of CRM in Politics By Bobby Clark .................................................28 Chapter 6 How Web 2.0 Electries Data in the Political World By Benjamin A. Katz ........................................32 Chapter 7 Software as a Service: A Strategic Imperative for Political Campaigns By Daniel Burton ..............................................35 Chapter 8 Making Your CRM Volunteer-Friendly By Ian Koski .....................................................38 Case Study: Ragtag Armies and Online Donkeys: Volunteer Management and CRM in the 2006 Senate Campaign of Jim Webb By Dave Hannigan and Dave Leichtman.........41 Chapter 9 Data, Data Everywhere. Now What Do I Do with it? By Christopher Massicotte ................................44 Chapter 10 Retail Politics? Not So Fast. By Jonathan Karush ..........................................49 Flashback to 2002: Notes from a Field Campaign: How I used data and door-to-door canvassing to pinpoint likely voters By Kendra Ann Crowley ....................................51 Chapter 11 People Come Before Programs By Clay Johnson ................................................52 Chapter 12 - The End of the Campaign and the Beginning of Elected Ofce: Correspondence Management and CRM By Daniel Bennett ............................................53 Part III CRM for Advocacy and Nonprots Chapter 13 Finding the Lifeblood of Your Nonprot By Jason Zanon.................................................58 Chapter 14 Not Just for Political Candidates: Voter Files and Constituent Relationship Management By Catherine Geanuracos .................................60 Chapter 15 Integrating Constituent Data: Three Approaches By Laura S. Quinn ............................................64 Chapter 16 Driving Advocacy and Action with CRM By Jon Thorsen ..................................................70 Chapter 17 Finding the Political Inuentials Hiding in Plain Sight in Your Database By Carol Darr ....................................................77 Chapter 18 If the Shoe Fits: Finding an Open Source CRM Solution for Political Nonprots By Dave Greenberg ...........................................81 Chapter 19 Your Website is an Interaction Tool By Aaron Welch ................................................85 Chapter 20 Small Nonprots Have a Seat at the CRM Table By David Geilhufe .............................................89 Chapter 21 The Email Factor: Tailoring Your Communications Program By Sheeraz Haji ................................................91 Part IV Managing Constituent Communications in Elected Ofce Chapter 22 Turning Problems into Opportunities: Why CRM Makes Congressional Ofces Proactive By Jeff Mascott .................................................96 Chapter 23 Interactive Democracy By Stuart S. Shapiro .......................................101 Chapter 24 The Ideal CRM for Members of Congress By Ken Ward and Nick Schaper ......................105 Appendix I Author Biographies .................... 109 CRM: THE NEW LITTLE BLACK BOOK OF POLITICS
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INTRODUCTION
Got Data?
JULIE BARKO GERMANY
I admit it: the title of this chapter is deceptive. Its not about the data. Its actually about how you use it. Sure, data is nice to have around. Its valuable. It lends an element of credibility inside the Beltway to be able boast about the size of your email list. Certainly, the political world has been abuzz the past few years about the size of the databases at the DNC and RNC and exactly what they contain. You can also make a tidy sum selling that information if youre brave enough. And, the more you have, the more people gossip about it. In other words, data is hot. Those of us working on this publication have certainly talked about how data is the sexy new topic in politics: everyone wants it, no one seems to get enough of it, and were all dying to see what people do with it. But stockpiling enough servers to ll a discount department store with information about voters, donors, and activists wont get you anywhere unless, of course, you know how to use it. Or, to quote jazz great Ella Fitzgerald, Taint what you do. Its the way that you do it. Instead, this publication is all about developing relationships with your constituents. Its no secret that people are more responsive when they feel like they are in a relationship with another party a spouse, neighbor, or even a political party or nonprot. We want people to know who we are. We want to be heard. We want to be treated like unique individuals. We want someone to meet our needs. Would you ask a complete stranger to do you a favor? Probably not. Would you ask a complete stranger for money? What about a vote? Most of us in the political or nonprot worlds do it every day through a variety of mediums: email, phone calls, direct mail, face-to-face meetings. But what if there were a way to treat each constituent, donor, volunteer or voter like an individual? What if you could build relationships with them? Its possible and feasible if you have the right tools. Relationship management wasnt designed to waste your time. Rather, it was developed to make
business or, for the sake of this publication, the business of politics more efcient and more effective. In laymans terms, it has the potential to save you money and make you more friends. This is where data comes in. The idea is to use integrative, interactive tools to manage your relationships with supporters from details like name and address to online and ofine correspondence. The corporate world calls it customer relationship management (CRM). More than a decade after the corporate world began to use CRM to develop a one-to-one marketing relationship with consumers, the political world is nally starting to catch on. Customer relationship management becomes constituent relationship management. (It also goes by the name of voter relationship management in other publications.) The chapters contained in this publication are not designed to offer a complete worldview of CRM. Instead, we consider them to be unique tiles that, when combined, form a large mosaic about how to use relationship management in politics. By politics, we dont just refer to campaigns. We mean politics broadly dened, including trade associations, advocacy groups, nonprots, civic groups, elected ofce, and yes, even the federal, state and local governments. We divided this publication into sections, depending upon the type of organization you run political campaigns, nonprot and advocacy groups, and elected ofce. But we dont want you to limit yourself to just the section that pertains to what you do. We think many of the chapters in this publication offer lessons that can be absorbed into everything you do in the political and nonprot communities. We wont tell you all the secrets now. Well let our authors to tell you.
Top Take-Aways
1. Change your philosophy. Its not all about your candidate, your organizations mission, or you. Its about putting your constituents at the center of everything you do. As Peter Churchill writes in Chapter 1, every action a campaign makes must be in support of its relationship with the voter. Substitute campaign with congressional ofce, nonprot, trade association or advocacy group. Have a data plan. Before you begin a CRM strategy, determine where your data is going to come from, where you plan to store it, and how you are going to use it. In other words,
2.
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3.
4.
5.
6.
a. Get data. b. Remember data. c. Use data. Get it all on paper, and then stick by your plan. As Ian Koski writes in Chapter 8, a data plan is critical for ensuring the database you build will support your CRM activities, such as recruiting and managing volunteers, donors, and supporters. But dont stop there. Make reporting data a priority. Include it in your data plan, and follow through. Divided data falls apart. Old thinking puts the data you collect about your volunteers in one spot and the data you collect about your donors in another. Old thinking stores your data on your PC. Instead, store your data in one, secure, online place, where you and your staff can access it from down the hall, in eld, or across the country. This helps you develop what the corporate world calls a single view of the constituent. Youll then know who they are, when they volunteered, and how much they donate at the click of a button, instead of people in three different departments sending out emails to people requesting information. Integrate everything. All the tools you use your website, email, blog, donation program, text campaign, etc should be integrated into your CRM system. You want your database to include everything you do to interact with your constituents. Integration keeps your data clean and updated, according to Laura S. Quinn in Chapter 14. Oh, and dont forget that integration doesnt end on the website. The interactions you have with your constituents in real-life situations, such as events, dinners, fundraisers, ofce visits, or phone calls, are just as important and should be included in your database. Personalize your interactions with constituents. Political messages that are broadcasted to one general American audience are giving way to micro-targeted communications. If you want someone to listen, then talk about him or her. As Benjamin Katz writes in Chapter 5, if you have more direct communication, then you can avoid wasting money on pointless communication. Customize and automate it. A database is just a database until you customize it with tools and applications. Your database should t your needs as an organization, not the other way around. It should make your life easier, not more difcult. This is particularly true when it comes to using your CRM system to generate email. As Jeff Mascott writes in Chapter 2, Good service isnt just
about selling a candidate. Its about responding to your constituents needs. Your organization, ofce, or campaign can do this in a timely way by automating some of your communications. For example, when someone donates on your website, your CRM program should immediately generate a thank you email. 7. Build a sh ladder. As a political organization, campaign, or non-prot, you probably want your constituents to do something. Use your relationship management program to cultivate them and ask them to take an action. In Chapter 18, Aaron Welch compares this process to building a sh latter: just as salmon swim up human-made dams one step at a time, so your campaign should integrate on- and ofine CRM efforts to move people up the ladder of engagement and activism. 8. Listen. Building relationships isnt just about talking. Its also about listening. Jason Zanon writes in Chapter 12 that Its still all about the people. Listen to what your constituents say and, if necessary, change the way you talk back to them. 9. Guard your data with all your heart and soul. In Chapter 10, Chris Massicotte writes that good data requires constant activity. Improving and rening your database is something that occurs every day. Its not something that you do for a month, and then walk away from, expecting your CRM system to work its magic without you. Keep your database up to date. Designate the right person (or people) for the job, and make sure that the information is secure. As Jonathan Karush writes in Chapter 10, Personal information has become a real commodity in the Internet age. If you want to run an ethical campaign, then treat your data carefully. 10. Good CRM doesnt end on Election Day. Many congressional ofces already use CRM to manage constituent communications. According to Stuart Shapiro in Chapter 22, listening to your constituents is what democracy is all about. Stuart gives it a name: Interactive Democracy. He sees it as a dynamic way to reengage the American public in the legislative process. 11. Remember what youre selling. As Jeff Mascott writes in Chapter 2 and Chapter 22, you are selling a candidate or an elected ofcial. You arent even selling the name of your nonprot organization or political party. You are selling ideas, issues, and services. Thats why every interaction you have with constituents counts: Jeff writes that good
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service is about identifying each customer or constituent, deciphering his or her needs, and serving him or her in as many ways as possible. 12. Dont over estimate the value of mass solicitations. They probably dont work as effectively as you think they do. In fact, mass solicitations may backre. As Jon Thorsen comments in Chapter 16, some recipients, no matter how considerate they are, will feel that their time is being wasted by something they dont care about. Jon recommends conducting multiple targeted campaigns simultaneously. 13. Ask the experts. Dont know where to start? Ask one of our authors. Theyre the experts. Weve included their biographies in the back, as well as information about each of their organizations in each chapter. When in doubt, just contact the Institute. You can reach us at Ipdi@ipdi.org.
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PART I
An Introduction to Constituent Relationship Management

You probably already have a database, and you probably already use it to help you generate communications with your constituents things like email or direct mail. This section isnt designed to tell you that databases are important. Rather, the authors in this section want to challenge the way you think about your database and for that matter, the way you think about the entries in your database, your constituents. This section draws heavily upon lessons from the corporate world, where relationship management developed in the 1990s. Our authors dont want to preach to you: they want to show why the business world changed, what difference it has made, and how you can adopt some their practices for your political activities whether you run a campaign, a congressional ofce, or a nonprot organization.
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CHAPTER 1
Constituent Relationship Management: How Smart Business Equals Winning Politics

PETER CHURCHILL
CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS
ential books about commercial marketing of the past century, The One to One Future, began to take shape. The book made Peppers and Rogers two of the most well-known CRM gurus in the country.
The Center for American Progress (www.americanprogress.org) is a progressive think-tank that uses policy papers, talking points, publications, and events to shape the national debate.
To succeed in the future, organizations will need to better understand what customers want. To counter the decline of mass media as a vehicle for effective advertising, communications organizations are moving quickly to embrace CRM - Lawrence Handen, author of Constituent Relationship Management
History of CRM In early 1990, Don Peppers, who was to become one of the leading authorities on customer-focused marketing, gave a speech to the Advertising Club of Toledo about the future of marketing. Although this was before the Internet as we know it had emerged, Peppers had already come to the conclusion that the new communications and information technologies being developed in Silicon Valley would eliminate the underlying basis for mass marketing.1 By the end of the speech, Martha Rogers, a professor at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, not only recognized a kindred spirit, but also concluded that what Peppers was describing was something she had recently been predicting: the emergence of totally individualized media, enabling people to receive customized news and entertainment, a development that would require companies to engage in two-way dialogues and employ totally individualized marketing.2 The concept of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) had arrived, and one of the most inu1 2 Don Peppers and Martha Rogers Ph.D., The One to One Future (New York: Doubelday, 1993) Preface, i. Ibid., xiv.
Something else changed in the early 90s. For many businesses, the economic environment became much more challenging. Up until the recession of 1990-92, consultancies such as Andersen Consulting3 viewed outperforming competitors as little more than business as usual. But the changes predicted by Peppers and Roger meant that the traditional businesses were about to face such intense competition that the traditional formulas for success would be rendered obsolete. If their businesses were to continue to achieve the results expected of them in the future, they would need to compete in new ways, with new skills, to satisfy ever changing customer demands.4 This quote should sound eerily familiar to the political audience of this book. In recent times, where the power of incumbency and redistricting have often severely reduced the number of competitive races, it has been all too easy for well-nanced incumbents to stroll to an easy win. But just as new technologies redened the business environment ten years ago, so the world of politicking is entering a new era of declining national media, a rapid increase in the use of new technology, and the ability of people-powered campaigns to match and even outspend their wellnanced rivals. Finally, the release of Netscape Navigator in October 1994 as the rst modern Web browser able to graphically represent information on the World Wide Web meant that a new means of communicating, the Internet, would bring a new set of opportunities and challenges to existing companies. Suddenly, people were no longer limited to their local mall or the magazines they received to research and purchase new products. Anyone with access to the Internet could get the information enabling them to compare two or more companies products, and nd the best deal regardless of where they were physically located, and make a purchase the way they wanted and on their own time. Consequently, customers would have a greater inuence over a company, its brand and pric3 4 Tom Siebel, Virtual Selling (New York: The Free Press, 1996), 1. Ibid.
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ing, than at any time in the past.5 The Theory of Customer Relationship Management If companies were to adapt to the changes in mass advertising and the emergence of personalized media, Peppers and Rogers reasoned that these companies would have to radically change the way they marketed their products. It would no longer be sufcient to create a new product and then try to create the largest possible market share possible. Instead, companies would need to focus their efforts on share of customer. The principle of CRM is simply this: the focus on the customer, not the product. In political terms, this translates into focus on the constituent (or voter), not the candidate. For a company to succeed, it needs to identify each individual customer, assess his or her needs as a consumer and aim to sell him or her as much of the companys products as possible.6 But to achieve this paradigm shift requires a company to alter its business strategy to become an organization that understands, anticipates, and manages the needs of its current and potential customers.7 The organization that successfully adopts such a strategy leapfrogs ahead of an organization that continues to use traditional mass-media marketing techniques. In particular, an organization that is able to target specic customers by aligning what each customer needs with the products the company has to offer should be able to: Reduce the cost of wasted advertising to uninterested individuals. Prevent overspending on low-value clients or under-spending on high value ones. Improve the use of the customer channel, thus making the most of each contact with the customer. Make it easier to track effectiveness of a given campaign, since each response can be individually tracked and recorded.
Replace the word customer with the words voter or constituent.

Fundamentally, in the political sphere, replace the word the customer with the words voter or constituent. In the world of campaigning, for example, the ultimate aim of any election is to persuade the voter to choose your product and not your opponents product. But what is the product we are trying to persuade our voter to choose? When I have asked people the question, If a voter is a customer, what is the product they are buying? many people respond without hesitation, the candidate. Considering the media coverage, this is perhaps not surprising. For many, the 2004 Presidential Election seemed for the most part to be a popularity contest between George W. Bush and John Kerry as personalities, rather than a choice between their positions on the issues considered important by the voters. In this celebrity-obsessed era, candidates are viewed as just another commodity that uses constant television advertising to reinforce its brand. But is this really an accurate comparison? Bruce Newmans 1992 book, The Marketing of the President, seeks to make a different analogy. In his view, the idea that choosing a candidate can be compared to choosing a bar of soap is nothing more than a myth made popular by a press corps that minimizes the uniqueness of the marketing application to politics.8 Instead, looking at the 1992 presidential campaign, Newman makes a more complex argument about the application of marketing techniques to presidential races, one that is worth revisiting here. In Newmans opinion, the candidate should be seen as a service provider [who] offers a service to his consumers, the voters, much in the same way that an insurance agent offers a service to his consumers.9 The service in question is the campaign platform. Newman argues that comparing the marketing of services with politics is more applicable because services have unique characteristics that products do not possess. They are: Intangible Variable, depending on the service provider Perishable, since they only exists for a nite time and cannot be stored Inseparable, i.e. you can't separate service from the provider
But Is CRM a Political Strategy? Can the principles of moving from a product-centric to a customer-centric world be made applicable to political campaigns? To answer that question we need to rst determine who exactly the customer is in the political world, and what is the product they are buying.
5 6 7
Institute of Direct Marketing, The IDM Guide to CRM Mastery (London: Institute of Direct Marketing, July 2002), 7. Peppers and Rogers, The One to One Future, 35. Brown, Customer Relationship Management, xix.
8 9
Bruce I Newman, The Marketing of the President (California: Sage Publications Inc.,1994), 9. Ibid.
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Thus, from Newman's perspective of the campaign platform as the product, the campaign's role is to ensure that research and polling shape the platform to the voters preferences and use the candidate's physical presence, experience and record in ofce to reinforce the overall impression created in the mind of the voter. So when a person votes, Newman argues, he or she is not choosing a particular politician but rather making a choice about which candidate's positions on certain issues most reect his or her own. In an age of special interest groups and the socalled Culture Wars, people are increasingly likely to vote based on their position on a few issues, rather than their loyalty to a particular party. If the campaign platform is the product, then it is surely true that a campaign needs to work out which issues are important to each individual voter, identify their concerns and then seek to persuade them to buy as much of the campaigns platform as possible. And, as noted earlier, when people are buying a service any service the Internet has made it easier than ever to compare the features they consider important about a product and determine which best satises their needs.
you do not rst listen. And after all, isnt being heard exactly what we as voters want in the rst place? The most notable example of a campaign that sought to create a two-way conversation with the voters was Howard Deans campaign for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination. More than any other campaign before, they used technologies such as blogs and the social networking abilities of websites like MeetUp.com to attempt to build a genuine two way relationship with the voters. Although necessity may have dictated this approach (the campaign lacked the resources to build an infrastructure to rival anything that candidates like John Kerry had in place), it owed more to Joe Trippis belief in the power of the Internet to create a new kind of political community. It was a deliberate strategy to decentralize the campaignand let the momentum and decision making come from the people.10 Although Deans campaign ultimately failed, he demonstrated that if people to feel part of a campaign and have a stake in that campaign, it will yield results. The relationship with the voters that his campaign fostered greatly enhanced the amount of time and money that was donated to the campaign compared with those who chose to pursue the more traditional approach to campaigns. Dening the Customer-Centric Organization As interest about CRM increased in the late 1990s, many companies wanted to demonstrate they were ready to embrace a customer-centric world. But instead of acknowledging that far reaching changes would be required to take advantage of this new business paradigm, they sought out CRM software vendors who promised fast results. As one CRM strategist put it, There is a very strong tendency in the world of senior management to let CRM sexiness get in the way of clear corporate business processes and methodology.11 But companies soon found out that unless they were willing to alter their core business processes, any new CRM system ended up replicating their current, outdated methods. In retail nance, for instance, most banks at the start of the 1990s were still organized along product lines. If you went into the bank, you were often seen by different people depending on whether you wanted a checking account, a mortgage, life insurance, or advice about savings and investments. Any data stored on your transactions with the organization were kept in that product areas silo of data, separate from the other products in the system. If a new product was launched, the marketing team was tasked with selling that one product to as many people as possible. But in the new world of 1:1 marketing, those nancial in10 Joe Trippi, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (New York: ReganBooks, 2004), 82. 11 Paul Greenberg, CRM at the Speed of Light (Berkley: McGraw-Hill/Osborne, 2002), 85.
In an age of special interest groups and the so-called Culture Wars, people are increasingly likely to vote based on their position on a few issues, rather than their loyalty to a particular party.
Campaigns, of course, have already been taking this approach to some degree. A basic campaign strategy often dictates that you must rst determine which voters are most likely to vote for you, and then construct your campaigns platform around those voters. Some might argue that this is not a healthy model for dening the issues of government, preferring candidates to follow a more traditional model of dening their positions and then seeking to persuade enough people of the merits of those positions to win the election. But it seems to me that political campaigns take this approach because they are having to adapt to a new type of electorate, one that expect to be treated like individuals, not faceless, unquestioning followers. Consumers and thus voters are used to marketers approaching them in a way that echoes that Peppers and Rogers vision of what has come to be called 1:1 marketing in everyday life. You cannot market 1:1 if
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stitutions required customer focused managers who would aim to sell each individual as many products as possible, not staff dedicated to selling only one product. If that model seems normal now, it is because the competitive pressures described by Peppers and Rogers led to customers having greatly increased expectations about what the banks and nancial institutions could offer them. When you deal with a mortgage advisor, customers now expect them to know what other kinds of business they currently do with that institution, and be able to recommend suitable products that will compliment it. If they the customer leaves that experience with a positive view of the company and its products, the customer might be more willing to read a marketing brochure about other products. Tom Siebel, who created one of the largest CRM software companies, Siebel Systems, had no doubt that a company must change the way it interacted with customers before it could reap any benets from his software: If the fundamental task of the corporation is to sell, then the customer is the ultimate arbiter of the companys success. Given that, it follows that every action the company takes and every decision it makes must be in support of the relationship with that customer.12 Notice the emphasis on relationships not ad buys or television appearances or direct mail pieces. Creating the Constituent-Centric Political Organization Political campaigns are no different. Most people who vote for a candidate will never actually meet that candidate. At best, they may attend a rally where the candidate appears for a short time to speak. But many more people will come into contact with the campaign itself, whether as a donor, as an attendee at an event, or when a volunteer comes to their door to canvass them. Just as Tom Siebel said that every action a company takes must be in support of its relationship with the customer, so must every action a campaign takes be in support of its relationship with the voter, regardless of whether it is the campaign manager dealing with a press inquiry, the accountant querying a donation or a volunteer handing out signs.
Every action a campaign takes must be in support of its relationship with the voter, regardless of whether it is the campaign manager dealing with a press inquiry, the accountant querying a donation or a volunteer handing out signs.
Most campaigns lack the time, money and continuity to implement a corporate-style assessment of how they operate. However, a good campaign manager should still be able to take a look at any processes used by the campaign such as how the campaign interacts with a new volunteer or how it fullls a request for a sign and evaluate them based on three criteria: 1. 2. How important is that process to the campaign? Is it effective i.e. does it make sense to do it that way and does it add to the likelihood of getting more money/volunteers/votes? Is it efcient i.e. is the process being done properly in terms of speed, output or throughput?13
3.
Take, for example, a yard sign. In itself, fullling a request for a sign may not be considered the highest priority for a campaign, especially if we compare the time taken to fulll it with the value of the staffs time to make persuasion phone calls or to go out canvassing. But if we also consider the effectiveness of the process, we can make a more considered judgment. The request can come from many places - a page on the website, from someone who is canvassed, or perhaps as a response to an acknowledgement email for a donation. Each of these interactions with the potential voter tells us more about their intentions with regard voting (they seem to be a strong supporter) and could also lead to us recruiting them as a volunteer, a repeat donor or at least a strong supporter in their area. The reverse is also true - by failing to fulll their request, the campaign could be losing valuable support and money. Finally, a properly designed CRM platform, with all of the supporter information in once place should be able to ensure that the campaign staff can quickly nd the correct address information for that supporter from the canvass or 13 Michael Gentle, CRM Project Management Handbook (London: Kogan Page Ltd, 2003), 39-40.
12 Siebel, Virtual Selling, 237.
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Take-Away: What about Targeting?

Targeting: the process of determining which voters you need for victory and identifying them as efciently as possible. Hal Malchow, author of The New Political Targeting Targeting can take many forms, from targeting an advertising campaign to a certain audience, to segmenting the most valuable customers who are worthy of greater attention, to isolating those who are the least valuable. While this sounds harsh, determining that someone is not persuadable is a good way to conserve resources especially for a national organization or campaign. This need to target is one area of the CRM process that political campaigns have generally already absorbed. With limited resources and time, it has always been imperative that campaigns know how to focus their resources on the right voters. As Ron Faucheux succinctly puts it, The idea is to use your resources where they will do the most good use those precious resources on voters who need to be convinced. For Faucheux, effective targeting is vital to ensuring that a campaign uses its resources efciently and disseminates its message effectively, without which a campaign will not be victorious. Even in the past when voter history data was only available from the party as a paper report, campaign managers and their eld staff sought to identify which precincts and wards were strongly for their party, or swing areas or strongly supportive of their opponent. As further advances in technology made accurate telephone polling cheaper, campaigns were able to identify segments of voters who were open or hostile to a candidates message, and target them accordingly with direct mail, radio and television advertising. Hal Malchow makes this same argument about the need to focus resources in his book, The New Political Targeting. In his view, often only ten percent of the electorate is persuadable and will actually vote come for your candidate on Election Day. But Malchow argues that most modern campaigns have failed to adopt recent developments in targeting techniques used by commercial marketing rms. As a result, they do a poor job of nding those voters, mainly because the political establishment now relies too heavily on data gathered by pollsters for performing accurate contact targeting. In his view, while polling data is extremely important in shaping the campaigns message, it is poorly suited to contact targeting, since the small sample size and time constraints of a 500 person poll mean it is not possible to gain an accurate picture of the sub-groups. Moreover, it is difcult to incorporate into the survey results crucial targeting information such as voter history, which can then be compared with voter list les and updated as necessary. Malchow lists three developments that he considers xtures of modern commercial targeting solutions, and his solution is simple: Collect more data. Conduct better analysis and measurement, and Be accountable. Of these, he feels the political world has only progressed in the area of data collection, which while necessary, is of limited value without the other two developments. If your campaign, nonprot, ofce, or advocacy group is only doing the rst task collecting data then you may be wasting your most valuable resource. Malchows advice on targeting is valuable. But by itself, it is not enough. But coming full circle around to the topic of CRM, even if the political campaign does put in place all three elements he describes, it doesnt necessarily make them voter-centric. For more information, check out: Hal Malchow. The New Political Targeting (Washington, DC: Campaigns and Elections Magazine, 2003).
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donation record, identify a campaign person who lives nearby and dispatch the sign with the minimum of effort, thus radically altering the evaluation of the process of fullling a sign. By thinking in these terms, a campaign should be able continually to ask itself whether the way it is operating operates is really as a voter-focused campaign, either in terms of involving the voters, improving the campaigns knowledge about the electorate, or delivering votes on Election Day. Just as in business, campaigns are often ghting the current campaign just as they fought their previous campaigns, and as such, get stuck in the practice of doing things because that is the way they have always been done, rather than because that is the most effective or efcient way to use the new techniques or technology that have become available. As a starting point, any good technology solution in political campaigns should have a few core features: There will only be ONE repository of customer and product data. Not lots of separate lists. Access for all who need it. Everyone in the organization must be able to access the data when they need it, whether they are in the ofce, at an event, or at the voters front door - if possible, this will include being able to easily synchronize your data with portable data devices, such as handheld Personal Data Appliances (PDAs). Correct information. All communications must be attached to the correct contact record. Ability to contain all kinds of interactions not just online interactions. The voter should be able to communicate with the campaign using their preferred method, e.g. mail, email, Website, phone. All these interactions should be tracked in the CRM system. Every communication channel must be integrated with the central database, including donation systems and volunteer sign ups on the website. Ability to be studied. This data will be stored to enable voters to be proled, segmented and targeted.14
14 Brown, Customer Relationship Management, xii.
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CHAPTER 2
Putting Ideas into Action: Principles and Applications of Constituent Relationship Management
JEFF MASCOTT AND KEN WARD
ADFERO GROUP
JULIE BARKO GERMANY

Stop. Think. Constituent Relationship Management is not software. It does not occur when you buy a software program in your local ofce supply store and load it onto one or two ofce computers. You cant build it and forget about it. Rather, relationship management is intangible. Its not like a CD or a spreadsheet printout. It is a philosophy and a way of doing business especially the business of politics. And by politics, were not limiting ourselves to elected ofce or political campaigns. Issue advocacy groups, trade associations, non profits, lobbyists all have much to gain from adapting the principles of corporate relationship management. The business of politics is the business of people and building relationships. Relationship management (or CRM constituent relationship management as we call it in this publication) is about how you mange interactions. Those interactions can be with your supporters, donors, voters, the media, Hill staffers, bloggers, or your own staff. What makes a relationship management system valuable? If you answered my candidate or my elected ofcial or my issue, then youre thinking in old forms. If you answered the amount of data I have about each person, then youre halfway there, but youre still thinking in old terms. Relationships matter, and a CRM program becomes valuable because of what you put into it
information about people and the many ways you communicate with them. It is not about selling something: it is about identifying each constituent, assessing needs, and attempting to communicate with each individual in as many appropriate ways as possible. In other words, its about relationships. Not the salesman and certainly not a sales pitch. Do you look at your supporters, members, or donors as customers? Or do you see them as an ATM something you use to raise a few dollars or earn a few votes. Maybe it is time to change the way you look at your base of support. After all, the title of this publication isnt data management. Its constituent relationship management. Relationship management puts the customer in the center. It treats the customer like an individual and attempts to meet his or her needs in an individual way. Sounds expensive, doesnt it? It doesnt have to be. Small changes in the way you think about your customers may in fact have a tremendous impact on your organization. This chapter is not about persuading you to buy something. We want you to change your thinking. Collecting all the data in the world about your supporters wont make a single difference if they are nothing more to you than automatic cash (or vote) machines. What does make a difference? Cultivating relationships with your supporters as if they were individual customers and managing your interactions with those individual customers. Sure, relationship management is a way of doing things, but its not something that you cant get your hands around. We dont want the idea of relationship management to scare you away from using it. In fact, we think that making ve small changes in the way you manage your customers can make a big difference. Principle 1: Make Customer Interaction Accessible. You arent just a politico. You are a customer. Like us, you probably buy at least one thing a day whether its ofce supplies or groceries or a newspaper or a Metro ticket. We dont have to tell you what customers like you want you probably already know it. In fact, you probably have dozens of ideas about how to improve the products and services that you already buy. What do you and I want as customers? Something easy to use. Something personalized to your needs, like picking out a tomato that will be just-ripe-enough for a salad you plan to make tomorrow evening or a new car with just the right features, colors, and fabrics. Something that offers real benets perhaps a clean bathtub or glossy hair. But how are companies supposed to know what kind of tomatoes I like or how to build my dream car if they dont ask? How is your organization, ofce, or campaign supposed to know what your constituents want if you dont ask them? Once you ask them, how
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do you store that knowledge for later use? How much is all this going to cost? CRM helps you understand, anticipate, and respond to your customers needs in an efcient and consistent way. A good CRM system helps you learn what makes your supporters tick, and it helps you respond to their needs and incorporate their needs into what you do. It makes customer interaction accessible by using the best communication method for each customer. For example, it keeps track of the best way to communicate with customers, whether by phone, email, or in person. Do you get a better response by calling them personally on their cell phones at work or in the evening on their home phones? Or perhaps they respond best by seeking you out, through updates on your Website. Maybe they even respond best to instant messages or text messages. The two keywords are automation and integration. Your CRM system should be automated so that it helps you respond when your customers contact you and it should be integrated to include all interactions (phone calls, face-to-face meetings, email, sign-up forms on your Website) not just those that occur online. Lets imagine that you want to call the person who handles your investments. Your daughter has big plans for a study abroad program at college next semester, and you want to move some of your investments around in order to help pay for her trip. Unfortunately, you cant reach the person who normally handles your portfolio. Hes on family leave for an extended period of time. What do you do? Before CRM, investment banking rms like yours relied on various salespeople to develop relationships with clients. It sounds great doesnt it? Its nice to have a relationship with the person handling your money. But what happens when that person is unavailable? Leave a message and wait for him or her to return your call in a few days? Talk to someone who knows nothing about you, your account, or your needs? That doesnt sound too helpful. A CRM system takes all those notes about you scribbled on sheets of paper or on personal computers and stores them in one place. All the many separate islands of information merge into one. Other salespeople are able to access your client information to help you. Thats integration at work. How does this work in the political space? If youve ever held a fundraising event, then you know how important it is to follow-up with your attendees. It is also incredibly time consuming. CRM can help integrate your online and ofine interactions with event attendees and automate some of your response. Last week, for example, George Russell attended your $200 a plate fundraising dinner as a guest of one
of your big donors. George signed up to receive more information about your campaign at the registration table. Pre-CRM, George probably signed up on a clipboard or a card. It might have taken days or even weeks for your campaign volunteers to add his information into your database and even longer to send a thank you message. One month later you get around to sending George a communication an email asking him to donate now. What are the chances that George will donate to your campaign one month later, with very little follow-up and a month after the initial thrill of hearing your candidate speak has worn off. With CRM, the scenario changes. One of your campaign staffers was manning the registration table and typed Georges information immediately into your database on a wired laptop computer. She noticed that George was already in the database. He signed up two months ago to receive a yard sign, which he hasnt yet received. Your staffer immediately thanks him for coming and tells him that she will have a yard sign waiting for him to pick up after the dinner. She also checks off a box on the database to note that George received his sign. The next day, your CRM system sends a thank you email to everyone who attended the event, including George an email you actually wrote and approved a week and a half ago directing them to check out the Web video of the event on your Website. A month later, you follow-up with all your event attendees again, asking them to consider hosting a house party for your candidate. George volunteers, and the system immediately sends him a thank you message with further instructions and sends a reminder for you to send him a snail mail package including a DVD, paper materials, and donation forms for his house party. CRM has allowed you to slowly develop a relationship with George, integrating online and ofine communication without wasting a lot of time. Principle 2 Know Your Customers. We like to be understood and have our needs met. You probably feel the same way, and youre probably willing to talk about what you want if only someone would ask you. Your customers are no different. CRM helps you recognize what your customers are looking for in a political candidate, elected ofcial, trade association, or non-prot and better develop your services. You didnt think your campaign or ofce offered services, did you? Chances are good that you offer some kind of service sending bumper stickers to people who sign up to receive them, managing constituent requests for a tour of the Capitol or a quick passport renewal, lobbying for issues your members care about, etc. Being able to answer why your customers ask you for something, whether it is voting for a bill or
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sending them an American ag own over the Capitol, as well as what they ask you for allows you to react to your customers more effectively. This works on both a macro and a micro level. For example, CRM allows you to measure every interaction you have with people. Every point of contact can be tagged, so that you can personalize communications. Surveys can help you track preferences and learn about people. Collecting this type of data has become incredibly popular in politics over the course of the past few years. Most of us in the political space know that a database or a member list is a valuable commodity. Collecting this information is the rst step. Storing that information in one central hub, where staff can access the bits of information they need, even if they are on the road or in the eld, is the second step. Using it to personalize communications with your customers and shape the way you serve them is the third step. We talk about this third step later on. Right now, lets focus on what the corporate world calls developing a single view of the customer, or in this case, the constituent. To use an example from the corporate world, the Dow Jones Newswires, which provide real-time nancial news, wanted its sales team to have realtime access to account information. The Newswires continuously received a variety of information from dozens of different directions, and it needed to store that information in one central hub. They thought being able to access clients and track their needs would lead to a more effective sales team, so they implemented a CRM system that allowed them to store client information in one place and access all aspects of an account simultaneously. This made preparing for client meetings or answering questions easier, and it allowed customer service professionals to sound more authoritative.15 If someone like the Dow Jones Newswires thinks it is important to develop a single view of its customers, how important is it to develop a single view of your customers your constituents? Lets look at the average congressional ofce. Everybody is juggling at least a half dozen different issues or tasks especially when an important vote nears. And, amidst all the hurry and deadlines and work, now of all times is when the voters back home call to voice their opinions. Youre tired. Youre multitasking. You never seem to have enough staff. You feel like you dont have time to address every caller like you live down the street from them back home. What do you do? A CRM system helps you handle the clutter. So when the big issues hit and the calls keep coming in you dont have to struggle to nd information. Its all there. Tomorrow, for example, your boss is voting on relief for orange farmers after this winters big freeze in California. Gail Simmons one of sev15 Salesforce.com
eral hundreds others calls your ofce to express her opinion. Luckily, the staffer answering the phones today has access to your CRM program. When Gail calls, your staffer enters her name into the system and notices that Gail called the last time a farm issue arose. Your staffer thanks Gail for calling, gives her a quick update on the last issue the bill passed and asks if she would like to sign up to receive an email about the results of the vote tomorrow. The staffer checks one box, and tomorrow, minutes after the bill passes, your system generates an email to Gail, telling her that the bill she supported passed. Principle 3 Deliver Good Service. If youre like us, you probably go to the same dry cleaner every week. Maybe you tried a few places when you rst moved in until you found the right dry cleaner. What keeps you coming back? Is it the fact that the owner greets you by name? Or that the shop always seems to get your stains out even when they seem impossible? Do they send you thank you cards during the holiday season? Delivering good quality service helps retain customers. After all, isnt good service the reason why you keep returning to that same dry cleaner! When it comes to the political space, good service has to be efcient. Despite the medium of communication online, over the telephone, in person, by fax you need a time-conserving process that will improve customer relations and reduce support costs. How does a political group deliver good service? Lets start with what good service in the political space actually is. Good service isnt just about selling a candidate, an elected ofcial, or an issue. It is about identifying each customer or constituent, deciphering his or her needs, and serving him or her in as many ways (and through as many mediums) as possible. Imagine if after school tutoring programs worked the same way your campaign or ofce does. Instead of greeting each student by name, the tutor addresses all of them as a group. Hello, group, she says, Today I want to talk to you about earth sciences. What if your child doesnt need help with earth sciences? What if he really needs help with algebra? What if he isnt even studying earth sciences this year? At then end of the month, your son has spent hours completing tutoring assignments in reading, earth sciences, French, and GRE preparation, but no algebra. His grades havent improved, and you havent received any feedback about your son. Last time you talked to your sons tutor, she told you that she was very proud of the progress the group made this month and that the group had read Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss on its own. This example seems a little over-simplied, but the principle is the same. You want your sons tutor to address him (and you) by name, design tutoring cur-
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ricula that meets his needs, update you on his progress, and most importantly improve his grades in class. We could take this metaphor one step further. With a CRM system, your childs tutor would le reports every evening in one central hub, so if she is sick or cannot make a meeting, another tutor can ll in for her and know exactly what to do with your son. It can also make preparing for meetings with you a lot easier. It simplies the reporting process, allowing the tutor to spend more time with your child. The same type of thinking can be duplicated in elected ofce. Bernard Smith is planning a trip to Ireland for his 30th anniversary. Bernard plans on taking his whole family, so he made sure that his entire family applied for passports. Two weeks before the trip, everyone except Bernards youngest daughter, Lucy, received a passport and the passport ofce has no information whatsoever about it. Bernard calls his congressmans ofce. The staffer answers the phone and asks Bernard how he wants to receive the information release form for an expedited passport by fax, by email, or simply by logging on to the Congressmans Website. After the staffer works to fulll Bernards request, she calls him on his cell phone at work to let him know that Lucys passport is on the way. Later that day, the CRM program queues an email to be sent that day to Bernard, making sure that there was no problem. Enclosed was an additional list of services that the ofce provides. The ofces CRM system has been set up so that after passport casework request is nished, the system is prompted to schedule a follow-up call to conrm by phone that the passport has arrived. Three days later, after Bernard called the ofce, the staffer calls just to make sure that Lucys passport arrived. In three months, when Bernard calls to voice his opinion about an important piece of legislation, the staffer who answers the phone pulls up his constituent record and notices that Bernard called months ago to ask for a passport for his family trip to Ireland. After Bernard tells her why he supports the legislation, she asks him if his trip went well. The constituent Bernard is at the center. In addition to receiving the passport, the follow-up call and inquiry about his trip months later shows that Bernard is important. Delivering good service does not begin and end in Washington, D.C. There is a disconnect in the political world between congressional ofces in Washington, D.C. and their district staff. This can negatively affect the overall wellness of an elected ofcials relationship with his or her constituents. Viewing the constituent as a customer is overlooked, and information about constituent relations is not available to both sides. Because most CRM programs are hosted online, you can assign tasks between ofces and schedule follow-up.
Principle 4 Build Your Business. Maintaining customers is important to any organization, but in order to grow, an organization needs to attract new clients or in the political world, new supporters. CRM can identify new selling opportunities by helping you understand what people value and how they interact with you. The applications to politics are apparent: you want to reach people by appealing to their interests through the medium that best suits them. Knowing more about people in your district, likely donors, potential members, or likely voters improves the quality of your communications with them, opening new paths for customer development and retention. The idea is to use the data you collect to build new relationships with people. Car dealerships do this all the time, even if they dont call it CRM. They often rely on in-bound calls or queries on their Websites to generate leads. For example, if you are in the market for a new car, and you call the local dealership inquiring about an ad you saw in the local paper, the salesperson you talk to is probably collecting information about. Are you male or female? What are you looking for in a car? What is a good time for you to visit the dealership? Do you know how to get to the dealership? What is your phone number? Do you have a second number? What is the best way to reach you? If the dealership is smart, it will have the salesperson enter all of this information about you in its database. Later, the salesperson you meet will use this information to help sell you a new car. But it doesnt stop there. Often, the dealership manager will look at data from all the incoming calls to determine trends such as which models or which deals are generating the most attention and adjust its marketing program if necessary. What do car dealerships and trade associations have in common? A lot especially when it comes to gaining members and customers. The Association of Small Business Owners (ASBO) runs an annual membership drive. The ASBO uses its core base of members and staff to visit small businesses across the country and share information with the owners about the ASBO. Five years ago, the ASBO sent volunteers and staff into the eld with a stack of brochures and a few talking points. Every small business they visited received the same message, regardless of the size, type, or needs or the organization or the personality of the business owner! Today, the ASBO is using a relationship management system that allows its volunteer force to access information about each lead before they visit, all from the ease of their home or ofce computers. It also prompts its volunteers with talking points and printable materials geared toward the type and size of business they are about it visit. At the end of each visit, the volunteer logs back into the relationship management system and updates it with details about the conversation, such as which aspects of membership
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the small business owner liked the most, which issues she cared about, and the best way to reach her with more information. The system then generates a response with more information, along with a link to the membership page of the Website, with the volunteers signature. Or it prompts association staff to follow-up with a phone call or piece of snail mail. When the small business owner signs up as a member, she immediately receives a thank you response from the associations, as well as a quick note from the volunteer who recruited her, and an invitation to the next event. The ASBO uses the information it gathers each year about small business owners want to shape its activities and future membership drives. Principle 5 Plan Ahead. Data without action is useless. The purpose of all the data collected in a CRM system is to reach out proactively. With a good CRM system, what used to be an annoying phone call from a constituent about the vote on tomorrows farm bill or the state of the roads in his town becomes an opportunity to learn about and reach out to others. This is a lesson that the business world has known for years. If you think that good customer service is just a gimmick, think again. Business development, like politics, revolves around strategy. If youre using CRM as a quick x strategy, then youre probably too late to do any good. CRM is a long-term philosophy about the process of doing politics that has the ability to affect your bottom line, if you use it well. That is, if you view it as a exible tool that helps you create room for your organization, campaign, or ofce to grow. For many of us, a long-term political strategy is identifying your voters, donors, or members and giving them a way to vote, donate, or join you. Before you purchase a CRM system, step back. Take a good look at your campaign, ofce, or trade association. How do you want your organization to run in an ideal world? How would you change your current way of doing things? How are you organized? What is the culture of your group? How can you build an ideal you? Time Warner Cable, a giant in the media industry, realized a few years ago that even a company as big as Time Warner needed a long-term strategy to improve the quality of its product. Time Warner took time to evaluate what the company need and where it was going. Salesforce.com, the CRM solution they turned to, reported that after it implemented a CRM system with its services, Time Warner condensed the work of every two full-time employees into one. Time Warners productivity increased ve to ten percent within the rst year of using a CRM system, with another twenty percent increase expected for the year. The average time period to complete a survey shrunk from seven days to two, and employees evolved from working harder to working smarter.
Compare the world of Time Warner Media to the world of the Congressional ofce. Each Legislative Assistant (LA) looks ahead to the rapid push of bills that pass every year immediately preceding the August recess. Each of those bills can generate hundreds of constituent communications email, faxes, phone calls, etc. responding to all of those communications seems impossible. Congressional ofces are designed to respond to constituent communications in a pre-email world. Both the systems they have in place to respond to email and the technology they use is from another era. Changes in the way incoming communications are handled can cut the response time in half, using a fewer number of resources. With fewer resources in play on a regular basis, the ofce can focus more time on proactive outreach, using all the data collected about constituents. Of course, CRM doesnt end with the act of collecting information. Its not just what you know that matters: its how you use it. The Legislative Assistant can use a CRM system to set up rules. In other words, it tells the system to immediately generate an email thanking a voter for her opinion on the issue of roads and telling her that the ofce will update her as soon as the vote occurs. After the vote, the system immediately generates a pre-written, pre-approved email to all 18,500 people who email in support of roads. Thats 18,500 emails on the busiest day of they year. Conclusion Weve used many examples draw from the corporate world in this chapter. Its no secret that the corporate world has been evolving over the course of the past decade to become more focused on one person: the consumer. In an era when You is Time Magazines person of the year, and companies are spending fortunes on surveys to nd out what consumers really want, as well as YouTube tactics on and off the web to attract new customers, perhaps the political world needs to adjust to a new way of doing business in America. More about me is what people have come to expect, and its what they are doing on blogs, in Web videos, during shopping trips, and through their media consumption habits. Perhaps it is time for the political world to be more about the voter the only individual who, at the end of the day, makes a difference between whether you stay in ofce or return home. Its not about a series of quick xes to conceal the fact that, at the end of the day, were all too busy to care about what our constituents think. Rather, its about constructing meaningful interactions with your supporters, the type of conversations in which you both learn a little more about each other. But it doesnt have to cost you an ofce building packed with full-time staff,
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thousands of hours a week, or a billion-dollar budget. CRM makes the business of building and maintaining relationships with your supporters more efcient, and more effective. Its not about the data. Its how you use it.
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PART II
The Data-Powered Campaign

Political operatives have always been interested in any tool that helps them track voters and donors. Until recently, theyve stockpiled that information in a way that would make an unreformed Ebenezer Scrooge proud. However, like Scrooges moneybags, all the data in the world cant help you if it just lies around collecting dust. This chapter gives data and constituent relationship management a denite context: the world of political campaigns, where every element must have a practical purpose. The authors in this chapter write about some of their best ideas, tools, and case studies for putting all that data your eld team collects on its door-to-door canvassing excursions into practice.
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CHAPTER 3
Its the Data, Stupid!

PETER CHURCHILL
CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS
One benet of a well-prepared data dictionary is a consistency between data items across different tables. For example, several tables may hold telephone numbers; using a data dictionary the format of this telephone number eld will be consistentData dictionaries are more precise than glossaries (terms and denitions) because they frequently have one or more representations of how data is structured. This needs to be agreed on as early as possible in the process of capturing, collating and then importing the data. The CRM solution being used may enforce some of these rules, but if those rules are determined early on, it will ensure that any data received or captured can be analyzed and processed to t the need of the database without creating errors further down the road. A key example of this is when data is being captured by third party systems e.g. donation systems, or volunteer sign-up forms. It is critical that the data is captured in such a way that it matches what is already in the voter database, so the campaign can immediately identify that person. Finally, several commercial companies exist that will clean the data. Although this can seem expensive at rst sight (60 cents an address is typical), it will save considerable time and money in ensuring that any mailings will have the correct addresses, reducing returned mailings and producing more successful rst time mail deliveries.
At the heart of targeting is a database of voters. How well you can target depends upon the quality of your data and your skills at analyzing it. - Hal Malchow, author of The New Political Targeting Data sits at the core of all customer relationship management systems. It is the data that makes it possible for an organization not only to build better relations with an individual customer, but to identify relationships between different customers and, ultimately, to target its resources in the most effective and efcient way. However, many organizations still fail to understand the value of accurate data, despite an endless supply of studies that identies the failure to properly manage the data acquisition and migration as the primary reason for project failures in the corporate sector.16 All too often the implementation a CRM system is considered to be a failure because the successful implementation of the software exposes the poor quality of the data being stored in the organizations existing system(s) - data that is usually referred to as legacy data. Cleaning, matching and de-duplicating data is a painstaking task, worthy of its own publication. It is often hard to convince an organization that has just spent millions on software that they rst need to put it back on the shelf and clean up their existing data. The desire for more immediate, tangible results is always more compelling, if ultimately misguided. All too often you hear the argument that people will clean it up once it is in the new system. But they rarely ever do, and people quickly lose faith in the CRM solution because they dont trust the data they are looking at. Bad data wont get you very far. One way of addressing this problem is to dene a basic data dictionary. The principle of a data dictionary is to dene what each eld in the database is for and what format it will be stored and captured in:17
What is the voter le?

The term voter le refers to a list of all the registered voters in a geographical area. States are required to compile this information according to the 2002 Help America Vote Act. The voter le typically includes the following information on each voter: Name Address Birthday Political Party Date of voter registration Voter history. For more information on the Help America Vote Act, visit http://www.fec.gov/hava/hava. htm. The issues around data are crucial for the successful ongoing operations of a political campaign, since any issues with the initial data will be amplied as the campaign seeks to use the data for more complex purposes, such as mailings and targeting. In summary, Hal Malchow offers a useful check-
16 Gentle, The CRM Project Management Handbook , 13. 17 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_dictionary
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list to any campaign when considering its data strategy:18 1. Determine which data will be most valuable for this campaign race, religion, education, etc. Determine how clean the list is. Educate your users as to what data is available so they know how to use it in the most effective way. Enhance the list with commercially available data, such as census gures and so-called lifestyle data like magazine subscriptions that will build on point #1.
2. 3.
4.
Making the Data Work for You Early on, some of the best organizations in the corporate world recognized that CRM should not only lead to an increase in sales, but could also save them money as well: [I]t is often overlooked that CRM can also generate very signicant cost savings in the form of the most effective (i.e. right) and more efcient two characteristics that have very direct political implications (i.e. speedier processes).19 Lets use direct mail as our rst example of how this process works. According to Democratic direct marketer Hal Malchow, the efciency of direct mail is best described as how economically a candidate is able to reach those groups of voters that make up the winning coalition.20 The higher the percentage of targeted voters on the mailing lists that are being used to raise donations or persuade undecided voters, the more efcient the mailing is said to be. Lets say, as an example, that a campaign decides that the most effective way to persuade undecided voters is via a direct mail piece. The only way to be sure that the campaign reaches all undecided voters is to mail every voter in the voting area. But this clearly entails a huge waste of resources to reach perhaps only ten percent of the electorate. So the more accurately the campaign determines which voters in it database are undecided voters, the less mail it has to send to reach that ten percent of the electorate, and the more efcient the mailing will be. The savings to a campaign can be considerable, as Malchow explains.21 If a persuasion piece of mail costs 50 cents, but only 25 percent of the undecided voters are reached, the effective cost to reach each undecided voter is $2. Using data proling the list can be segmented more effectively to reduce the amount of mail needed to reach that same group of people. If the same mailing now reaches 43 percent
of undecided voters, the effective cost of the mailing is now only $1.43, since fewer pieces of mail are need to reach those voters. However, there are clearly drawbacks to this approach. No mailing will be one hundred percent accurate, so if the proling is incorrect, there is a risk of never reaching the voters needed to win. Malchow offers various suggestions on how to improve the quality of the targeting. In particular, he advocates CHAID a tool that is used widely in the commercial sector to identify which demographics will respond best to a mailing or phone call. Unlike normal polling, Chi Square Automatic Interaction Detector (CHAID) uses surveys that query large samples of voters but only asks them one or two prole questions. This data is then appended back into an existing database. Statistical models are then used to determine which attributes in the database are most effective for identifying the groups the campaign needs to win. Although Malchow discusses the use of CHAID to enhance mailing lists, it is clear that this methodology could be expanded to give every voter in the CRM system a score based on the CHAID analysis. Those scores could include propensity to donate, volunteer, vote in a primary and actually vote on Election Day. Just as corporations seek to focus on their most protable customers and avoid wasting money on the least protable, so techniques such as these will assist a campaign in identifying similarly protable voters. When campaigns become door-to-door salesmen This leads to a second example where techniques in the corporate world have been replicated successfully by political campaigns. Just as a sales persons time is best served by focusing on their most valuable customers, so in the political world, the techniques described above ensure those identied as most important are focused on by the eld team. In Winning Elections, Lorene Durgin argues that because each candidate has a limited amount of time to maximize their exposure to the electorate, a campaign must try to target the most appropriate voters when doing any form of door-to-door canvassing.22 If the campaign has a sophisticated CRM system in place that can be segmented using data captured in a CHAID analysis, it can begin to identify those voters who would be most persuaded by canvassing from the candidate and/or a regular eld canvasser. The system, using pre-determined database rules based on geography and available volunteers and skills, would allocate the voter addresses to individual eld workers and volunteers. The CRM system produces the information, either in paper format or electronically if the staff has access to Personal Digital 22 Lorene Hanley Duquin, Winning Elections ed. Ron Faucheux (New York: M Evans and Company Inc.,2003), 449.
18 19 20 21
Malchow, The New Political Targeting, 235. Gentle, CRM Project Management Handbook, 41. Malchow, The New Political Targeting, 13. Ibid., 12.
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Assistants such as IPAQs or PalmPilots. The people visiting can capture the same information in effect an even more in depth door-to-door CHAID analysis. With electronic devices they can also validate the information currently stored in the central system, capture missing information such as email and cell phone numbers, and ideally capture what issues each member of the ousehold visited is most concerned about. When canvassing is complete, the staff returns to the eld ofce and either enters in the information they have captured to the central system or, preferably, synchronize data they have captured in their PDAs. The campaign can then not only use the data to test their current assumptions about the voter proles, they can also ensure that people who have been visited automatically receive a follow up letter from the candidate based on the responses the eld staffer received, thus beginning the process of building a relationship between the campaign and the voters. All this data can then be fed back into the central database to not only further rene the proling that the campaign can perform, but using workow rules, it can ensure that those who have offered to volunteer to help the campaign in some way can then be allocated to a campaign staffer to be contacted. The scenarios described above will become much more common in the 2006 and 2008 elections cycle. Data Privacy Campaigns and advocacy organizations must consider not only the ethical and increasingly legal responsibilities that the capture and management of data entails, but also the extent to which the use of this data risks alienating the very people a campaign is trying to build a relationship with. Most people are not aware of how much data about them is publicly available. When the Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet (IPDI) mailed people a survey last year asking about their political donation practices, several people challenged where IPDI had obtained their data from, even though the survey packet clearly said their name was taken from the publicly available FEC register. While these voters had donated to a campaign, they had no idea this data was then publicly available. Similarly, many people would nd the idea that a campaign knew which newspaper they subscribed to be unsettling, even invasive. For political campaigns, sophisticated data proling is still rarely used, and only by the largest campaigns. But like polling before it, it is becoming more readily available to smaller campaigns, and they will need to understand the implications of capturing and using this data. The dilemma of capturing personal data without upsetting the people being targeted was acknowledged by Peppers and Rogers: Every dialogue with a customer is an opportunity to build the scope of
the relationship with that customerBut how can you reconcile the need for more and more information on an individual customer with that customers likely desire to preserve his or her own privacy?23 One solution is to adopt the techniques used by Permission Marketers, who advocate that all contact positive and welcome. Particularly with respect to the most intrusive contacts, e.g., calling a voters cell phone, the people should have explicitly opted to receive communication from the campaign, and they must always be able to easily and quickly request that the campaign stops any communications with them. When people sign up for email lists on a website, this is relatively easy the website just needs to ensure that people are aware they will receive emails as a result of signing up, and can always opt out at any time.
Can I Buy Data from a Company?

Yes. Many private sector companies have the ability to enhance the data used by campaigns in ways that the political parties, for legal and practical reasons, do not. For instance, a for-prot broker could offer an advocacy group a subset of its data at a discount in return for extra information the group in question gathers as part of its ongoing operation. The broker could then append this information to its main data set, and then sell this enhanced data to a candidate for a fee. The possibilities that modern communications now offer make the issues of permission marketing increasingly complex to monitor. As an example, SMS, or text messaging via cell phones is one technology that is likely to play an ever larger role in contacting voters for fundraising and mobilization. Although America has been slow to adopt mobile technology when compared with Europe or Asia, the U.S. is rapidly catching up. The recent immigration protests in major U.S. cities were often coordinated by text messaging. Companies such as Mobile Accord are offering campaigns the ability to not only use SMS to coordinate people for rallies and meetings, but also to receive campaign donations using SMS short code technology. This will present situations for a campaign that few will have previously encountered, and they must look to industry for guidance. As an example, I presented the following scenario to Dan Weaver at Mobile Accord: 23 Peppers and Rogers, The One to One Future, 329.
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Two candidates are running in a primary race, and candidate B encourages people to sign up to receive text messages from his campaign. However, Candidate A wins the primary. If Candidate B endorses candidate A for the general election, can he now give Candidate A that text message list, so Candidate A can now also send text messages to those people? Or is the agreement only relevant to Candidate B? His response was that the Mobile Marketing Associations (MMA) Best Practices Guidelines state that any opt-ins to Candidate Bs race pertain only to that candidate and should not be used to promote any other products unless an opt-in has been obtained from the subscriber to receive this information. In his view, if Candidate A wanted to possess Candidate Bs list of mobile numbers and control the messages that are sent (rather than just have Candidate B send messages on his behalf) then Candidate B would rst have to ask permission of all the people on the list. This could take place via a simple SMS opt-in, i.e. I endorse Candidate A. If you would like to receive important information via SMS about Candidate As campaign reply with Y, which could then be appended to any list Candidate A already had.24 As Seth Godin said wrote in a piece about Permission Marketing, As new forms of media develop and clutter becomes ever more intense, its the asset of permission that will generate prots for marketers.25 The key is to always ensure that people have opted in to your communications, and therefore your campaign. An Ever Expanding Range of Options Many of the other innovations that are becoming available to campaigns will not be built by the CRM system vendors themselves. Just as the corporate world now focuses far more on integrating their existing CRM systems with other systems that deliver specialized functionality, many of the new tools in political campaigns will be separate ones delivered by third party vendors that are then closely integrated with the core system. The model of how this might operate in the future in the corporate world is provided by Salesforce.com. They have recently launched AppExchange, designed to allow third party vendors to build additional functionality that will seamlessly integrate with a customers current Salesforce.com implementation. 24 Dan Weaver, < dweaver@mobileaccord.com>, Personal Email, Apr 19, 2006. 25 Seth Godin, Managing Customer Relationships eds. , Don Peppers and Martha Rogers Ph.D. (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons Inc, 2004), 222.
The political CRM vendors I talked with agreed that although they would continue to make enhancements to their core system, they would mostly look to the commercial sector to enable customers to fully exploit features such as email and text messaging. Although they can deliver the core email functionality relatively easily, the complexity involved in ensuring that email is CAN-SPAM compliant and can navigate the ISP lters makes partnering with rms that provide these services and functionalities mutually benecial to the vendors, and ensures the campaigns get the best solutions. Many of these tools will assist a campaign in working more effectively and more efciently. But to really build a relationship with the voters, a campaign needs to get them involved. Some techniques have increased the voter sense of involvement. For example, one emerging technology that is proving effective is offering new ways to host volunteer phone banks.
To really build a relationship with the voters, a campaign needs to get them involved
Previously, hosting a volunteer phone bank required a large space, such as the ofce of an organization with enough space and available phone lines for the volunteers. The volunteers had to travel to that specic location, wherever it was, and a campaign staffer had to be on hand to provide call lists and scripts and ensure that any data captured was entered back into any database after the phone banks completion. One alternative to this method is what @dvocacy Inc. describes as their Phone Bank in a Box system. It is the size of a large suitcase and requires only a single high speed Internet connection to host the phone bank. Using Voice over IP (VoIP) Technology (the same technology used by companies such as Skype and Vonage), the Phone Bank in a Box can create ten or twenty phones lines that are available for volunteers to use, at a fraction of the cost of traditional phone installation. Because it can be set up anywhere, the phone banking can occur at locations more convenient for the volunteers, such as someones home. Furthermore, it should soon be possible to congure the phone bank to access a campaigns CRM system, so that it can directly make use of a campaigns existing targeting data and ensure that all data updates are made directly into the CRM system. A second method of phone banking that is proving popular is virtual phone banking. This also makes use of VoIP technology, but rather than setting up an
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entire phone bank in someones house, an individual is simply allocated a list of names which they can call from their home computer. The advantage of this is that it can be done by people wherever they are geographically located, and enables people to volunteer who could not travel to a help at a phone bank e.g. someone with children who couldnt leave them at home, but could make calls once they have gone to bed. Examples such as these will become more common in the next election cycles, especially as CRM vendors partner with more specialized technology rms and enable campaigns to extract the maximum value not just from their data, but from their volunteers and staff. The Era of the Permanent Campaign Why is CRM so important? Blame it on the current campaign season. With congressional campaigns occurring every two years and the need to raise money more important than ever, it has become necessary for many elected ofcials to run what Bob Blaemire describes as the Permanent Campaign.26 Like the corporate world, a campaign must continue to market to its customers the constituents and voters to ensure they continue to buy their product in the future. However, unlike the corporate world, the campaign has one signicant restriction. Data from the campaign cannot be used by the elected ofcial in ofce, nor can data captured about constituents in the course of executing their ofcial duties be later used in a campaign. As such, the model of achieving sales through excellent service a core tenet of the CRM process is not available to a campaign. This is not to say that an elected ofcial should not employ CRM principles to ensure good governance quite the opposite. If constituents receive an excellent level of service from their elected ofcials it will surely benet their re-election efforts and make government more effective and efcient. It should be noted, within the scope of this chapter, it is extremely difcult to apply those CRM processes that utilize data captured from servicing the constituent/customer to increase knowledge of that voter/customer. However, it is not only possible but recommended that a campaign continues to maintain a relationship with the voters, separate and apart from any ofcial outreach. Blaemire offers three reasons for maintaining a Permanent Campaign:27 By continuing to grow the database of donors, it may be possible to raise money earlier in the campaign cycle.
By continuing to capture data about voters concerns, you can enhance the voter proles. By eliminating individuals known to be in opposition, you can reduce the cost of mailings and outreach.
Everything Blaemire describes as necessary to maintain this infrastructure is part of a CRM solution. Furthermore, companies such as NGP Software provide an off year service to enable campaigns to maintain their data in one place at a reduced cost.28 Such companies, in partnership with other companies providing data service, can also maintain the quality of the data by matching it against current voter les so when the campaign team is reconstituted, it is able to quickly ramp up. Furthermore, as Blaemire observes, it sends a message that the candidate is serious about keeping his or her job to anyone looking to challenge them in a forthcoming primary or general election.29 Conclusion Political campaigns have begun to understand the changes predicted by Peppers and Rogers and begun to adapt their processes and systems to t this new world of 1:1 marketing and individualized media. Howard Deans campaign is considered by some to have been a watershed by changing the way campaigns interact with their supporters. Meanwhile, the rapidly changing world of communications technologies unleashed by the Internet revolution of the 1990s makes it ever harder for a campaign to resist the voters demands to play a more active role in political campaigns. Finally, political CRM vendors have moved rapidly to ensure that they are no longer trailing behind the corporate sector, especially as they partner with other specialized corporate vendors. But just as political campaigns still rely on television advertising when the corporate world is moving increasingly to online advertising, so it will take time for campaign staffers familiar with the CRM tools available to move into more senior positions where they are able to demand that these tools are properly utilized. The corporate world has taken many years to fully implement genuinely customer focused organizations, and it will take time for the political world to catch up. Just as customer expectations forced companies to adopt CRM, so voters will increasingly expect the same from their politicians, public ofcials and advocacy organizations.
26 Bob Blaemire, Winning Elections ed. Ron Faucheux (New York: M Evans and Company Inc.,2003), 144-6. 27 Blaemire, Winning Elections, 145.
28 Nathaniel Pearlman, President, NGP Software. Interview at NGP Software, Washington D.C., 25 April 2006. 29 Blaemire, Winning Elections, 145.
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CHAPTER 4
Understanding Constituent Motivation: The Benets of Effective CRM

JOCELYN BOWMAN
CMDI
CMDI provides donor management, data processing, and NCOALink processing solutions for nonprot and corporate clients. For more information, visit www.cmdi.net.
Every campaign needs to understand what motivates its donor base, what issues are most important to its constituents, and how to best connect with those whose personal beliefs align with its candidate. How can a campaign connect with its constituents in a meaningful way? Talk to them. Listen to them. Use the information provided by them to form a strategy for future contact. In other words, implement Constituent Relationship Management. Interaction with a constituent spans multiple channels within a campaign from email and website activity to direct mail and telemarketing. Storing information gathered by each point of contact in a single, user-friendly environment allows details about the constituent to be available across departments. All conversations with staff members should be logged into the database, creating a personal contact history for each individual, tracking the frequency of contact, past responses to solicitations, and topics of interest which may be helpful in future interactions. Create lters that track constituent preferences. Flag a volunteers le with activities they are willing to conduct on behalf of the candidate, from get-outthe-vote campaigns to working the polls on Election Day. File ags can also assist in merchandise fulllment, such as selecting those who have requested bumper stickers or yard signs. Not only can lters track preferences of volunteer activity, they limit correspondence frequency and solicitation type, as requested by the constituent. This simple use of data management practices saves campaign staff from receiving angry phone calls from potentially-valuable constituents. Another level of ltering can be used to segment the le into specic issue-related or demographic groups. Religion, age, ethnicity, as well as interest in issues articulated by the constituents can be vital for the campaign, especially if the campaign constructs specic messages for those within the targeted groups.
Each communication with the constituent provides the campaign with an opportunity to learn more about the individual in an unobtrusive way. By inserting checkboxes into direct mail pieces, outbound emails, or online registrations, the campaign can establish which issues, coalitions, or volunteer capacities most interest the constituents. Tracking these preferences consistently across departments is crucial to running targeted campaigns. Conducting a survey of the constituent base is an excellent way to understand what motivates constituents. Storing these responses provides a wealth of information that can be tapped into across multiple departments. Well-constructed questions can range from political issues and demographics, to questions about organizations the constituent supports nancially. Insights into the constituents everyday life can not only be helpful for tailoring a constituent mail piece for maximum impact, but it can also be useful for identifying lists which the campaign can rent for future donor acquisition efforts. The more connected a constituent feels to a candidates platform, the more likely he or she will donate money to or volunteer time for the campaign. Encouraging constituent involvement becomes much more effective when lists can be strategically segmented according to individual interest. Using CRM as a basis for the strategy is essential when rallying the support of constituents.
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CHAPTER 5
Get a Clue! The Dawn of CRM in Politics

BOBBY CLARK
PROGRESSNOW ACTION
3.
4.
Back to Business Customer Relationship Management was an earth-shattering concept to me when I rst learned about it in early 1999. As an Internet entrepreneur, I was passionate about the promise the Internet offered to create greater connection between people and the organizations and businesses that served them. The concept of CRM provided a methodology for businesses to fulll that promise.
standing of the individual customers, meaning the ability to capture and evaluate information about the customer. Remembering. For a relationship with a customer to continue and grow over time, the employees of a business need to be able to recall information about the customer when interacting with the customer in the future. Personalization. Finally, after interacting, learning about, and remembering information about individual customers, businesses needs to treat each customer as an individual by serving the customers individual preferences in the way the business delivered products or services, as well as how the business interacts with the customer in the future.
ProgressNow Action is a statebased advocacy network that began in Colorado and now has created a national grassroots network. For more information, visit www. ProgressNowAction.org.
As briey noted earlier in this publication, two businesses consultants and authors, Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, probably did more to dene CRM than anyone else. CRM, as they described it, means capitalizing on the interactive age brought on by the Internet and developing more personalized relationships with customers. This occurs by implementing a few key capabilities: 1. Interaction with customers. The relationship is the key part of CRM, and it implies two-way communication the opportunity for customers to provide feedback and the capability of the business to listen to that feedback. This concept is hard for many of us in the political sphere to digest. The Internet provides new opportunities to interact with customers through the Web and email, but we also need to take greater advantage of telephone and other contacts with customers. Learning about customers. A relationship also requires the ability to have an under-
In their book, Enterprise One to One, Peppers and Rogers provided case studies of businesses that used CRM. They showed that by implementing new technologies and shifting focus to individual customers, businesses could make more money, creating a compelling business case for the shift to CRM. Inertia is a difcult thing to overcome, even when money is involved. The CRM movement needed a push, and a few months after Enterprise One to One was published, Chris Locke, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger provided that push with their Cluetrain Manifesto. Cluetrain was a collection of 95 theses about the new realities of business in a new, radically connected world. It was an unmitigated condemnation of businesses that had failed to grasp the signicance of the Internet.
For More Information

ENTERPRISE ONE TO ONE
By Don Peppers and Martha Rogers

CLUETRAIN MANIFESTO
By Christopher Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger With the obvious reference to Martin Luthers original 95 theses, the Cluetrain authors seem to have intended their work to be more a call for revolution than a business treatise. The Internet had enabled a powerful global conversation, they wrote, and the consumers empowered by the conversation would punish the businesses that didnt adapt to the new reality. Cluetrain recognized the power-shift created
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by the Internet. It fueled a conversation about that power-shift that commanded the attention of the business world. And it created a focal point for a continuing movement of people passionate about the power-shift and determined to make sure that it changed everything. CRM makes its way to the political world lessons from the Dean campaign After several years working with Internet startups, fate intervened in 2002, and I found myself headed to Vermont to help start Howard Deans presidential campaign. The Dean campaign served as the Cluetrain Manifesto of politics. Like Cluetrain, the Dean campaign was a wake-up call to the political establishment. And it was a rallying cry for people who had felt disconnected from, and ignored by, the political establishment. In hindsight, however, it would be an overstatement to say that we implemented all the capabilities needed to achieve a business world CRM model. A. Interacting The rst capability needed for CRM, interactivity, was perhaps our most notable achievement. It is fair to say that the Dean campaign was the most interactive presidential campaign in history. We were the rst presidential campaign to launch a blog, which we designed in such a way that anyone could post a comment without creating an account and logging in. We wanted to promote an open and honest public dialogue about the campaign, and the blog served as the focal point for that conversation. The blog was a place where our supporters could share criticisms, success stories, and ideas for the campaign. The blog wasnt the only tool that Dean supporters used to communicate with the campaign. We had a team of volunteers who read and responded to emails. We had regular conference calls with leaders of our local Meetups and house party organizers. And we developed applications for the Web that enabled Dean supporters to interact online with each other and with the campaign. Most importantly, we worked hard to ensure that Dean supporters knew that the staff heard them when they communicated with us. Our goal was to have a mass listening capability that would recognize and reward input from Dean supporters.
One of my favorite examples of that mass listening occurred in August, 2003. We were completing what we referred to as the Sleepless Summer Tour, a series of large rallies around the country, with an event in New York at Bryant Park. Ten thousand people gathered in the park to hear Governor Dean speak at 10:00 p.m. We had also been conducting an online fundraising campaign during the Sleepless Summer Tour, with a goal of raising $1 million. The thermometer for the campaign, as with all our online campaigns, was a large bat held by a baseball player. As we moved toward the goal, the bat would ll up with red. Most of the web team from the Vermont headquarters traveled to New York to help with the event, and everyone was connected to the Internet through the public Wi-Fi system in the park. Someone read a great idea posted by one of our supporters on our blog. We were nearing the goal of $1 million, and the supporter suggested that if we reached that goal before the Governor took the stage at 10:00 p.m., then he should walk on the stage with a red bat in his hands. Our webmaster, Nicco Mele, called Joe Trippi on his cell phone to share that idea. Trippi was on the bus with Governor Dean heading to the park from the airport. Trippi loved the idea, and he stopped the bus and sent an intern out into the city with the order to nd a red bat and meet everyone at Bryant Park before 10:00 p.m. In the nal few minutes before 10:00 p.m., we reached the goal of $1 million, and the intern ran into the park in time to hand a red bat to Governor Dean. The Governor took the stage with a red bat in his hand, and the bloggers, who were watching the event streamed on the Internet, were thrilled to see that one of their ideas had just been made a reality by the campaign. B. Learning and Remembering Learning and remembering is a function of managing data. From a CRM perspective, the Dean campaign did not manage data particularly well. Foremost in a CRM model is the imperative of employing a single database that is connected to every application used to interact with constituents. Entire companies, like Siebel and ePiphany, have focused on creating that capability for the business world. There is no such equivalent in the non-prot or political world. The companies serving the business world are too expensive for non-prots or campaigns. And many companies that service the non-prot and political world do not always provide complete solutions. Two approaches to CRM do not work, and sadly, many companies in the political space fall short. First, they have closed systems: the databases they
Our goal was to have a mass listening capability that would recognize and reward input from Dean supporters.
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provide are only open to the applications that they also provide. A customer cannot connect other applications to the database directly, and a customer cannot develop new applications to connect to the database. Second, they do not provide applications to manage all customer touch points, most notably phone calls and in-bound email.
was a question about making a donation. Online donations should be thought of as an impulse buy, to use a business term. An online donation generally is triggered by an immediate, emotional response to a particular call to action. If a constituent does not make a donation within the short window of time in which he or she feels the impulse, then that particular donation is lost.
Two things to avoid when searching for a CRM solution

1. Closed systems databases that only work with applications provided by the same company. 2. Databases that do not allow you to manage all customer touch points, like phone calls, in-bound email and face-to-face visits. On the Dean campaign, we contracted early on with one of the leading providers of non-prot CRM services and immediately ran into the limitations of those companies. The new applications we developed to enable interactivity with and among our constituents could not be connected to our CRM database. As a consequence, we ultimately created multiple databases that were not connected to each other in any meaningful way. And we had no database at all to support our phone and email interactions with constituents. That created a tremendous challenge especially when it came to managing email. Being an interactive campaign meant that we received an inordinate amount of email from our supporters literally thousands of emails every single day. We had a team of volunteers, a group of dozens of retired Vermonters, who sat at computers day after day responding to a never-ending mountain of email. But we had no way to track those email conversations. One Saturday morning when I came in for work, I entered the elevator at the same time as one of our email volunteers a perpetually cheerful and kind retired woman named Martha. Martha seemed unusually sullen that morning, and I asked her how she was doing. For the remainder of our elevator ride and our walk down the hall to our respective work spaces, Martha explained what a miserable experience it was to constantly be digging out from under a mountain of endless email. And the problem wasnt just the pain for our volunteers. The campaign also suffered. We were also losing donations. About one out of every ten emails
Online donations should be thought of as an impulse buy: if a constituent does not make a donation within the short window of time in which he or she feels the impulse, then that particular donation is lost.
When we received a wave of emails in response to an online fundraiser, it could take a week or more to respond to those emails. If we received ten thousand emails in response to a campaign, we could expect at least one thousand of those to be questions about making a donation. Assuming an average donation of just $50, missing out on one thousand donations could have meant that the campaign lost $50,000. If we had been using a contact center application to manage in-bound email, as do businesses that practice CRM, we could have more easily created processes for prioritizing and responding to emails regarding donations. Moreover, each inbound email from an existing constituent could have been associated with his or her constituent record so that we could keep better track of that constituents contacts with the campaign. C. Personalizing In the business world, the ultimate goal is to deliver products and services that meet a consumers individual preferences. With a campaign, the product or service is more difcult to dene. The most obvious product is the candidate and his or her campaign platform the issues he or she espouses during the campaign season. More broadly, the product is also the experience that the supporter has interacting with, and engaging in, the campaign. Because the Dean campaign was so interactive, and because we listened to Dean supporters and invited them to take ownership, it is fair to say that the Dean campaign necessarily became personalized for our supporters to a great degree. Deans evolution as the voice of opposition to the Iraq war was in part driven by the campaign and in
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part a response to the demands of our supporters. The campaign probably would have never uttered a word about the Digital Millennium Copyright Act if we hadnt had so many early and vocal supporters who were passionate about that subject. And the campaign would never have elected to forego public funding if our supporters had not voted to support that decision. But in many important ways we were unable or unwilling to personalize the campaign to t a CRM model. One of the most signicant touch points between a campaign and supporters is email from the campaign. And one of the ways the campaign can provide a personalized experience is to communicate with a constituent as an individual, informed by the individuals personal preferences. With regard to email, it is important to note that many campaigns make the mistake of believing that they are practicing CRM by segmenting their list and targeting groups of voters with messages geared toward that group. Targeting groups of people, by denition, isnt CRM. Peppers and Rogers referred to CRM as one-to-one marketing because the ultimate goal for businesses is to treat customers individually and not as members of a market segment. To truly employ CRM in a political campaign would mean treating constituents individually, not as members of a target segment.
but had received yet another email asking them to contribute more. And no campaign can afford to diminish the good will it enjoys with its supporters. How do you implement CRM on a campaign? At one point in the summer of 2003, Dave Kochbeck, the then-current Dean campaign Information Technology Director, worked with one of the leading corporate CRM companies on a proposal to use their services. The starting point was $1 million. For a campaign that will not last beyond an election, spending $1 million on one part of its IT needs is an almost laughable proposition. Moreover, it would have taken months, and countless hours of staff time, to fully implement a true CRM system. In the hyper-fast world of campaigns, that is also a deal-killer.
Campaigns need to nd a way to deal with the vast and painful challenge of managing data and creating more personal relationships with constituents. And true CRM will be the solution.
The only way that a campaign can reasonably choose to implement a true CRM system will be to rent such a system from an application service provider that has already done a signicant amount of work to create a system that is customized for campaigns. Daves instinct was right. Like businesses did before, campaigns need to nd a way to deal with the vast and painful challenge of managing data and creating more personal relationships with constituents. And true CRM will be the solution.
Many campaigns make the mistake of believing that they are practicing CRM by segmenting their list and targeting groups of voters with messages geared toward that group. Targeting groups of people, by denition, isnt CRM.
The Dean campaign did not personalize the content of its emails, even by segmented group. The campaign decided early on that all of our supporters would receive the same message from the campaign when we sent an email, without regard to where they lived or what issues they cared most about. Joe Trippi, the campaign manager, believed in a were all in this together philosophy, and he argued that a farmer in Iowa should be as concerned about equality as a gay man in Boston. Failing to personalize our email messages created problems in some cases. On numerous occasions we received angry emails from donors who had already contributed the maximum $2,000 to the campaign,
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CHAPTER 6
How Web 2.0 Electries Data in the Political World

BENJAMIN A. KATZ
COMPLETECAMPAIGNS.COM
While the Dean campaign was not among the very rst users, they were well ahead of the curve. Today, Web 2.0 has become mainstream, both within the political community and society at large. With this greater acceptance comes a growth in choices and exibility; for campaigns, there is both huge potential and signicant pitfalls. Database Management Web 2.0 Means Sharing Your Toys One of the unique qualities of a good campaign management program is that it requires campaigns to think in a different way. As Peter Churchill writes in Chapter 1, instead of having three, four, ve or more different storage silos of information say, one list of volunteers that your eld staff controls, one list of donors that your fundraising staff controls, etc. the idea is to push all of your data into one central repository. It is one place where, ideally, the campaign can conduct all of its activities: accounting, fundraising, volunteers and more. All the information gathered from each of these different efforts immediately goes into the central data repository. Many political professionals are used to having their efdoms individual databases that are not shared with other members of the campaign team. However, this creates huge duplication in data entry and information gaps often one member of the campaign team will receive new contact information and because they have their own database, this does not get shared with other members of the campaign team.
Since the early days of professional campaign management, political operatives have been interested in data management because tracking voters, donors and opinion leaders has been key to a successful campaign. Early data management technology generally consisted of an alphabetized set of index cards. Over the past 10 years, the tools available to campaigns have dramatically improved in utility, easy of use and accessibility. Most recently, the rise of web-based software has revolutionized the campaign world, creating a fundamental shift in the way entire campaigns are run. No longer does each eld ofce have to be its own island. We can connect volunteers, consultants, campaign headquarters and district ofces in a way that allows all of us to work together. To use one of the new catch-phrases of the Internet, software has become a service, discussed at length in the next chapter. Web 2.0 makes it all possible.
CompleteCampaigns.com provides web-based services to help campaigns effectively track supporters, voters, fundraising, and volunteers. For more information, visit, www.completecampaigns. com.
Welcome to Web 2.0 First used by OReilly Media in 2004, the term Web 2.0 refers to the growth of web applications, especially those focused on collaboration and user-generated content. While political campaigns are often chasing mainstream technology in many ways, they lead the movement towards Web 2.0. As early as 1999, a few campaigns started using online applications to share information between consultants in different locations. As Internet access grew and browser technology improved, campaigns were on the forefront of community-based technology. In early 2003, the Dean campaign integrated the community-based tool, Meetup.com, into their campaign organization.
Many political professionals are used to having their efdoms individual databases that are not shared with other members of the campaign team. This creates huge duplication in data entry and information gaps Information is not shared with other members of the campaign team.
Today, with web-based software available, there is no reason not to use a single system for your campaign. It saves you time and money by ensuring the efcient utilization of your human and nancial resources. Your fundraiser should know a donor is also a reliable volunteer. Your treasurer should have access to the phone numbers the fundraiser entered
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for the latest campaign event and your campaign manager should be able to instantly access the most recent campaign nancials. Given the disparate nature of campaigns, online databases are a critical Web 2.0 tool. When Good Databases Go Bad While the value of online databases is tremendous, choosing the wrong vendor can signicantly harm a campaign. Despite the hype of Web 2.0, online tools are fundamentally still just software, and poorly programmed tools will still disappoint you. In evaluating options, campaigns should look carefully at the exibility of the software and the ease of use. Perhaps more critically, inquire into the depth of testing (has it survived several campaign cycles or is it fresh out of the gate?) and customer satisfaction.
care deeply about then you cannot lose them. Good conversations lead to a more effective campaign.
Good conversations lead to a more effective campaign. Data management enhances the conversations your campaign has with everyone involved in the campaign
Strangely, much of this Web 2.0 style of communication actually happens ofine, talking to voters when walking, calling or at events. The key is integration and facilitating two way conversations. It all boils down to this: the more information you have going into one place, the more data the campaign compiles. The more data you compile, the higher quality conversations you can have. Conversations do not simply refer to communications with the voter. Data management enhances the conversations your campaign has with everyone involved in the campaign from the strategy department to the consultants to the volunteers. This, in turn, allows the campaign to communicate better with voters. Quality Control Good Data Doesnt Just Happen Data management isnt about throwing all kinds of dubious, old, or useless information from an untrackable number of sources into a large pot. Campaigns need to control the entire data process from what information they want to collect to who collects it and who has access to it. This starts with security. For example, you might want to give a campaign staffer the ability to enter any piece of information in the database, but not edit the information elds or change the way you set up the database. Another staffer might be able to edit the database, but not run reports. Even more critically, good campaign security needs to control access to different types of information. The volunteer coordinator needs the unlimited ability to enter information and run reports on volunteers, but she probably does not need to be able to see nancial information. For larger campaigns, this can be further supplemented with geographic based access. One person might have access to all the voters in your database who live in precincts one through ten, while somebody else has access to eleven to twenty. Even further down you might have people who only have the access to voters in a given precinct. Beyond security, quality data requires an active process of data maintenance and updates. When
Despite the hype of Web 2.0, online tools are fundamentally still just software, and poorly programmed tools will still disappoint you.
While the benets of online tools ensure that nearly all of these systems exceed the utility of desktop software there remains a huge variation in the quality and functionality of these tools. Voter Contact in an Online World I always thought it somewhat ironic and rather painful that campaigns send armies of volunteers and staff walking door-to-door. The canvasser talks to a resident and nds out that, for example, the voter really cares about health care. Then the next week, during the campaigns big push for education, the campaign sends that resident an email about education. The eld team and the Web team arent talking. This isnt the only disconnect in politics. Take the example of direct mail. When the consultants who create and send all the direct mail for a campaign do not talk to the people doing the door-to-door canvassing, even the most devoted supporter can become, well, overwhelmed. I have heard of voters who actually pick up the phone and call the campaign to say I said Im voting for you. Stop sending me all this junk mail! In the end, it comes down to real communication. Instead of broadcasting a message at voters, if you can have a more directed conversation then you can avoid wasting money on pointless communication. When you speak someones language when you talk to somebody about the issues that you know they
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sending out a broadcast email, its important to manage the bounced messages and update or delete invalid email addresses either manually or preferably via software tools. A similar process is necessary for postal mail and phone numbers. Likewise, any actively used database will undoubtedly develop duplicate records and manual or automated process to remove duplicates is a necessity. However, in the Web 2.0 world, you can now allow your volunteer, donors and even voters to update their own information, providing you with new contact information and critical demographic knowledge. Obviously, most campaigns have a well deserved fear of too much outside access, but properly designed tools can allow you employ outside data entry while preventing data loss.
Most campaigns have a well deserved fear of too much outside access, but properly designed tools can allow you employ outside data entry while preventing data loss.
State and FEC Filing Accounting on the Web Campaign accounting can be a complicated and costly endeavor, if not done properly. Federal and state regulations require a campaigns best efforts to report accurately. Without proper tools, accountants should count the days until they are ned. The growth of web-based software has been a boon to both professional and volunteer campaign treasurers as it has eased the process of generating accurate campaign reports quickly. The most critical benet has been via the creation of integrated databases that allow the accountant to quickly and easily share information with the rest of the campaign team. This minimizes the amount of data entry the accountant needs to do, allows the easy farming out of tasks such as getting addresses and occupations and makes it easier for other keys staffers, such as the campaign manager, to review nancials and thus catch mistakes before they become serious. Additionally, the growth in online fundraising has created another time-saver for campaigns, as donors are now responsible for their own data entry. With the proper tools, all of the contributors information can be directly added to the accountants records. Perhaps most critical to political campaign treasurers is the ability for online software providers to rapidly develop and update their software in response to the changing requirements of various governing
bodies. The FEC, state and local agencies will regularly reinterpret and clarify reporting requirements, leaving campaigns often with only a few days to adjust their lings to meet these new requirements. With inexible desktop software, campaigns are typically unable to comply. Online tools, when fully supported, allow for rapid software development to adjust for these changing needs, despite the tight time frame. Of course, none of these advantages will matter if the software is not properly built. If the tool you are using to generate these reports is not integrated into your accounting system, and you are not able to conduct bank reconciliations with it or view an edit log, then there is just no practical way to make a good effort at accurate reporting. A good system, in addition to these features, will also have tools to aid in the creation of accurate and complete reports. For example, if a donor does not report his or her employer, a well designed system will warn you before you le. These are the kinds of missing details that can cause a lot of heartbreak and waste a lot of time if they are not addressed as quickly as possible within the campaign. Conclusion We are rapidly departing the time when traditional software can fully accommodate the needs of todays campaigns. Just as technology grows, so too do the expectations of todays voters. With the desire to have a personal connection with campaigns and candidates coupled with a common frustration of feeling like a cog in the machine, todays voters want a more intense relationship than campaigns using desktop software can provide. As we have seen, Web 2.0 addresses these needs full force, as do the software companies that operate on its principles. Properly supported web-based software streamlines the various challenges campaigns face: targeting constituents, tracking supporters, running complicated compliance reports, and allowing open accessibility to a diverse campaign staff. More importantly, the revolution of technology and the simplication of methodology gives campaigns back one thing they may have lost in the urry of separate spreadsheets and individual call lists: time. It gives them time to spend on new campaign ideas, and new ways to interacting with voters. With this, web-based software is no longer merely an accessory to campaigns, rather it becomes a strong cornerstone in the changing structure of modern campaigns.
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CHAPTER 7
Software as a Service: A Strategic Imperative for Political Campaigns

DANIEL BURTON
SALESFORCE.COM
Introduction
The strategic management of data will have a decisive impact on the 2008 elections, as political campaigns begin to adopt state-of-the-art technologies and applications for managing communications and relationships with voters, donors, volunteers, and constituents. In the last general election, we saw the power of the Internet as a new and effective grassroots communication vehicle for reaching out to citizens, mobilizing volunteers, and driving contributions. When it comes to information management, however, most campaigns still operate as if the Internet does not exist. They continue to pay high, up-front fees for traditional software programs that do not scale and that are difcult to customize, implement, and use. Moreover, they still have to deal with the headaches of installing, maintaining, and eventually tearing down large, complex IT infrastructures. In the upcoming election cycle, campaign managers will be able to deploy powerful new softwareas-a-service (SaaS) solutions that eliminate these problems by essentially allowing them to rent enterprise-class applications and IT infrastructure over the Web. These solutions are affordable, scaleable, easy-to-use, simple to manage and administer, readily customizable, and quickly implemented.
SaaS is like a utility that campaigns can tap to manage their operations. Campaigns can turn it on when they need it and turn it off when they do not. Campaigns can select those applications that meet their needs and then tune them to their individual requirements. Campaigns can add subscriptions as their races heat up and drop them when the election is over. As a result, SaaS allows campaigns to stay nimble during all phases of an election. The private sector has already broadly adopted SaaS, and as political campaigns begin to realize that technology increasingly determines winners and losers, they are sure to follow suit. SaaS solutions are applications that are delivered over the Internet. This increasingly popular model is not a panacea for all of the data problems political campaigns face, but it does offer substantial advantages over traditional software. Because SaaS is sold on a renewable, per-user subscription basis, payments are spread out over time. In addition, because SaaS is delivered via the Internet, campaigns do not have to undertake expensive, time-consuming deployments or even regular maintenance activities.
Software as a Service (SaaS) are applications delivered over the Internet. Instead of buying a piece of software and downloading it onto one computer, you can access the services you purchase, such as a database, from any Internet connection, anywhere in the world. Most SaaS applications are regularly and automatically updated, so campaigns do not have to go through the painful exercise of updating cumbersome legacy systems in order to benet from enhancements and new features. Many of SaaS applications were built with familiar consumer Websites like Amazon.com and iTunes in mind, providing a product that is easy to use and customize. Volunteers who use the Internet regularly should need only minimal training to be procient in these Web-based applications. And because security and privacy are an intrinsic part of the SaaS business model, campaigns face fewer concerns about data leaks than with traditional software. These advantages are clearly evident when it comes to campaign fundraising and event management. SaaS solutions allow campaigns to easily track all aspects of their relationships with individual donors, including the donors contributions, interests, attendance at events, interactions with campaign staff, and discussions with candidates. SaaS not only allows campaigns to display data about individual donors, but also to aggregate data into dashboards that provide a comprehensive overview of fundraising efforts. Moreover, because SaaS applications are accessible via any computer with an Internet connec-
Salesforce.com provides ondemand applications, like Customer Relationship Management databases. For more information, visit www.salesforce.com/ publicsector/.
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tion, campaigns can readily share information among relevant staff and volunteers regardless of where they are located. SaaS solutions also make the job of managing events easier. By providing a consolidated view of all aspects of campaign events, SaaS can help campaigns plan everything from dinner speeches to national conventions. SaaS allows campaigns to track invitations, attendance, expenses, equipment purchases, leasing, vendor contracts, and media relationships. In the 2008 election cycle, it is estimated that political campaigns will raise and spend $10- 13 billion.30 Much of this spending could be misdirected because of inherent deciencies in the traditional software licensing model. The remainder of this article will examine these shortcomings and discuss how SaaS can help address them.
implementing upgrades, many campaigns are forced to continue operating on old, legacy versions of their applications. As a result, campaign software deployments are frequently associated with large up-front costs and unpredictable spikes in ongoing expenses. The results are often well below original expectations. The complexity of implementing, customizing, and upgrading software drives up the costs, forcing campaigns to recalibrate the expected return. Consequently, many campaigns nd themselves locked into software applications that their staffs cannot effectively manage and that their volunteers cannot easily use. The Internet Is Changing the Rules of the Game The Internet allows organizations to connect users to a common network at a very low cost and with much less effort. This connectivity makes it possible for the software industry to deliver its applications as an on-demand utility, similar to electricity or telephone service. Unlike the traditional software model, SaaS does not require an organization to buy, install, or maintain any software or hardware. Instead, an organization needs only to have Internet connectivity and pay a monthly subscription fee to use the service. Employees can use existing PCs or mobile devices to access the applicationswhich are delivered via the Internet. Customers are up and running and begin to realize benets from their investments in weeks or months instead of years. A major benet of SaaS is the stability and predictability of costs. Unlike traditional software, SaaS customers do not face high front-end expenses. There are no servers or other hardware to buy and no up-front software licensing costs. Instead, customers pay a periodic subscription fee based on the number of people using the application. This regular payment schedule allows campaign managers to budget effectively and offers considerable savings. It also provides exibility for customers to add users as their needs evolve without being forced to pay in advance for licenses they end up not needing. According to studies by the Gartner Group, the Yankee Group, and Morgan Stanley Research, the cost of SaaS over three to ve years is almost half the cost of similar client/ server solutions.31
In the 2008 election cycle, it is estimated that political campaigns will raise and spend $10 - $13 billion. Much of this spending could be misdirected because of inherent deciencies in the traditional software licensing model. Is Software as a Service the solution?
Shortcomings of the Traditional Software Model In the traditional software model, a political campaign has to license the software, invest in the necessary hardware and IT infrastructure, and then undertake the software implementationa process that may take many months to complete. Once the IT system is set up, the campaign then has to manage and maintain the software and hardware on its premises, at a heavy cost. Supporting this infrastructure is difcult under any circumstances, and even more so for campaigns because many of them lack dedicated, professional IT staff. Because software vendors periodically release new versions of their software, campaigns often need to undertake expensive upgrades. These upgrades can rival the initial implementation in their scope and complexity. Given the immense cost of 30 Estimate of the Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet.
31 The Gartner Group, Three Year Total Cost of Ownership for CRM Software for MSBs, April 2004; The Yankee Group, Hosted vs. Premise Based Sales Solutions: TCO and Trade Offs, 2004; Morgan Stanley Equity Research, Breaking Ground with On-Demand CRM, August 2, 2004.
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According to studies by the Gartner Group, the Yankee Group, and Morgan Stanley Research, the cost of SaaS over three to ve years is almost half the cost of similar client/server solutions.
The SaaS subscription model also holds another important advantage for customers. Because SaaS vendors rely on regular subscription renewals, they are committed to their customers success in a way that traditional software companies simply are not. In the traditional model, software companies often lose interest in their customers welfare once they have collected their up-front licensing fees. SaaS vendors, by contrast, have a strong vested interest in making their customers successful over the long run so as to ensure subscription renewals. SaaS Benets for Political Campaigns Many political campaigns are overwhelmed by the sheer scope and complexity of their IT operations. Failed projects and cost overruns are only the most obvious indicators. Applications that are difcult to use, stove-pipe information systems that frustrate data sharing, the prevalence of legacy IT systems, and constant efforts to reinvent the wheel also attest to the scope of the problem. To address these problems, political campaigns must embrace a new approach to information management, just as the private sector is doing. SaaS applications provide comprehensive, exible solutions that can meet the needs of political campaigns of all sizes, from the largest presidential campaign to congressional, state, and even local elections. These solutions benet both campaign managers and their IT staffs. Campaign managers, charged with supporting the core missions of their campaigns, need fully functional software to keep their programs on budget and on schedule. IT staff, charged with keeping their systems up and running, need solutions that are cost-effective, quick to implement, and easy to maintain. SaaS can help both groups by freeing them from worry about infrastructure, maintenance, and upgrades, thus allowing them to concentrate on their core missions. In addition to the cost advantages of the SaaS subscription model, most SaaS applications can be up and running in weeks, not months or years like traditional software projects. Even complex SaaS applications usually take only about a month to implement. A CSO study found that almost 60 percent of on-demand solutions were implemented in under
three months, versus only about 16 percent of onpremise solutions.32 This rapid deployment allows project managers to keep project schedules on track while getting quick wins and building momentum for their campaigns. SaaS also allows for greater exibility in bringing new applications online. SaaS applications let campaigns start small, make systematic improvements, and add more users as needed. Traditional, on-premise software solutions require old software to be removed or altered so that new software can be installed. With SaaS, there is no need to terminate existing software. As a result, campaigns can keep their old applications running until they are completely satised with the SaaS solution. Moreover, SaaS gives campaigns more control over their data. With SaaS, the data stay in the system. Consultants and volunteers can access necessary data, but not walk away with it. Conclusion SaaS offers several advantages to political campaigns that traditional client/server software does not, providing a powerful solution for many of the strategic data needs facing campaign managers. Among the most compelling advantages of SaaS are freedom from IT infrastructure management, rapid implementation, cost-savings, world-class data security, exible customization, and ease of use. These advantages can substantially reduce the risk of campaign software deployments and allow armies of fundraisers and volunteers to expertly use the software with minimal training. Although SaaS is a relatively new concept for many political campaigns, it has an extensive track record of success in the private sector. As campaigns realize these benets, they too will embrace the SaaS model.
32 CSO Insights 2006, On-Demand versus OnPremise CRM by Jim Dickey and Barry Trailor, page 2.
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CHAPTER 8
Making Your CRM Volunteer-Friendly

IAN KOSKI
ON DECK COMMUNICATION STUDIO LLC
Although the passive data is critical for direct mail targeting, phone-banking and precinct-walking, it has limited usability in volunteer recruitment. Thats why its important to make sure that your active, day-today database is ready for the task of volunteer management even before your campaign begins.
The ve-point data plan

One of the earliest activities campaigns should undertake is to determine where theyll get their data and how itll be stored. The end result is a data plan that answers, at a minimum, the following central questions: 1. Where is our voter and supporter data going to come from? Voter les? Party lists? Previous campaigns? 2. How will it be managed? Online custom MySQL database linked to your website? Commercial CRM software? Ofine Access database? 3. Who will maintain it? A full-time staffer? Multiple staffers? A dedicated volunteer? 4. How will the data be used? Direct mail list-selection? Field ops? Email outreach? Phone banking? 5. Who will need to access it? Which staffers? Volunteers? Consultants? A data plan crafted very early in the campaign will help you stay focused as you collect information about your supporters information youll inevitably need to generate the lists and reports youll want at your ngertips when its time to make strategy choices. A plan is also critical for ensuring the database you build will support CRM activities, such as recruiting and managing volunteers, donors, and supporters. Your data plan neednt be a tome a one or two-page memo that answers the ve questions above and states all conceivable uses of campaign-related data should sufce. You will use your data plan when choosing a CRM platform. If you are running the average campaign, then you probably do nothing and hope a steady stream of new, enthusiastic supporters nds its way to your ofce. In reality, it usually takes more than a little wishful thinking to build a viable volunteer army. Your campaign must be set up to accept new volunteers through multiple channels namely the web, phone, and in-person. Regardless of how they come in, their contact
Volunteers: the people every campaign wants but most campaigns dont have the time or resources to recruit. A good relationship management program, however, can help you pinpoint volunteers without wasting too much time or money. Building a Volunteer Corps on more than a Hope and a Prayer How you construct your database can affect how well you develop relationships with potential volunteers. Thats because volunteers and voters are sometimes two different groups of people. Sometimes, a database can be too crowded, or too poorly designed, to help you strike volunteer gold. This chapter looks at constructing a data strategy that helps you develop and manage a volunteer base. Lets start with how you build your database.
On Deck Communication Studio LLC combines political communication strategy and graphic design for Democratic candidates. For more information, visit www.ondeckstudio.com.
Its easy for campaigns to breeze through one of the most important technical decisions they have to make: just how integrated should their campaign databases be? More specically, should their data on active contacts (volunteers, donors, stakeholders, media, and email subscribers) be in the same database as their passive contacts (voter le and party members)? There really isnt a right or wrong answer to that question because, as in all things campaign-related, it depends on the race. Keeping active and passive data separate may save time and money for many campaigns, except for those that pay a professional database consultant or have no donors and no volunteers by the time they acquire a voter le. If you nd yourself in either of these two scenarios, then how you store your data probably doesnt make much difference.
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information must all go into the same database, or youll risk losing pieces of information or even entire entries to clerical mismanagement. Manual data entry should be as easy as possible for campaign staffers, and it should absolutely be integrated with your website, so that new sign-ups are automatically logged and tagged accordingly. Databases require daily maintenance by someone on the campaign authorized to change and delete records as necessary. Your database will inevitably contain duplicates like weeds in a garden that need to be identied and plucked for the sake of efciency. Duplicates crop up for a variety of reasons, most commonly: 1. People submit multiple forms on your website (i.e. email sign-up, volunteer, donor, endorser, etc), and your website or CRM isnt built to prevent duplicates. Your website and/or CRM is built to prevent duplicates, but the person changed or mistyped the information used to verify uniqueness. A regular email subscriber made a donation an activity that may be excluded from duplicate-prevention measures for campaign nance compliance (just in case) and added a new record. Your voter le was integrated after you already had a sizable active database, and no crosschecking was done during the merge.
1.
Recruit on your website. Visitors to your website are already interested in your candidate. There is no more fertile ground for recruiting volunteers. Give them the ability to sign up as volunteer, asking them what theyre interested in doing and when theyre available. That data should go directly into your CRM database. Your database should automatically generate an email message to your volunteer coordinator and to the volunteer, thanking him or her. The same principles that apply to electoral persuasion have a clear, consistent message (i.e. we need to x our schools), make a clear ask (i.e. please help us x our schools by volunteering), and predict the result (i.e. with your help, well take City Hall and x our schools) should be applied to the sign-up page. Its astonishing how many campaigns rely on a strippeddown, plain, out-of-context web form to recruit volunteers. Use the page to sell why they should volunteer. Bigger campaigns may allow site visitors to create accounts that allow them to recruit other volunteers and donors. These campaigns often use a points system to reward their highest-performing supporters, fostering a sense of competition among the most devout.
2.
3.
4.
Duplicates arent the worst things in the world, but they can lead to multiple attempts at contact (receiving two phone call solicitations, two mail pieces, etc), which waste the campaigns time, money, and credibility. The reality is that most campaigns arent staffed to perform the daily maintenance required to keep the campaigns data at optimum efciency. A good CRM application will make it easier by ensuring the technology serves the campaign and that the campaign doesnt serve the data. In choosing your CRM platform, ask how well it will play with the following campaign activities: Activity 1: Bringing in New Volunteers Your website and CRM application should be prepared to accept volunteers and capture more than just their name and phone number. Find out what tasks theyre willing to perform (give them an array of opportunities) and ask when theyre available. Having this information will make deployment signicantly more efcient.
2.
Enter your ofine data. - The data on volunteers who call your ofce, attend a rally, or otherwise sign-up ofine will need to be added to your CRM database. The interface should not make data entry any more of a chore than it must be, and it should allow some exibility for recording additional information about the individual, like potential donor, or member of St. Pauls Church. Comb your database for potential volunteers. Many of the people in your active database would be willing to volunteer if asked. Try to nd them. Here are a few things to look for: a. The most consistent email openers. If your bulk email system is linked to your CRM, then you should be able to tell which subscribers read the messages most frequently (and which subscribers forward the messages to others). b. Geographically relevant addresses. If your district covers a number of
3.
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c.
zip codes, cities, or counties, then its important to have a balanced distribution of volunteers especially in battleground areas. If youve identied regions that need extra attention, then look for people in your CRM database who live there and contact them directly. If your CRM software allows you to tag contacts with issue preferences, then you can create a volunteer opportunity that centers on an issue and reach out to those whove been identied as interested. Its an easy way to take a subscriber who cares about education and turn him into a volunteer willing to call other voters about your candidates views on education.
6.
Synchronize your database to your email software. There probably isnt a scenario where we would advise a campaign that its CRM program didnt need to be linked to a bulk email application. Ideally email and CRM are part of the same application (as many commercial CRMs are) so that your application can send messages to select contacts drawn directly from your database without any cutting-and-pasting.
4.
Monitor the heartbeat of your data on a dayto-day basis. Use your CRM software to view the ebb and ow of your database. You should be able to see how many people have joined your email list, volunteered, unsubscribed from your email list, and donated each day. Combined, they form a fairly accurate barometer of message penetration and campaign momentum.
Activity 3: Assisting in Volunteer Activities This is where the decision on whether to integrate your voter le with your CRM really comes into play. There is an array of tasks that volunteers commonly perform, and most of them center on getting the word out to other voters (sending postcards, calling likely voters, walking precincts, etc). If youve decided to integrate your voter le into your CRM, then it should facilitate that volunteer work and make it more efcient by providing tools for targeting and, if your data is really good, micro-targeting. 7. Generate walk lists and call sheets. If you know that your volunteers will walk precincts every Saturday, then you need to nd a CRM system that allows you to generate those walk lists (and then update the records of those visited and missed afterward). An array of reporting options should be among the rst things seen by your volunteer or eld coordinator when he or she logs into the database. Reports should contain all the relevant information needed to keep your volunteers organized and efcient. If youre using a web interface, the list should be offered in multiple formats HTML, Excel/ CSV, Word, and PDF. Build interactive maps. Campaign headquarters have pinned large maps to ofce walls for years to plot walk strategy and predict voter turnout. Putting maps online and synchronizing them with your CRM database takes that practice to the next level by utilizing real-time data. With your voter le loaded and a powerful mapping engine integrated with your CRM, your volunteers will generate higher return-on-investment when they walk precincts or call their neighbors. A good mapping system can also help you visualize where your volunteers live and where theyre lacking. It can show you where you donors are centralized and expose opportunities for further gain.
Activity 2: Interacting with your Volunteers One of the disadvantages to relying on a basic Access database sitting on an ofce computer for CRM is that it provides no direct means for contacting the people in that database. Without a strong communication vehicle, volunteer mobilization can be an arduous, inefcient task. 5. Give your volunteer coordinator access to your database. Your volunteer coordinator should be granted access to your CRM database and should receive the same training given to the person responsible for database maintenance. He or she should have a custom interface in the CRM software, presenting a dashboard of metrics on recruitment, availability, and fulllment. With one click, the volunteer coordinator should be able to generate lists or send an email to everyone willing to attend a rally or put a yard sign on the front lawn. He or she also needs to be able to add volunteers who signed-up ofine. The volunteer coordinator may also bear responsibility for updating volunteers records after theyve actually completed a volunteer activity.
8.
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Activity 4: Keeping Data Secure Though applicable no matter what youre using your CRM for, its always important to consider the two kinds of relevant data security. 9. Secure incoming data. Savvy web users know to look for the little lock icon in your browser window and the https prex in the URL window before they enter their sensitive credit card information for a purchase. More and more campaign sites are applying the same level of security to volunteer signups, email subscriptions, and general contact management. The s in https stands for secure, because the page containing the form and the page processing the form are protected using Secured Socket Link (SSL) encryption. Data submitted on an SSL page is scrambled before it leaves and unscrambled right before it is entered into the database, preventing hackers from intercepting it and using the data maliciously. Most basic contact information, like mailing addresses and phone numbers, are publicly available. This type of information is not what most people consider sensitive. In this case, SSL encryption may not be necessary for CRM, but it is a nice feature to have available to you an extra security blanket, just in case.
$10,000 on a customized database unless this race is a prelude to higher ofce. However, if youre an underdog or know that the race will come down to a few percentage points, then absolutely use the best data management tools available within your budget. Every bit of intelligence you can collect on every single voter and volunteer is imperative. If youve got teams of volunteers going door-to-door, they should be recording their interactions in a specic, detailed, and consistent manner, and then inputting that data into your CRM at the end of each day. If a volunteer has completed an activity, make a note in your CRM so that person can be thanked and asked again. It all sounds great on paper, but if your campaign staffers and volunteers lack the time or commitment required to maintain and use the data in your CRM, save your money and consider a realistic solution.
CASE STUDY
Ragtag Armies and Online Donkeys:

Volunteer Management and CRM in the 2006 Senate Campaign of Jim Webb
DAVE HANNIGAN AND DAVE LEICHTMAN
DEMPAC
10. Secure stored data. Encompassing not just the kind of database your CRM data is stored in and how that data is accessed, but the physical state of the servers hosting your database, storage security is critical. Especially if youre in an intense race. Find out exactly where your servers are located if youre using a commercial shared hosting solution or if youre using a web-based CRM even if its tied into your website. Its a good idea to know where your servers are and what kind of physical protection is in place (locked doors, power backups, re suppression systems, as well as data protection. Most companies that offer CRM software know this is a concern and will make the information available up front. If they dont tell you where their data is stored and how its protected, you probably shouldnt use them. Conclusion Theres no point in having a sophisticated and expensive data management plan and CRM if the campaign staff on the ground wont use it. If you know youre going to win by 30 points, dont spend the
By November 2006, the Webb for Senate campaign possessed a sizable database of self-identied volunteers, numbering approximately 7,500. But with most of the campaigns nancial resources going to ght a TV war, the grassroots operation had to reach these invaluable supporters with one paid staff member, a tightly capped email allowance, no budget for travel or campaign literature, and two phone lines. Still, by the last weeks of the campaign, a skilled group of volunteers was making over 4000 phone calls and personal email contacts a week, engaging volunteers to perform crucial tasks in a victory that gave control of the Senate to the Democrats by only 9,300 votes.
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DEMPAC was formed in 2007 by a group for former Webb campaign grassroots leaders. DEMPAC develops online tools for connecting volunteers with local candidates.
searched and saved in lists and associated with activities, which are then automatically added to a persons searchable attributes. This makes it possible to see a volunteers activity over time, providing a very clear vision of their participation and skills. Riding the Donkey The Webb campaigns grassroots director sent weekly email blasts presenting volunteer opportunities across the state, from phone banks to public events, information that was inconsistently updated on WebbforSenate.com. This one-way communication was not sufcient for supporters who expected a more personal connection. To handle the volume of questions from existing volunteers and the steady stream of new recruits, it became necessary to set up a customer service center to address volunteer needs. This came to be known as the eld desk. With one phone line, one computer, and an answering machine, the eld desk concept started out small, focusing on answering volunteer requests and entering new volunteer information. Most features of the Donkey went unused for weeks, as there was little capability to update and distribute information properly. New volunteers were backing up in the system, and frequent complaints were heard about highlyskilled Webb supporters being ignored. Changes had to be made, and with a zero budget. In August, computers loaned by eld desk volunteers were equipped with free Skype VoIP software and a few $20 headsets, allowing each work station to access volunteer data and simultaneously make calls over the broadband network. Now staffed with ve plus volunteers all day and well into the evening, seven days a week, the eld desk set about using the Donkey to notify every volunteer in the commonwealth about what they could do that week even that day to help elect Jim Webb. For example, a eld coordinator would request volunteers to walk a Fairfax County neighborhood that weekend for voter identication. A Field desk manager would then use the Donkey to identify volunteers who 1) lived in or near that neighborhood, 2) had indicated they were available on weekends and 3) had indicated they would work door-to-door. Those possessing these three attributes were added to a newly created call list on the Donkey, and workers at the eld desk would make contact, adding any response to each volunteers le. An Activity was created in the Donkey with the number of people needed. Once the quota was reached, the eld desk could start calling to ll the next opportunity. The approach worked best when the eld coordinator or other event organizer had a Donkey account and could access the list created and lled for their activity. Not only was access valuable for that particular event allowing the coordinator to call the volunteers to reschedule or provide proper directions but
Background After electing Tim Kaine governor in 2005, Virginia Democrats set their sites on George Allen, a one-term senator who some polls showed to be the front-running 2008 GOP presidential prospect. By the beginning of 2006, businessman Harris Miller was the only declared Democrat in the senate race. Encouraged by a Draft Webb campaign organized by bloggers from RaisingKaine.com, former Reagan Navy Secretary Jim Webb threw his hat into the ring on February 7th with no money, no staff, and little name recognition. Webb did possess an impressive rsum, combined with principled views on Iraq and the economy. (He predicted a chaotic post-war Iraq, months before the war began, and held that government must ensure fundamental fairness for American workers.) In a low turnout primary, after airing not a single radio or TV ad and distributing few mailers, Webb defeated Miller with the help of what he called his ragtag army of volunteers. With general election funds trickling in slowly, the Webb campaign had little choice but to rely on local party committees and volunteers to perform functions usually handled by paid staff and third-party vendors. Although the campaign would eventually receive signicant support from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and from the mouth of George Allen the ragtag army proved indispensable in developing and maintaining campaign momentum. But volunteer managers faced signicant challenges in connecting with supporters and providing them with the information and motivation that fuels all successful grassroots efforts. The Donkey Back in 2005, a small group of Democratic activists, sponsored by Virginias state party, made an effort to capture information about the Kaine campaigns volunteers to aid future candidates. The result was TinyHorse Solutions Donkey Volunteer Management System. The Donkey is a web-based, feature-light CRM database, capable of basic contact management, scheduling, and histories. It maintains addresses and phone numbers, voting information (such as a volunteers home congressional district), and a exible attribute tagging system to accumulate pertinent details about each individual. The data les can be
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since many events such as literature drops were held in the same neighborhoods over several weeks, the members of the local list could become an instant micro-team, to be contacted for multiple events close to home. What Worked The eld desk process, once in place, exceeded expectations. Much of this had to do with its status as a volunteer-created effort volunteer involvement was highly-respected by all, so commitment to the cause was high. A captain was always on duty to train new eld desk volunteers on the CRM in use. The captain would interpret volunteer contact priorities from the paid staff and eld coordinators, translating them into call lists and targeted email. Field desk volunteers were given wide latitude, the overarching priority being to involve all volunteers in any way they were willing to participate. Details of each interaction were easily entered into the Donkey; this contact history then became a major factor in designing lists. For example, the eld desk Captain could pull up the les of those who had not yet participated in a volunteer activity for a low-investment event such as a Jim Webb rally in their area. Conversely, a clearly committed volunteer might be the rst to receive a call about an important activity in their neighborhood. The end result was that every volunteer within the purview of the eld desk received communications that were localized, informative and consistent, with almost no duplication of efforts. What Didnt Work Although WebbforSenate.com included a page dedicated to volunteer events, there was no effective, easily-searched central hub listing activities for volunteers. Each Webb for Senate regional ofce was responsible for coordinating volunteers in its area. However, only the Headquarters (Northern VA) ofce had a rigorous eld desk process in place. The Hampton Roads (Southeastern VA) and Charlottesville (West-Central VA) ofces were introduced to the Donkey far too late, but a core group of full-time volunteers in each location employed it effectively. The Richmond (Central VA) and Roanoke (Southwest VA) ofces did not use the tool. This begs the question, how did the other ofces organize volunteers? The main method was through Excel spreadsheet lists which were originally exports from the Donkey that became hand-tailored and divergent. Volunteers in these areas who signed up online after the Excel exports were thus completely ignored by their local ofces. Another problem was the lack of a communications history for volunteers in regions where the Donkey was not used. In the event that the headquarters Field desk made calls for an event within the scope of a different ofce, there was no way to know when
a volunteer had been last contacted. Thus the coordination of volunteers suffered from a lack of central organization and a lack of shared data resources. Lessons Learned In order to get the most of volunteer data, it is vital that all staff, regional ofces, and anyone working with volunteers buy into the need to use and update the chosen volunteer management system. This allows the campaign to conduct a much more coherent running conversation with volunteers that communicates respect for their efforts (while limiting wasted contact), and also allows all leaders of the campaign to access resources they might not know they have. (For example, it was not until October that the Finance staff learned the Donkey contained numerous volunteers with fundraising experience) A common understanding of the value offered should lead to better communication regarding needs that cashstrapped campaigns can ll with volunteer recruits. Once decision-makers have committed to using a system, the campaign should establish a clearinghouse similar to the eld desk concept to: 1. 2. 3. Take requests for needs that can be lled by volunteers. Search for and contact matching individuals. Maintain scheduled events and specialized volunteer lists.
Although the ideal would be to have all members of the campaign use and update the data as they interact with volunteers or even have the volunteers update it themselves the fast pace of a campaign demands a small group dedicated to volunteer management and maintaining the CRM. Future campaigns would do well to not only commit to a single data source for volunteers, but a single data source for all individuals in the campaigns universe. Voter, Donor, Volunteer, and Staff are not discrete titles, as it is possible for one person to act in all four roles in the course of a single campaign, and likely for politically involved individuals to wear different hats over several election cycles. A secure system, offering different levels of access to information, could provide campaigns a safe and much more comprehensive view of an individual, leading to tremendous gains in efciency, much better customer interactions, and thus increased loyalty, the goal of all political parties.
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CHAPTER 9
Data, Data Everywhere. Now What Do I Do With it?

CHRISTOPHER MASSICOTTE
NGP
help me achieve my goals? Why are you going to contact people, track them, or keep their data? Do you need the database to perform campaign nance duties, voter contact, or both? And nally, what do I do with all this data? This chapter answers those questions, and discusses how your campaign can use CRM for its eld and fundraising activities. I. The Field Campaign Did you know that you can take your data on a neighborhood walk? CRM doesnt necessarily have exclusively online or mail-driven implications. Some of our clients biggest success stories using CRM come a lot closer to home in your own neighborhood, to be precise. If you have been in the political game for at least a few months of an election cycle, then you know that doorto-door canvassing and neighborhood walks are a perennial part of politicking. Over the past few years, canvassing technology has evolved from stacks of 3x5 cards to scanning barcodes and instantly updating databases through mobile devices. For example, consider the relatively widely-used method of placing a barcode for each person you want to contact on a walk sheet. Scanning that barcode allows you to see and update his or her information. With this system, you can note that Ms. Wright is concerned about a casino that may be built in town. You can use that information to generate a letter that addresses her specic interests: Like you, the last thing I want to see if for us to build a casino in our town. If Ms. Wright is undecided, then you can generate the additional line, Thank you for considering my campaign. Or, if she supports your candidate, Im really appreciative that you want to put a yard sign on your lawn. Expect it to arrive within a week. I encourage you to vote on Election Day. Lets look at an example of how a eld campaign can effectively use CRM to accomplish its goals.
Often, the rst check a new political campaign writes is for a constituent relationship management system. The CRM database in recent election cycles has become the foundation of everything else the campaign does. Information gathered from eld, email, and online activity is used to raise money and identify votes. Campaigns are now buying information on potential voters and donors. Databases are the most valuable tools a campaign has in its arsenal for gathering information on voters: how they feel about certain issues, how they voted, who they contribute money to, and when they volunteer. This information helps paid staff organize a campaign to collect the votes it needs to win on Election Day.
NGP Software provides campaign technology solutions to Democratic candidates and their allies. For more information, visit www. ngpsoftware.com.
Data is a campaign essential: the more you know about a voter or volunteer or donor, the easier it will be to convince them to vote your way, volunteer, and give your campaign money. Campaigns are collecting large amounts of seemingly irrelevant data about voters. For example, the Republican Party has a database of voters that even tracks shopping patterns. They know the married mother of two who goes to church every week and shops at Wal-Mart is more likely to vote Republican than the married mother of two that does not go to church every week and shops are Target, and that these two voters could very well live directly next door to each other. The messages they see during the campaign season will be microtargeted to them based on the information that has been collected. When your campaign is considering a CRM system the rst question to ask is, How will this system
CASE STUDY A
Pay raises, campaigns and eld efforts

The Problem The Mike Veon for State Representative campaign in Pennsylvania combined canvassing with CRM and email during a very contentious primary in 2006. Veon, the Minority Whip of the State House, was instrumental in passing a substantial pay raise for state legislators that was passed in the middle of the night on the last day of the session. When the story hit the news, people were outraged. Caving in to voter an-
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ger, the pay raise was repealed by a 202 1 vote. Who was the lone dissenter? Rep. Mike Veon, who strongly believed that the only way to attract good candidates to run for ofce and to cut down on corruption, was to pay them competitively to what they would earn in the private sector. This prompted several candidates to run against him both in the primary and in the general election. His position was a complicated one, but if explained correctly to his constituents, it was possible that they would understand. The Tactic Because the district was a small (just around 30,000 voters), the campaign was able to send paid canvassers and volunteers into the eld to knock on every single door in the district and ask people about what concerned them this election. By far the biggest concern was the pay raise specically Veons involvement in passing the pay raise, and then his subsequent lone vote against repealing it. The campaign knew they had to focus their efforts on this group of people who cared very much about the issue. They used a web-based voter contact management system that allowed them to track various demographics including issues important to voters. The contact management system allowed the campaign to send customized letters and phone calls to voters to explain the votes, while avoiding the issue altogether when it did not matter to the voters. It acknowledged that Rep. Veon wanted to make it economically feasible for people other than the super wealthy people to run for political ofce. If you pay your representatives enough to hold public ofce, then you make it more attractive to them. This results in a better quality of representation. This line of reasoning contained more nuance than the message that pay increases lead to a huge decit, but the Veon campaign took the chance, and won the primary challenge. Seventeen other incumbent state legislators lost their primary challenges including the sitting State Senate Pro Tempore. The website PoliticsPA.com said of the Veon campaign, It was the best, most well-oiled eld program that we have ever seen. Cost and Needs A web-based voter le system is usually priced according to how many voters you have in your universe. A 30,000 voter district will cost roughly $500 per month, where as a nationwide voter le system can cost in the millions. Lessons from the Field The Veon campaign understood what they had to do. They contacted each and every voter three times! Those who cared knew the reasons for the votes. The biggest issue after that was making sure that their
supporters got out and voted. The GOTV program consisted of door knockers and phone calls to every identied positive voter in the district. Unfortunately, because of general voter anger, the inability to control the GOTV operation during the general election, and the strong campaign run by his general election challenger, Rep. Veon was unsuccessful in his re-election bid. This proved, however, that the work done in the primary was effective. II. Fundraising 2004 was a turning point in the way campaigns used technology, and the Howard Dean campaign has become the inspiration for many smaller campaigns. When it comes to fundraising, the rst thing campaigns need to realize is very simple: youre not Howard Dean. Just putting a click to donate button on your Website will not immediately result in millions of dollars. Understand that, and you understand your limitations.
When it comes to fundraising, the rst thing campaigns need to realize is very simple: youre not Howard Dean.
Even with the Internet, fundraising still takes work, just like it takes work to raise money over the phone or at events. You still have to give people a reason to contribute to your campaign. Youre not selling them a product; youre selling them the idea of good government an idea that tends to change, depending upon who you talk to. Work on making your website and email signups part of everything you do. At every event, at every campaign stop, ask people for their email addresses. Ask donors who give over the phone to send out an ask via email to their personal address books. Set up personal fundraising pages for your supporters so they can track their own progress. When you empower your supporters you generate enthusiasm that no number of paid campaign staffers can match. Most important of all, do not use technology simply because its available or its new and ashy. Really think about how you can apply it to your specic campaign and set goals of what you hope to accomplish through the use of that technology. Now, lets discuss putting principles of CRM into practices during the campaign fundraising season.
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What do you need in a eld CRM?

A well run eld program can make the difference in a tightly contested race. Almost all of the close races I hear and read about mentioned how good the winners ground effort was. In essence, their Get Out the Vote or GOTV program. A Campaign Field Program consists of three basic steps. 1. Target your voter A good CRM system will help you target areas and precincts where you will get the most out of your efforts. For example, if you are a Democratic Candidate, you will want to walk precincts where there is higher than a 50% Democratic Performance Index. Democratic Performance Index is a number arrived at from several compiled election results to determine what percentage of the vote a John Smith with a D after their name would receive against a John Smith with an R after their name in the absence of any campaigning. If you have an area with a DPI over 50% you are already starting at an advantage. A CRM can help you do this by compiling voting history data, demographics, type of terrain that precinct is in, population density and so on. 2. Persuade and Identify Your Voter During the months leading up to the election a successful campaign will contact voters via door to door canvassing and phone banking. A CRM will help you record positive IDs and identify issues that you have in common with your voters. A good Field CRM will help you track your progress, send letters to voters who are thinking about your race, and connect with them in a personal way that has been lost since the advent of the Television Age. 3. Get Your Voters to Vote Depending on how well your campaign performed step 2, you should have been able to identify the 50 percent-plus-one voters you need to win your election. A good CRM will allow you to print out walk sheets of identied voters. Print tear sheets at polling sites to identify those who have voted, and target areas where people havent voted yet. Election Day is very chaotic and the more open and accessible your CRM, the easier it is to use and to train others on, and the more reliable it is, the more successful your campaign will be.
CASE STUDY B
Combining email and ofine fundraising

In the 2004 election, a New Jersey Member of Congress was holding a fundraiser featuring former President Bill Clinton. The event was put together on very short notice and the vast majority of the tickets were sold online. The fundraiser was to be a luncheon and attendees would have their pictures taken with the President and would receive a signed copy of President Clintons autobiography, My Life. The Problem The staff who were throwing the event were told by the Secret Service that all guests had to arrive prior to the arrival of President Clinton. All of the guests were told to arrive promptly at 12:30 p.m. and that the President was scheduled to arrive at 1pm. One day before the event President Clintons scheduling ofce informed the campaign that due to a scheduling conict President Clinton would be arriving an
hour earlier. The staff quickly realized that they had to contact every single guest to ensure that nobody arrived late. These guests paid a lot of money to see President Clinton and if they were not informed there would be a lot of angry donors, and the last thing you want is an angry donor. The Tactic In order to quickly inform and ensure that all guests (over 500) received the information it was decided that an email would be sent to those who were registered to attend the event. There simply was not enough time to call every single guest in the time that they had. Using their CRM the campaign was able to send an email to only those registered for the event, and to any of their guests that they registered as well. The CRM system that they used allowed them to see who did and who did not open and read the email that was sent. By 6 pm that day, those that did not open the email (only about 75) were called to conrm that they knew about the time change. It took a lot less volunteers to call 75 people than it did to call 500. On the day of the event only one guest arrived late because she hadnt been informed.
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What do you need in a fundraising CRM?

1. Track campaign contributions Tracking campaign contributions is necessary so that you can le your campaign nance reports. Just as importantly however, this data that you collect on your donors will be used later on to ask your donors for contributions again. Your best donors are your previous ones. Tracking your campaign contributions by source code allows you to learn what kinds of solicitations work and which dont, where your strongest support is coming from, and where you might be able to do better. Track volunteer time Volunteers are the lifeblood of any campaign. You can set up a system where volunteers can choose when they want to volunteer and what they want to volunteer for. When it comes time to put a group of volunteers together, you can go into your CRM and choose only those volunteers who want to help Wednesday nights and who live in the area and are willing to stuff envelopes. You wont waste time calling people who arent available to help you. You can track when volunteers show up to help, and thank them appropriately. Broadcast email fundraising solicitations Broadcast email is a great tool to ask for money, volunteers, and to send news to your supporters. However, email should NOT be used to persuade voters to vote for you. Email has not proven itself useful in being a persuadable medium. Email should be used with people that you know already support the campaign or are at least friendly to it. Asks for contributions can be precisely tailored and customized according to the group of people you are emailing. For example, if you are hosting a large fundraising event you will send an email to those who can afford it, have an interest in the type of event you are holding, and who live nearby. You wont waste your time emailing to people who arent interested or dont live close enough to attend the event.
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Costs and Needs A Web-based fundraising database that includes the necessary nancial disclosure capabilities can run from $250 per month for a local campaign to several thousand dollars per month for a Presidential campaign. III. Too Much Information Historically, people have said that you can never go wrong by collecting too much information. The atmosphere changes on political campaigns. Too much information can muddy the waters. The most important element is not collecting as much information as possible, but segmenting it in the right way, so that the nance team only sees the nancial information, and the volunteer coordinators only see the volunteer information. While collecting information is incredibly important because it allows the candidate and the campaign to relate to people in a more personal way, you want to make sure the right people see the right information. The fact that John Green has a spouse named Gertrude and a son at Yale, may seem unimportant, but it can actually be useful. Several years ago, I worked with a candidate who wanted this type of information on his call sheet, so that when he talked to John Green, he could pepper the conversation with questions like Oh, hows Gertrude doing? or Hows little Johnny doing at Yale? I dont know
if you remember, but I was a professor at Yale way back when. While knowing these bits of information seems creepy at rst, people are more apt to relate to candidate than when the campaign approaches them through a purely political context. And if they are more apt to relate to you, then they may be more inclined to go out there and vote for you. At the same time, a good CRM campaign is not about people uncomfortable with your knowledge about their personal habits and choices. You dont want to walk up to a shopper and say, Donna, I know that you love yogurt. I know that you like fruit on the bottom. I brought you some yogurt, with fruit on the bottom. Rather, you want to just show Donna a picture of the yogurt she likes. The same is true when working with voters. You dont want to tell someone what she believes or feels. You want to show her the possible candidate for her. In some cases, it is more important to listen to people than to get your message across. Most people involved in politics are not just voters. We care more about votes than our own lives and more about politics than our families. But most Americans simply want to vote to fulll their civic duty, and then they go about their lives. Listen to voters, and then readjust your message going out to them. At the end of the day, people want to vote for a nice person, someone a lot like them. The Democrats ran into this problem in 2000 and 2004. People wanted to have a beer with George Bush, not Al Gore or John Kerry. Voters
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werent interested in what they had to say because they didnt like the way that information was delivered. The same advice rings true for both Republican and Democratic candidates: data will lead to a political tidal wave. You cant ride the wave unless you bring a surf board. If youre not prepared to ride it, then the wave is going to swallow you whole. 2. IV. Sometimes a list is not just a list. Today in politics, people buy contact lists that match up email addresses with the voter le. Simply emailing these voters looks a lot like spamming. But there are ways to use a list well. One of these lists is a radioactive ball of energy: you can either use it in a way that blows up in your face or you can use it in a way that will power your campaign straight through to Election Day. Using your list to send out mass emails every week with no update, no survey, nothing blows up in your face because spamming makes people angry. Even the blogosphere rants about campaigns that do that. Its just not the best way to use email. First, choose what you want to know about your lists. For example, say your campaign is hosting a fundraiser tomorrow night with Bill Clinton. In an instance like this, use your list to nd out who are the best people to invite? The most likely answer is people who have contributed to the campaign in the past, people who can afford to pay for an evening with President Clinton. You cannot afford to waste time and effort trying to reach out to people who cant afford it. You want to nd people who live or work close enough to attend. You want people who arent dead. How am I going to do a search for these people? Im going to ask the database for people who have given me over a thousand dollars at one time, people who live in my state, and people who are still alive. I am going to generate a list with these criteria, and then I will call, email or snail mail them. Generating a list of this kind all depends upon the kind of data you collected. If you havent put any of this information into your system, then dont expect to get any of it out of your system. Best Practices 1. Dont spam. Collecting information about people requires some kind of contact with them whether in person, on the phone, or online. Dont forget to ask people the best way to reach the. May we contact you? Is a door-to-door visit best? Should we add another phone number for you? What is your email address? Would you rather be mailed? Make sure your databases has a do not mail, do not call, do not email button. We add a feature to that. We want it to say in
parentheses, permanent. If somebody says to that she doesnt want to receive our newsletters, then dont let your staff go back later and uncheck the box. The only way to uncheck the box is if that person signed up again on the Website. Simply having a database is not the magic bullet. Despite all the promise of a good CRM system, a database is not a magic bullet. It is not going to automatically win you the election even if it is from a reputable company. Rather, what you do with that database will, in fact, help you win that election. This takes an investment of time, discipline, and energy. It requires dedication not just in keeping it up to date but also in coding, tracking contributions, researching which solicitation are the most effective, and knowing which issues make people give. On occasion, a client will come to me and say my database is not working. Ill ask the staff to look at it, and when we cannot nd any technical problems, Ill ask the client when was the last time somebody accessed the database. The answer is often two weeks ago if not longer. We conducted a survey of all of our clients and the successful majority is on the database, online, for 30 hours a week. They constantly entered contributions or any other information that can possibly know about the voter, volunteer, or donor that might help them encourage their supporters to contribute, volunteer, or tell their friends to vote. Success comes from knowing all of this and more, and being able to target specic people quickly whether through email, or phone, or by posting an entry on a well-trafcked blog. 3. Take Good Care of Your Data Data requires constant activity. Most campaigns designate at least one staff member or volunteer to manage the database. The key is to nd the right staff member or volunteer for the job. Different people contribute different things to an organization, and campaigns are no exception. So many people are willing to be involved, but not everyone is right for every task. A 75 year-old mathematics professor, for example, might not make the best door-to-door canvasser. However, he would love to keep a track of contributions, keep the database up to date, and stuff envelopes generated the canvassing efforts.
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CHAPTER 10
Retail Politics? Not So Fast.

JONATHAN KARUSH
LIBERTY CONCEPTS
In a perfect world, online politics would look a lot more like Amazon.com completely retail. But this isnt a perfect world.
Sometimes a campaign doesnt have the time or the resources to locate all of the Hispanic single mothers in a Congressional district, let alone tailor a message specically for them. Sometimes constituents who reside in a district dont want you to know that they smoke marijuana. Voters can actually be intimidated by extreme personalization of message, becoming wary that their personal information is available for public consumption. Extensive personal information being relayed by campaigns can become a lightning rod for voter anger and privacy rights advocates. Simply put, being targeted often makes people uncomfortable. A more realistic and ethical goal should be create a database application that makes your campaign run smoother that isnt so complicated that it overwhelms your staff or infrastructure and produces effective results within the realm of respectability. Remember, it is constituent relationship management, not constituent stalking. The following pages walk you through some of the steps your campaign should consider before you launch a CRM effort. 1. Know what you want to know. Before you can use your database to manage communications with your supporters, identify three, four, maybe as many as ve or six key characteristics that are going to be important for your particular race. Use this as your guide to develop a list of all the common elds or information that you want to know about your constituents. Start with the basic, most obvious parts: name, address, and phone number. Once you have these three bits of information, identify the data keys that will be essential to your campaign for volunteer recruitment and fundraising. This includes information about party afliation, race, sex, religion, and ethnicity. Your goal, over time, is to create a giant database in which you possess at least 38 elds of information about every voter in every district. Identifying the issues that are important to your constituency is also an important part of data model construction. Environmentalists will respond favorably to emails geared toward those issues, the same is true for gun rights advocates. 2. Find the right person to build your database. Once you know what you want your database to include, you must build the physical engine that will
You want to build a constituent database. Where do you start? This chapter will walk you through the basics of building a constituent database, and it will offer some tips on collecting and using information about your supporters. All sorts of ethical issues arise the moment you being to collect personally identiable information (PII). PII is a precious commodity in the new age of online politicking. The process of gathering and using PII presents many ethical dilemmas. The most effective practices are to garner every possible bit of information about the voters in your district and use it to campaign advantage. The closer you get to people on their personal issues, the more personalized the campaign becomes to the individual. The more personalized campaign communications become, the more likely that person is to vote for a candidate, volunteer, or donate.
Liberty Concepts provides Internet and strategy solutions to progressive candidates, organizations and nonprots. For more information, visit http://www. libertyconcepts.com.
In a perfectly ideal world political campaigns would have information on every voter in the district and a constituent relationship management system that allows them to customize, personalize, tailor, and blast communications completely tailored to each individual. In a perfect world, online politics would look a lot more like Amazon.com completely retail. But this isnt a perfect world. Unfortunately, many challenges exist in this framework: difculty gathering complete data, assigning staff time to customize messages, and ethical issues of what information should be used in discriminating message.
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house your database. As a candidate, you can either have someone custom build it for you, or preferably you can purchase a third-party product from a variety of vendors to house those databases. The vendor should be selected based on your needs and budget. When you look for a vendor, keep a few things in mind. The rst is accuracy in reporting. Do they have a proven track record, can they merge their PII data with contributor information for FEC reporting, and can data be updated by constituents through a website? Be sure to check references. Politics is a word-of-mouth industry, and databases are no different. Look for strengths from other, past clients or relationships. 3. Import your data. Most campaigns begin a race with previous data, either from the last unsuccessful challenger or from the state party or some other organization. Once your database is built, you have to import that data into your new system. 4. Improve what youve got. Once you have the infrastructure in place, then you need nd ways to improve your data and populate your database. There are a variety of different ways to do this: a. Place surveys on your site and in your email. User generated information is often the lowest cost and easiest method for improving your database. People that volunteer information should also be specially agged, because they obviously are more politically extroverted to have submitted information. It is important not to barrage people with too many questions. Remember when analyzing submitted data that it is NOT a reliable focus group, as participants do not represent a representative sample of the population. When you put a survey on your Website, it is a way to collect personal information about people who feel passionate about your candidate, not a scientic survey tool. Conduct door-to-door canvassing. This is a volunteer intensive method for gathering data, but can be an effective tool. Run phone banks. Like door to door canvassing this too can be an effective means of gathering data, and the labor can be outsourced to professional rms. Use the Internet to learn more about your constituents. This includes signup forms, and active, online volunteer opportunities. Many campaigns have developed cookies that track how people behave on the campaigns Website. Collect this data, and then
e.
match it up to how many people are signing up for ofine volunteer activities or event attendance. Purchase PII from companies. This is becoming increasingly more popular for campaigns. We call it retail information, and its growing use is a change from the last election cycle. Before you buy, look for data verication: make sure the data actually matches up to the voter le. And make sure the list is opt-in, especially when purchasing email addresses.
5. Integrate new data. Just collecting data about people doesnt give you an edge. What good is information if you dont know how to use it? Look at each of the data collection activities listed above. If you decide to engage in any of these activities, then you need to develop a way to accurately and immediately integrate the data you collect into your database. For example, if you are using your website to collect information about people, then all the forms should be used to update your database. In other words, you want to match up the names and email addresses of people who sign up for something on your Website with information you may already have in your database. What did they signup for? Did any of their personal information change? If one of your supporters recently moved, and he or she logs onto your site to sign up for an event, then your database system should immediately update the entry for that person with the new address. You can even set rules within your database to generate an email or phone call to make sure you have their correct address. If youre worried about keeping the information that comes through your website secure, thats a good thing. But dont go overboard. Its more secure to collect information about your supporters on your website than it is to have your volunteers enter the information by hand. Just make sure the forms are all protected with 128-bit encryption the same type of security used by Amazon and EBay and online credit card transactions. 6. Monitor your progress and measure results. Believe it or not, its easier to develop tracking tools that monitor incoming and outgoing communications than it is to label whats successful and whats not. There are no benchmarks. Were still in the rst decade of online campaigning, and much remains to be established as best practices especially when it comes to measuring the impact of CRM on politics. Were still not at the point yet where there are real benchmarks for success. There are wide variations from client to client. Remember that evaluation tends to be in the eye
b.
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of the beholder. How does your campaign use the information it collects for volunteer recruitment or fundraising? Do you use basic statistical software to evaluate the open rate on emails? Whos clicking on them? Whos contributing or volunteering based on door-to-door canvassing, compared to email or phone calls? 7. Keep your information to yourself. This is a best practice both ethically and effectively. Personal information has become a real commodity in the Internet age. If you want to run an ethical campaign, then treat your data carefully. Hold yourself accountable by posting a good privacy policy on
your website. Ensure your supporters are secure. Tell them that you will not share their information either commercially or with other organizations. Indicate what kind of information you are collecting, so there is not mystery or curtain over what your campaign is trying to do. Sure, people may change their habits or leave your site completely when they are confronted with the fact that you may be collecting information about them on your site. At the end of the day, whether people opt into your database or not, you want them to trust you. It is a far greater headache in the long haul to deal with angry misinformed people who have unwittingly given you personal information they did not want to divulge.
Flashback to 2002: Notes from a Field Campaign
How I used data and door-to-door canvassing to pinpoint likely voters

KENDRA ANN CROWLEY A few years can seem like a few centuries in the world of technology. Nonetheless, the campaign of yesterday provides some insights into how the ideas presented in this publication will affect the campaigns of tomorrow. In 2002, I served as GOTV coordinator and volunteer coordinator for the Chellie Pingree for US Senate campaign in Maine. Chellie was a Democratic challenger running against incumbent Republican Susan Collins, and my ofce was responsible for using data and door-to-door canvassing to raise volunteers in 13 precincts in the towns of Lewiston and Auburn. All the data my team collected was gathered on door-to-door canvases. The campaign did not integrate its volunteer and donor databases, so we did not see or deal with any donor information. In fact, donor information was managed by entirely different staff. The database I worked with was created from registered voter lists given to the campaign and comprised registered Democrats and Independents. My team of door-to-door canvassers used Palm Pilots to record information about the people we met in two different areas. We asked what issue was most important to them and who they would vote for if the election was today (we then scored them on a scale of 1-5). If people expressed great interest in Chellie and wanted to volunteer, then we added a note to their prole. This also gave us the opportunity to add items such as Send more info about health care. Answers to these commands were ltered by the headquarters in Portland, which followed up with each request accordingly. The eld team strategy consisted of three rounds: 1. We canvassed everyone in the district. We repeated our visits (if no one was at home) until everyone was reached. Each voter was categorized as 1-5, according to his or her likelihood of voting for Chellie. We did not revisit the ves and the ones. That is, we did not return to homes where they people were very likely either to vote for Chellie or very likely to vote against Chellie. Voters ranked 2-4 were canvassed again, this time for persuasion. We canvassed again, this time pulling voters who were labeled as ones, twos, or threes.
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The information we collected was downloaded from our Palm Pilots to our database at the end of the day.
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CHAPTER 11
People Come before Programs

CLAY JOHNSON
BLUE STATE DIGITAL
Everyone in politics is looking for the perfect CRM system and the ideal microtargeting strategy. The answer, however, doesnt exist at the bottom of a box. Just as in the businesses world, no one is ever 100% content with an off-the shelf, out-of-the-box CRM system. Especially in the political world, people tend to be happier with tools that are built or adapted for them. Sure, some solutions will work for a small race. And of course, you can hire someone who can program some of the customization for you. But when it comes to national politics and political parties with 250 million records, then the standard solution becomes part of the problem.
thing: people not jut the people you plan to put into your database. By people, I mean staff. For example, not even the most expensive online tool can replace a really good eld director. Want to know the secrets of political targeting or how to use the data you collect? Just ask a eld manger the real magicians in politics. Without a good eld manager, your data and expensive CRM application are just rabbits stuffed into old hats. For example, during the Dean Campaign we sent approximately 150,000 handwritten letters to the state of Iowa. We discovered later on that those letters persuaded people from being neutral about Dean to being mildly-interested. At the end of the day, however, they werent becoming rabid supporters. A smarter strategy would have been if the eld organization had downloaded a list of people who received letters and then followed up with a door-todoor canvassing chat. Weve found that this type of social interaction can also drive event attendance. Better design through better data. Dont forget bells and whistles. Relationships are important, but when it comes to cultivating people online, the creative element is also very important. People respond to different messages, colors, and designs. A good CRM application should help you track what compels people to give or vote or act. For example, you should be able to track whether the people on your fundraising list respond more to a red contribute button than a blue contribute button, or if a 14-point Verdana is better than 14-point Arial, or if position X is more important than Y and Z. Email is no different than direct mail: both require a lot a testing. Once you test a message, track preferences. Then use your creative team to decipher which messages resonate with which members of your audience. Frame them in an easy-to-forward way. This is where people come into play. Sometimes technology is not the one true solution. Sometimes the solution involves one additional element: people. Whether they are your constituents or your staff, listen (and learn) from the people surrounding your campaign or political group.
Blue State Digital provides technology and strategic guidance to political groups, campaigns and businesses. For more information, visit www.bluestatedigital.com.
The ideal political CRM application doesnt exist ... yet. In terms of dollars per lines of code, a CRM application will be the most expensive part of your online campaign. Once youve sunk a lot of money into your CRM application, then youd better stick with it. It becomes your foundation, and changing it, like any major renovation, acquires a lot of cost. Keep this in mind while you shop for a CRM solution: before you buy, invest time and money in one
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CHAPTER 12
The End of the Campaign and the Beginning of Elected Ofce: Correspondence Management and CRM
DANIEL BENNETT
telling you what I think. However, dialogue over a period of time, the long-haul back-and forth activity of questions and answers is precisely what CRM is all about. It simply is not something that the short-term campaign world has embraced, historically speaking. Again, campaigns are about selling a message, not building ongoing conversations with voters. So, how do you transition to from campaign mode to life in elected ofce? And how can your ofce use relationship management practices to manage all the constituent mail that youll receive in the weeks and months ahead?
Dont let the letter C fool you. The difference between CRM and CMS...
CRM means something very different to each type of political player. In ofcial elected ofce, it is not called CRM. It is called CMS Correspondence Management Systems. Dont confuse it with the other CMS Content Management System, which helps manage your Website. For commercial interests, it is called Customer Relations Management software. Constituents, however, differ from customers, and customers differ from citizens who vote. They may all start with the letter C, and they may all be the same people, but they function very differently. If youre thinking about purchasing a CRM program for your political campaign, then chances are good that you may require some features that are not available on a standard, commercial CRM system. Why does such a rift in CRM use exist between campaigning and elected ofce? First, campaigns and elected federal ofce have rules that keep them separate. They have different budgeting, different calendars and different traditions. When in campaign mode, the same person switches over completely from his or her role in the ofcial ofce, which, day-in and day-out, typically conducts CRM activities under the title of legislative correspondence. Of course, elected ofcials (and candidates) understand that it is important to respond quickly and meaningfully when they can, but their ofces do not operate in hyper-paced campaign mode. While most campaign managers staff their ofces with eld workers not to mention the volunteers historically speaking, campaigns have not had one dedicated person responsible for voter relationship management. Members of Congress, in their ofcial capacity, are involved in literally hundreds of different issues,
The political world is divided: some of us have been using CRM for some time, while the rest of the industry has not. For example, the lobbying world adopted CRM years before the campaign world, which is just beginning to experiment with it. And, some of the people who have been using CRM the longest are actually members of Congress . . . but not the campaigns that help elect them into ofce. CRM is important because it gives an advantage to candidates who use it, especially in elections where the margins are thin, both in terms of money and time. However, constituent communications is not something to be entered into lightly. Responding to constituents about the issues that concern them is politicking, even though it is not campaign politics. CRM for electronic communications began to develop on the Hill in 1993, based on fairly ornate CRM programs that, in turn, were based on old systems used for paper correspondence. In the ad hoc campaign world: politicking is mainly about pushing messages, not about responding to people. In other words, when a candidate gives a campaign and speech, she might take questions, but typically does not engage in back-and-forth dialogue with each voter over a period of time. Campaigns generally do not have staff on hand to answer individual questions. Instead, campaign staff post issue papers both very broad and very particular on the Website. This too is a push messaging practice. Its not about personalizing communications to focus on you, the individual person interested in the campaign. Rather its about me, the candidate
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and they have dedicated, long-term staff to sort and respond to constituent communications. There is no way a campaign eld staff has either the historical memory of how an elected ofcial acted on an issue or the ability to go to the congressional ofce to nd out. And, honestly, if a topic that interests a voter is off-message, then they do not want to talk about it anyway. The second issue is time. Compared to the amount of time one spends in elected ofce, the campaign season is incredibly short. Once elected, our representatives assume they will hold ofce for at least two years and possibly for six, eight, or even twenty. Building a list and cultivating people is much easier over time because people will write regularly, and the ofce can collect that correspondence to tailor their outreach. Compare this to big campaigns, which generally last two years or less. Many candidates are rst-timers and lack a tradition of constituent correspondence that is built with experience in elected ofce. Most campaigns start with no list and must build it from scratch. People dont typically write to candidates: candidates have to reach out to them proactively. Finally, campaigns spend a lot of time at the beginning thinking about the message and organizing logistics. They might not have to time to deal with a database or CRM strategy. CRM is not going to be simple: it has to be used to respond in a timely manner, addressing the specic issues of individuals while staying on message. Technology, however, is making CRM more possible for politics and allowing more one-to-one interaction between campaigns and voters in less time and with fewer staff. It makes it possible for an organization to use very sophisticated infrastructure that would normally take months of time and years of institutional memory to create. New CRM software can shortcut many of the problems with typical CRM and allow the type of candidate-voter interaction that was not possible before. With email and electronic communication, campaigns, for the rst time, can distribute and organize trackable messages coming in and going out individually. Further, with CRM, campaigns are able to concentrate for the rst time on hitting smaller audiences through microtargeting or simply by listening to their precinct captains. Even small, but important, on-theground communications that the campaign was either not aware of in the past or could not control can be a part of a centralized communications program. Much of the information exchange in a seemingly casual manner can be used to assist campaign staffers on the local level. Further, campaigns can tailor messages efciently, hitting 10 people here, 20 people there whom they might not have been able to hit with a broad-brush communications strategy. Lets walk through that process.
What will your campaign $ buy you?

In order to develop a competent CRM system, start from day one. Campaigns with plenty of money can buy a list of the email addresses and work with vendors and campaign staff to design an online administration campaign that will pull people into their database and coordinate with their off-line campaign. Enough money can buy an instant, gold-plated CRM system able to handle hundreds of thousands of in-coming and out-going messages from day one of your campaign. Cant spend a fortune? Consider purchasing a small list at the beginning of your campaign to help cultivate donors, and put their money to good use by buying a CRM system that works for you, a bigger list, or a dedicated CRM staff. Remember, smaller CRM programs are available to more local races. If youre a small race, you dont have to spend a fortune to use CRM. Remember, time is an issue. The sooner you begin your CRM program, the better. You cannot wait until late August to use CRM in a November election. CRM is something that you need to think about in March, April, May if not sooner. If you are going to try to be a successful Congressional or Senate, then you want to reach a half-million to a million-plus voters. Start early, even if you have to start with a less expensive program. Consider buying a list at the beginning of your campaign. Most candidates simply do have a readymade list going into the beginning of a campaign. Buying a list becomes crucially important. Think beyond your list. Perhaps more important than actually having a list is knowing how to use it. Lists are a cultivation tool, so plan your communications strategy ahead of time. All the technology in the world will not get your campaign anywhere if you have neither a good message nor a game plan for using CRM. Manage expectations. Your campaign is not a commercial enterprise with a customer service department, but that doesnt mean that CRM should be a second-class part of your campaign. Most campaigns probably cannot handle a huge inux of messages and respond both personally and quickly. Establish a process for handling correspondence and CRM issues down the road. How do you want CRM to improve your campaign? How do you want to shape the conversation? Which messages do you want to get out to which people? Be ready for it, and make sure your expectations are on track. Your goal is to
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keep people actively engaged in your campaign, and that takes planning. Dont ignore your voters. You might not have time to answer each new question thoroughly the second you receive voter email. You can, however, still let people know that you appreciate their message. Design an auto response that says, Hi, we are very busy campaigning. Your message is important. We have volunteers trying to get back to you. Not responding can cost you a vote. Keep your feet rmly planted in the ground. Use CRM to coordinate your online and ofine efforts. The business community uses the phrase Up Sell, which applies quite well to the voter cultivation process. When a voter expresses interest in an issue and seems to respond positively to your candidates stand, then you want to up-sell them. Are you interested in this? Well, you tell a friend. So, you told a few friends? Purchase a lawn sign. Bring them up the cultivation process and make them feel wanted. Know your supporters. You are building a relationship with voters, while juggling a dozen other balls at once. You need to know how to respond to people, where, when, and how. At a very basic level, this means sending messages based on demographic information, which you can collect yourself and purchase as part of your list. Many campaigns do not have the capacity to do more than this. On a more complex level, knowing your supporters means responding to them through their preferred medium and at the day of day thats right for them. Campaigns can also adapt polling information and use it to communicate with people based on the issue that matter to them. Dont be embarrassed to outsource your CRM technology. CRM and tools like data-mining are so new that many in the political world simply have not developed the skill set to use them effectively, nor does the political industry posses an infrastructure for a politics-specic CRM industry, such as the political polling industry. At the same time, many corporate CRM systems have become a bit more campaign-friendly. The pricing models are changing. For the time being, outsourcing the technical administra-
tion of your CRM system may be a smart choice. Set standards for your information harvest. Plan what types of information you want to collect about voters, how you collect it, and what you want to call it. Some of the old ways of political campaigns do not necessarily work the same way in the CRM sphere. Be as specic as possible with the person who builds your CRM system regarding subject codes or issue codes. Setting standards early will also help you decide what the message of the campaign. When people ask you a question, you can code their question, understand who they are, and respond to them quickly. Study geography. Geotargeting looking at people on your list based on their location and sending them specic, location-based messages can help bring the online and ofine campaign together. The idea is to send local people local information, centralize your communications, volunteer, and GOTV programs, and empower people at the local level to carry your message for you. For example, enable volunteers in a local area to sign up on a map on your Website that will show your precinct captains where they live and where to meet. Think like a salesman. CRM systems can be used for traveling salesmen who responded to a central ofce but had their own, local territories. Campaigns may be good at issuing top-down messages, but they need to learn to develop a way for local volunteers or staffers to report back up the pipeline. CRM can help campaigns coordinate all the thousands of individual interactions from each volunteer, and then display those interactions for each local coordinator come on a minute-by-minute basis for an instant update on the campaign. Campaigns can actually code their databases to pinpoint the best volunteers for things on a local level. Taking my last point into consideration, mapping is a much easier way for people who are not highly skilled data people to be able to quickly see and understand the ramications of the work being done by people on the ground. A good CRM system can make all that possible.
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PART III
CRM for Advocacy and Nonprots

Political campaigns arent the only organizations that can benet from constituent relationship management. The nonprot world and the advocacy community also have a lot to gain. The authors in this section look at how relationship management practices work in the nonprot context, and they offer practical applications for fundraising, messaging, and volunteer recruitment whether your nonprot is a one-person shop or a large, international entity.
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CHAPTER 13
Finding the Lifeblood of Your Nonprot

JASON ZANON
DEMOCRACYINACTION.ORG
CRM brings the total institutional relationship with a supporter under a single roof.
For those so aficted, here are three easy steps for a painless transition to the cutting edge. 1. Tools are great, but data is king. Most CRMs offer a menu of activism tools that probably go well beyond your immediate needs. If youve never before thought of running meetups or ride boards on your site, having them suddenly at your ngertips can feel a little like Christmas morning. Thats great. But its important to keep focused on a CRMs main deliverables. Any robust CRM should meet most organizations core feature needs, such as: Mass email blasting. Online donations. Action pages like write-your-rep and petitions. Event registration.
Just as every army travels on its stomach, every NGO travels on its data. For fundraising, advocacy, case management, communications and every way a nonprot touches its community, good information has always been the lifeblood of the third sector. And the Internet has given it a shot of adrenaline. Data management that would have been too expensive for the best-heeled entities just a few years ago is increasingly at the ngertips of every organization, empowering a panoply of heretofore unimaginable strategic choices. Increasingly, even small organizations are turning to advanced Constituent Relationship Management systems (CRMs).
DemocracyInAction.org is a nonprot organization that provides e-advocacy tools to progressive nonprots. For more information, visit www.democracyinaction.org.
In the scheme of things, it's not minor differences in these tools or the presence of features you weren't expecting to have that determines the success of your online ventures it's data. The ability to gather it efciently, manage it creatively, and access it readily are what CRM systems are all about. Look for: Customizability. Almost everyone needs to manage some information specic to their group or issue that wont be built into the tool off the shelf. You need to be condent that the CRM systems youre evaluating are capable of handling that information. Reporting. Once data is logged in the system, can you use it? Customizable reports that let you compare information in new ways will let your CRM really rock. Integration. The tools in the system should be naturally integrated with each other, of course. But the ability to play well with others is important, too. Avoid vendor lock-in and look for exible import/export capabilities. Increasingly, CRMs are also opening APIs, or Application Programming Interfaces, to enable organizations with more complex needs to sync with external data sources as well.
CRMs, in a nutshell, offer one-stop access to a package of advanced online tools that can enable any nonprot to project a sophisticated online presence, all built around a single, integrated data core. Where once a grassroots organizer might have her own list of activists, a development department its separate (partially overlapping) database of donors, and a state chapter of the national organization its own uncoordinated versions of the same, a CRM brings the total institutional relationship with a supporter under a single roof. That not only streamlines data maintenance and information-sharing, but allows the organization to understand its community in a ways that would have been impossible before. The drawback in this brave new world is the ageold technological conundrum: bewildering multiple choices leave many nonprot staffers struggling to evaluate services well outside their comfort zone.
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Buying a gym membership wont make you t, and buying a CRM wont make you MoveOn. You have to put in the sweat equity to get the most out of either.
2. Management and Strategy Count More than Software Buying a gym membership wont make you t, and buying a CRM wont make you MoveOn. You have to put in the sweat equity to get the most out of either. While techniques for email communications or the best ways to get blog buzz for a campaign may not be immediately intuitive, theyre skills that can be learned and there are plenty of free online resources to help.33 Many consultants can also outsource publicity, message development, and every other part of your web strategy. Even when using a consultant, though, you should be prepared to put hours into routinely working with your platform, if only to develop a feel for the way your campaigns unfold. Report, report, report. If you can set a dashboard of basic reports youll need over and over, so much the better. Did we mention that data is king? Only if you actually look at it. Test. Often neglected, even occasional controlled tests of, for instance, competing solicitation strategies to separate target panels will help you hone your tactics. The ability to test cheaply and sometimes in little more than a few hours is a great underrated benet of CRMs as anyone whos plowed thousands of dollars into direct mail panels should appreciate. Convert online passion into ofine action. Youll use online actions, of course, and some people on your list may never want to do more than that. But the ne plus ultra of Internet advocacy is getting a slice of people to take action in the esh: to attend (or host) a meetup, walk a precinct, run 5K for charity and sign up their friends as donors. Take some chances. A CRM ought to give you the tools to do some things you couldnt
do before. Given the minimal expense of experimentation and the rapid development of new ways to operate online, youre selling yourself short if you dont try out a few things youre not really sure about. Caution: you may inadvertently become the new expert in what youre trying. 3. Its Still All about People No matter how little your expertise of Internet tools, you have a critical resource that no consultant can match: you know your issue and your community.
No matter how little your expertise of Internet tools, you have a critical resource that no consultant can match: you know your issue and your community.
At the end of the day theres nothing about online communications thats truly arcane, and all the data in the world shouldnt obscure the fact that its still real people on the other side of the click-through rates, motivated by things that motivate the people you work with all the time. Things like: Free stuff. Giving away useful resources on a site is a great way to attract eyeballs. Winning. Being transparent about the campaigns you run, and especially letting people know when theyve been part of something successful, makes them enthusiastic about doing it again. Surprisingly few organizations actually follow up well with their online supporters. Having fun. A light touch goes a long way online. Humor is the common thread of many viral marketing campaigns.
Its an old fundraising maxim that people give to people with causes. Even if a few techniques need re-learning, the fundamentals of organizing, marketing and communication are still the best road map of cyberspace. All you need is a little data to travel on.
33 One of the best current introductory resources is Online Politics 101: The Tools and Tactics of Online Political Advocacy, available free at http://www.epolitics.com/download-online-politics-101/.
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CHAPTER 14
Not Just for Political Candidates: Voter Files and Constituent Relationship Management
CATHERINE GEANURACOS
MOMSRISING.ORG
of voters characterized by geography, precinct, race/ ethnicity or group membership; now sophisticated campaigns can reach out to voters as individuals, blending voter le data with polling research, issue identication, and support modeling scores to create a more efcient and personalized contact model. Advocacy groups and campaigns can nd and activate supportive voters outside of traditional constituencies or geographic strongholdsif they can successfully navigate the difculties of working with voter les.
Integrating voter le data into your organizations overall constituent relationship management strategy creates increased efciencies and greater understanding of constituent support, prospective donors, and valuable activists. Voter le data is the core of any individualized constituent outreach strategy; understanding the demographics, voting history, geographic location, and distribution across precincts of supporters and potential supporters allows a campaign or advocacy group to craft a cost-effective voter contact plan.
Advocacy groups and campaigns can nd and activate supportive voters outside of traditional constituencies or geographic strongholdsif they can successfully navigate the difculties of working with voter les.
What is voter le data? Unlike most CRM data, which is provided by supporters, contributors, or volunteers, the primary source of all voter le data is public data on registered voters. Each county or municipality maintains active rolls of registered voters; the data collected can be unique to each county or state. Basic contact information is collected everywhere name, date of birth, registration date, address, voting districts (including precinct). Most states collect data on gender, and a few on race/ethnicity. Counties usually have a record of voters participation in previous elections, but this information is stored in different formats and often is not uniform for a state as a whole. Some states require that voters register as a member of a political party in order to vote in that partys primary. Others allow for open voting in party primaries and track which voters participate in each primary, while some collect no party registration data whatsoever. An increasing percentage of voters decline to afliate with a political party, even in states where it is possible to do so. Some states restrict who can access the public voter le records, requiring that the data be used for political (not commercial) purposes. Historically, each state set (or failed to set) its own standards for voter le data management. Some states have had centralized, accessible, standardized voter le records for years, while others continued to maintain paper records at the county or municipal level until very recently. HAVA (the Help America Vote Act of 2002) set minimum standards
MomsRising.org is a grassroots online effort consisting of more than 70,000 members and fty aligned national organizations to create positive national and statelevel solutions on paid family leave, childrens health, childcare, exible work, and realistic and fair wages. For more information, visit www. momsrising.org.
Unfortunately voter le data is notoriously nonstandard, incomplete, and out-of-date, and these inconsistencies create challenges for advocacy groups working in multiple states or legislative districts or in an area with poor quality data. Creating a standard CRM data management strategy for a national organization is a daunting task because of the variation in voter le data access, data components and formats between states and jurisdictions. Campaigns and candidates traditionally communicated with groups
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for state-level voter information management, but not all states have fully complied, and access to and accuracy of statewide databases varies widely. Much of the country continues to be a patchwork of county-level data collection that results in missed opportunities for voter contact for campaigns and advocacy groups. HAVA requires a single, uniform, ofcial, centralized, interactive computerized statewide voter registration list dened, maintained, and administered at the State level but each state sets up its own systems, and they each collect different types of data. You can nd a report on the status of each states HAVA compliance at ElectionOnline. org.
enhanced often benet from an additional round of phone number matching (provided by yet another set of vendors).
Independent candidates and advocacy groups are sometimes able to purchase data from a local, state, or national party, but often rely on voter le vendors to supply data.
While the original public data sources only maintain information on registered voters, some voter le vendors also include information on unregistered individuals, useful for conducting voter registration activities. This list is compiled by comparing commercial mailing lists with the voter les. Most voter le data companies add some data to the basic information obtained from public sources, updating phone numbers and addresses (with National Change Of Address data from the US Post Ofce), and sometimes appending consumer or census data. Consumer data can include information on marital status, number of children, cars owned, or magazine subscriptions and comes from sources like InfoUSA or Acxiom, while census data includes imputed ethnicity, income levels generalized from community averages. Some of the major voter le vendors include Catalist, Aristotle, and Blaemire. There are many others, and some of them are even included in this publication. Many vendors serve primarily one side of the partisan divide, while a few are nonpartisan. Whatever your data source, its important to nd out when the data was most recently updated, the percentage of missing data in key elds (if youre planning a phone outreach project, you need to know how many records have phone numbers), and to run some overall counts so you understand what youve got. Many vendors now have interactive, web-based data systems where you can request and receive data on a specic group of target voters (all registered Republicans 35-80 living in the 14th congressional district). Most vendors will also provide a number of options for how you receive the data (.csv les, walk lists, phone calling lists, etc.). What is modeling? Do I need it? For states without party registration, campaigns create statistical models based on enhanced voter le data, survey results, and vote history data to create turnout and candidate support scores for each
Want to learn more about the Help America Vote Act?

ElectionOnline.org The nations only non-partisan, non-advocacy website providing news and analysis on election reform. Produced by the Election Reform Information Project The Federal Election Commissions HAVA page Contains the text of the law, along with more information, at http://www.fec.gov/hava/hava. htm. Whats the best way to access voter le data? Candidates, PACs and advocacy groups often get their voter le data from different sources: voter les can come directly from counties or states, a state party, a national party, or a for-prot voter le vendor. Its possible to get a computerized list of voters directly from some counties this can be the most economical option if youre working on a local campaign or issue, but the data will be in very raw form and it may be incomplete or inaccurate. In some places, multiple vendors as well as state parties have extensive data les on voters. In a few states, the challenges of compiling an accurate voter le have been much more extensive, so that one vendor has a near-monopoly on the information. Both major parties maintain extensive enhanced national voter le records, which are available to candidates at different stages of the campaign cycle (for example, once a candidate has won a primary s/he can usually access the state partys data the pre-primary situation varies). Independent candidates and advocacy groups are sometimes able to purchase data from a local, state, or national party, but often rely on voter le vendors to supply data. One of the many challenges in using this data is the difculty in comparing the relative accuracy of data available from different sources; even voter les that have been
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voter. A campaign will conduct a poll and record support for each candidate, then a statistical consultant will use the results to project out support probabilities for different demographic/geographic subgroups within the voter le. Partisan organizations also provide precinct-level data on past election performance for local geographies in local, state, and national elections, which can be another useful tool in constructing a support model. Models have also been developed to estimate the likelihood that an individual voter will vote to help determine who needs turnout messages. Even if a political group has the resources to create a support model for its issue or candidate, its often challenging to know how best to utilize a modeled support score for an individual voter. Campaigns must make decisions about which deciles of turnout likelihood to focus on, and where to set the oor for candidate support. This becomes more even more challenging in volatile races shifting close to Election Day. Models can be constructed for issue or candidate support. Its important to assess the usefulness of a model; testing its accuracy with ongoing IDs or by testing its predictive value on a reserved polling sample. Not all models are equally useful or predictive.
Bank). While open-source CRM solutions (CiviCRM, Advokit) could be useful for small-scale voter le data management, most are not capable of dealing with large numbers of records/transactions efciently, and require customization to preserve voter le data elds. While some national campaigns and organizations build their own voter contact technologies (MoveOn. org, AFL-CIO, RNC), most organizations nd their GOTV or persuasion targets (using their own or a voter le vendors data manipulation tools) and then forward this data to other service providers (direct mail vendors, telephone outreach rms). Whatever the scale of the campaign, maintaining and updating voter le data (appending the results of a vendors voter ID calls, for example) requires some level of inhouse technical expertise. Few campaigns accurately measure the impact of their voter contact activities; one reason is the technical challenges of maintaining and referencing consistent voter le data. Why is voter le data difcult to work with? Some of the challenges for maintaining a responsive CRM solution that incorporate voter le data include volatility of the data, inaccuracy, and inconsistency of formats. Voter le information is not static; for a political organization to be effective, it must be able to incorporate information on under-the-wire new registrants, and early and absentee voters. Voter le vendors or data management systems that dont preserve all the possible unique identiers that a county or state may have used in compiling its voter le make it challenging to incorporate early or absentee vote results available in electronic formats directly from some counties. For example King County, Washington makes available the IDs for voters whose absentee ballots have been received, allowing smart campaigns to remove those who have already voted from pre-election GOTV activities, increasing efciency. New registrants may be added to les not long before an election takes place, requiring last-minute updates of data les. While some vendors procure and provide updated le information as part of the cost of buying the data, many more do not. Voter le data often varies based on where it was collected: some counties in a state may keep records of the last 10 elections, while some may only have usable data on the last three and the voter le source may not be able to tell you which counties are which. Careful review and quality assurance of any analysis or manipulation of voter le data is essential to avoid potential pitfalls of mismatched data, queries that produce unexpected results, and potentially missed opportunities to contact supporters or persuasion targets. Files from different states may store data very differently: while most les have a separate eld for each recent election, some store data on the last
Even if a political group has the resources to create a support model for its issue or candidate, its often challenging to know how best to utilize a modeled support score for an individual voter.
Ive gotten data on voters in my legislative district, how do I use it? Once voter le data is acquired, there is the additional challenge of managing and manipulating it. Some of the vendors listed above provide web-based interfaces that allow for dynamic creation of voter lists in different formats, for different purposes, there are software tools designed to allow campaigns and advocacy groups to make use of voter le data. One example of this type of software is the Voter Activation Network, used by many state Democratic Party organizations to access and work with their voter le data. One limitation of most of the voter le software management systems is their lack of ability to integrate with other key campaign software tools (fundraising and volunteer management programs, email communication tools), although there are some platforms that are moving towards providing this type of seamless integration (NGP Software, The Data
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four elections in one eld. Currently, the source or vendor for voter le data often determines how easy it is to share important data with collaborators. For example, two environmental groups could have a difcult time swapping IDs theyd collected on a ballot initiative measure if they started with voter les from different sources. If one source kept the countys voter ID number, and the other source kept the state voter ID number, the groups would need to be able to create a way to match data using available name/ DOB/ address or zip elds made more challenging if the data components are formatted differently in each le. What are some risks in using voter le data? The amount of information contained in an enhanced voter le record can be overwhelming. Its important to remember that targeting too narrowly may reduce the impact of your communication strategy; nding the 200 most supportive voters wont be helpful if you need to persuade 5,000 to win your election. Its also tempting to rely too heavily on data that may not be useful; if you know that voters with shing licenses are likely to support your issue, but only .1% of the constituents in the district have shing licenses, developing an elaborate marketing strategy for those voters may not be cost-effective.
possible with precinct-level data. Software vendors may move towards adapting data standards that allow for easier importing/exporting/ and matching of data from different sources, and new products and services are being developed and enhanced continually. Understanding and using voter le data effectively will become even more essential over the next election cycles, as organizations and candidates compete to understand the connections and motivations of their constituents more accurately. Successful CRM could allow candidates and advocacy groups to build relationships with their constituents during and after elections, moving seamlessly between voter outreach and constituent communications through multiple phases of the campaign cycle.
Targeting too narrowly may reduce the impact of your communication strategy; nding the 200 most supportive voters wont be helpful if you need to persuade 5,000 to win your election.
What are the next steps in incorporating voter le data into CRM solutions? While incorporating voter le data into CRM solutions brings many challenges, the potential benets to campaigns and advocacy groups of being able to understand which voters are also contributors and volunteers will result in increasing efciencies for campaigns. Turnout and support modeling will become available at lower cost to campaigns and advocacy groups at state and local levels earlier in the campaign cycle. Several initiatives are underway to support simpler web-based interfaces that would allow campaigns and groups without in-house technical skill to use voter le data quickly and easily. Advances in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) mapping allow for more sophisticated analysis of a candidates geographic support distribution than is
Successful CRM could allow candidates and advocacy groups to build relationships with their constituents during and after elections, moving seamlessly between voter outreach and constituent communications through multiple phases of the campaign cycle.
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CHAPTER 15
An Introduction to Integrating Constituent Data: Three Basic Approaches

LAURA S. QUINN34
IDEALWARE
Idealware provides candid Consumer-Reports-style reviews and articles about software of interest to nonprots. Through product comparisons, recommendations, case studies, and software news, Idealware allows nonprots to make the software decisions that will help them be more effective. For more information, visit www.idealware.org.
It can sound complicated, but its a simple concept: integrating your constituent data means connecting the information from the various systems you use in order to communicate with and track your constituents, so that your organization can see a unied view. For instance, you might integrate an email blasting software package with your donor database. Linking these systems will allow you to email all your donors (all those with email addresses, at least) from your email blasting tool, and perhaps to view the emails sent and the donors responses from within your donor database. Linking up your constituent data provides some big advantages. For one, it allows you to get a complete view of your constituents. If Joan the development director is keeping her own email list in Constant Contact, and Frank the volunteer coordinator is keeping his volunteer list in an online volunteer management application, neither can take advantage of the potential opportunities in each others lists, and you can never get an overall picture of the ways each constituent is involved with your organization.
Integration is also critical in keeping your data clean, updated, and useful. If someone updates a phone number in one system, integration allows that new number to be updated in your other systems. When information has to be updated in real time for instance, when a website visitor should see different information because theyve just signed up as a memberintegration is the only way to do it. But is this kind of integration possible in the nonprot world? Well, sometimes. The options for data integration arent as fully developed as one might like. If youre hoping to integrate the software you already have, you may be limited by the features that are available in those packages. That being said, there are a number of methods worth considering. In this article, well walk through the three basic approaches to combining the data from different sources: Manual Import/Export, Integrated Tools, and Automated Connectors. Each of these methods has its own strengths, weaknesses, and considerations. While the perfect solution may not exist, we can at least help you understand your options. Integrating by Manual Import/Export Joans organization is using an event registration system to allow people to sign up for their conference online. They want to be able to see whos registered in their donor database, however, so they can get a holistic view of not only whos registered, but whos donated, who theyve contacted, and more On a weekly basis, Joan goes through a checklist of tasks in order to manually integrate this data. First, she goes to the registration software and, using that tools reporting features, exports a list of all the people who have registered in the past week. She then opens the exported le in Excel and changes the order of the columns so that the Excel le is in a format that her donor database will understand. Lastly, she goes to her donor database, and uses its upload utility to upload the list of registrants from the Excel le. The donor database uses some combination of elds perhaps rst name, last name
When information has to be updated in real time for instance, when a website visitor should see different information because he or she just signed up as a member integration is the only way to do it.
34 Robert Weiner of Robert L Weiner Consulting (www.rlweiner.com/), Tate Hausman of Dot Organize (dotorganize.net), Beth Kanter of Beths Blog (beth.typepad.com/), and Paul Hagan also contributed to this chapter.
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and zip code to identify which registrant should be linked up with which donor. The Details Well call this kind of integration Integrating by Manual Import/Export. In summary, a member of your staff manually exports data from one system and imports it into another on a periodic basis. The time and effort required for this kind of manual integration varies greatly depending on how many data sources you are trying to integrate and how much work is required to get the export le ready for import. In the above scenario, for instance, Joan had to change the order of the columns in order to get the export le into the format required by the donor database. Another system might not require her to do this, or it might require her to do more work for instance, changing the column labels as well. The scenario above might require about a half-an-hour per week for someone who was familiar with the process. This option has a number of advantages: Lowest initial investment. Manually integrating data doesnt require an initial investment in programming time or software tools. Instead, the investment is shifted to staff time to plan the integration process and then to perform the manual updates over time. This can make it an affordable way to get started, or to try out various options. Allows the widest choice of software tools. Most software packages support at least a basic import and export, so youll have the widest variety of software options from which to choose. Allows you to target software tools to your specic needs. Integrating several different tools, rather than using a single integrated software package as described below, allows you to optimize functionality and price. If you need very robust donor management functionality but just basic email blasting capability, you can chose two different tools that meet your precise needs. Flexibility in changing software packages down the road. Because theres minimal upfront cost, your data integration strategy doesnt tie you to any particular piece of software. If you need to swap out your event registration tool for another one, for instance, the additional investment for integrating the new tool is likely to be one of hours rather than days. But the method also has notable drawbacks:
Requires greatest amount of ongoing staff time. While the other methods allow you to set up the integration process up-front and then let it run mostly untended, manual integration requires a continuing chunk of time from a staff member. Opens the door to human error and data issues. This option depends on a staff member consistently running through a potentially complicated series of steps. Over time, human nature means that mistakes are bound to occur, which can create incorrect data, duplicates, or missing information. Requires careful integration plan and process. Like with the Automated Connector option below, manual integration will require careful initial planning. Youll need to dene what elds you will use to link the data (i.e. can you match constituents based on email address? Name and zip code?). Its also important to dene which system will be the primary owner of each piece of data for instance, in Joans scenario, the event registration system was the owner of the event registration list and the most up-to-date registrants, but the donor database was the owner of the full constituent list for the organization. Think carefully through the process what happens when constituents are added? Removed? When information changes? Time lag in information sharing. The data in one system will slowly go out-ofsynch with the other in the time period between manual updates. For instance, in our example above, the donor database is only updated with new registrants once a week, while the event registration tool shows new registrants immediately after they register. This type of delay can become problematic in specic circumstances for instance, if you want to allow constituents to login to multiple systems with the same password, or to show them data from one system based on information from another. Relies on a single staff member. One staff member typically does all the manual integration, which can lead to problems if that staff member goes on vacation or leaves the organization. If that person becomes overworked or frustrated, the integration process can stop altogether. Careful documentation and training multiple people to do the manual process can help.
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Integrating many data sources can become prohibitively complicated. Trying to manually integrate several different databases requires juggling many data formats and a multitude of les. While carefully documenting the exact sequence of steps and tasks can help, the limitations of human concentration mean that manual integration cant scale to the same level as the other options. In general, this is a good option if youre looking to inexpensively integrate just a few data sources, without a big initial investment. Its also a practical way to get started in understanding what tools you need and what data needs to be integrated. Dont underestimate the staff time required, however, particularly as the number of data sources increase. And dont discount the danger of accidentally introducing problems into your data through inevitable human error. What does a software package need to provide to support manual integration? Make sure that the tool allows you to export and import the actual elds you are trying to synch up. Flexibility in the column order and the le names used for the import/ export les is also very useful. If you are trying to integrate a package that will only export in one specic format with one that will only import in a different specic format, you will have to transform the data le each time you want to synch the data. In addition, the ideal system will automatically check for duplicate records after each import, enforce your data entry rules (e.g., states must be upper-case), and allow you to review changes before they are posted. Using Integrated Packages Georges organization needs to be able to accept both online and ofine donations, mail direct appeals, send emails, register people for events, and track and manage their list of constituents. Theyve chosen one software package that supports all of those functions. This means that George uses a single online administration tool to see and manage all the information about each of the constituents with which theyve interacted. The Details The challenge of sharing data between multiple applications has led to a whole new category of software: integrated packages. These applications provide many different functions that all use the same central database. Your information is completely synched up and interconnected because youre only using one application as opposed to many different ones which may not quite talk to each other. If youre looking to do a wholesale integration ef-
fort, its certainly worth considering moving all your data into a single integrated package. This has a number of substantial advantages: No special integration effort or issues. The most obvious advantage is that, essentially, data integration is taken care of for you. Because all information for these various functions is stored in one central database, no staff time or planning is needed to synch across multiple tools. Much lower danger of data inconsistencies. The central database, and the fact that no data is actually being moved, makes the likelihood of data problems much lower with this option than with others. Common functionality can be plugged in. The larger integrated packages provide functionality for most common needseither out-of-the-box, or at an additional charge. This allows you to conveniently add on functionality down the road, without the need to search for another software package. A single contact for support. If you have a question or problem, its easy to gure out who to call. Youre only working with one vendor. Data is updated in real time. As all the data is in the same database, there is never a time when any information is out of synch. This is important if you want to allow constituents to be able to login to multiple systems with the same password, or to show them information from one system based on information from another (so for instance, if you want to allow them access to a member section of your website immediately upon registering as a member).
But an integrated package is not the solution for every organization. There can be some distinct drawbacks, depending on your situation and needs: Requires you to migrate all existing data. For those who are established with constituent communications or tracking applications already, theres a huge downside to integrated applications: you need to abandon your existing software and move all of your data into the integrated tool. Make sure everyone on the team is ready to give up your current software and to learn to use a new tool. On the other hand, if youre operating from Excel spreadsheets and slips of paper, the move to a new system may provide the impetus and rallying cry needed to centralize all your data into a usable form. Jack of all trades, master of none. Most integrated software packages are built around a core functionality for instance, event management or email blasts. While they have built on many
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additional functions, these features are often not nearly as strong as the core ones. If you need features in three divergent areas, youre likely to get more robust functionality in three separate tools rather than one integrated package. High dependency on a single vendor. When youre relying on a single vendor for a lot of critical functions, its a big mess if that vendor goes out of business or moves in a direction unfavorable to your needs. Difculty in extending functionality. It may not be easy to t in functionality that the integrated package hasnt planned for. While some packages offer partnerships with other specialist tools, moving beyond the functionality provided by the out-of-the-box application may require either costly customization, or connecting your integrated application with additional software tools though either a Manual Import/Export or Automated Connectors integration method. Sizable ongoing cost. While technically-savvy organizations may be able to make use of free open source solutions in this area, most organizations will need to rent a hosted application for a monthly fee. Fees vary widely depending on the features available, but can range from about $50 to thousands of dollars per month.
integration was very important to them, but the manual import/export process was not working as well as it could. It took too much of Joans time each week, and they really wanted to be able to use their donor database to see a list of event registrants that was always up-to-date. Joan hired a programmer to create an automated connection between the two systems. Now, whenever someone registers for an event, an automatic process is kicked off. The registrants information is sent to the donor database, and the records in the donor database are reected to show the registration in real time. The Details In many ways, integrating through automated connectors is similar to Manual Import/Export. Data is pulled from one application and added in to another. Instead of doing this process by hand, however, an automated connector allows the data to ow from one system from another without human intervention. How do you make this automated magic happen? Some high-end software packages provide outof-the-box automated connectors which allow them to easily talk to particular other software packages. And for some tools, particularly open source ones, you can nd community-built modules that can be used to create automated connectors with minimal setup. But most of the time, creating a connector will require a development process careful design, programming, and testing to create a program that synchs up the data between the two systems. Not every software package can be integrated by automated connector, however. In order to create a connector, you need to be able to access the softwares data via code. This means that the software vendor needs to provide an application programming interface (API) a way to request or provide data via code or otherwise expose the data. Some software packages provide this type of access to the database, but many do not. Others charge to be able to use an API. Some provide access, but in ways that makes it complicated to integrate. What your software tool allows is a key consideration in thinking through whether this method is right for you. This is a powerful integration method, with a number of sizable advantages: Can use targeted, best-of-breed tools. As discussed above, tools that concentrate on doing a single thing well are often more powerful than integrated packages. Selecting the very best existing tools for your needs and then integrating them yourself is likely to provide the most robust support for sophisticated needs. More options for integration and aggregation. If
If your needs fall into common scenarios (for instance, youre strongly focused on advocacy, online outreach, or serving a base of members) and you dont have strong established systems already, an integrated tool can be a great way to go. If youre thinking through options for a new organization, or youd like to pull together a number of diverse datasets, an integrated tool is well worth considering. But make sure you consider the drawbacks: youll be dependant on the success of a single vendor, and youll likely have less exibility to meet unusual needs. When looking at integrated packages, its critical to consider the range of needs that they cover. Because the key benet is the all-in-one nature, try to nd a package that meets not only your current needs, but also likely future needs. In addition, ask careful questions about the user base and long term viability of the vendor.35 If youre going to put all your eggs in one basket, make sure that its a sturdy basket. Integrating through Automated Connectors Lets go back to Joans organization, which wanted to synch up its event registration information with its donor database. Over time, they found that this 35 See the article Vendors as Allies: How to Evaluate Viability, Service, and Commitment at http:// www.idealware.org/articles/vendors_as_allies. php.
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youre building your own connectors, you have precise control over what the integration process does. This also allows exibility for more sophisticated data aggregation strategies for instance, if you are integrating many systems, it might make sense to feed the data into a single, central data warehouse application rather than connect every system to every other system. Minimal ongoing investment. While there are substantial up-front costs, this is the option that has the lowest ongoing cost. Theres unlikely to be any ongoing fees associated specically with data integration, and staff time is required only to oversee the process, maintain the connectors, and make any updates based on application upgrades, rather than investing substantial time in manually updating data. Data can be updated in real time. Depending on the type of data access the vendor provides and the type of connector you build, its possible to create connectors that synchronize information in multiple systems in real time. As discussed above, this is useful in allowing users to login to multiple systems with the same password, or to show them information from one system based on information from another. Flexibility in swapping out software packages down the road. This option provides middleof-the-road exibility for swapping out software more so than using an Integrated Package but less than with the Manual Import/Export. If you need to move to a new event registration tool, for instance, youre able to do so, but youll need to invest in building a new connector.
tecture (i.e. exactly how do the systems talk to each other?), design the business rules (which system has the denitive record? what happens with duplicates?), build the connector, and then thoroughly test it. Dangerous if done poorly. Its critical to invest in carefully planning and testing automated connectors. A poorly executed connector can be much more damaging than a poorly thought out manual import/export process, as there are likely to be fewer controls to stop you from doing things that will break your data, and it could touch thousands of records before anyone spots the problem. Maintenance. As with anything you build yourself, youll need someone on call to monitor your data, make sure your connectors are working properly, update the connectors to any application upgrades, and troubleshoot issues. Ties you to particular packages. If you invest in building a connector to a specic package, its harder to replace that package to meet new needs or if the vendor goes out of business.
If a connector has already been created to integrate the packages youre looking at, then all of these advantages come with very little downside. For instance, many high-end donor databases have partnered with online donation or event management tools to seamlessly integrate the two software tools via automated connector. Other tools, like Salesforce. com or open source applications allow community members to create and share the code to integrate additional software packages. Its highly desirable to have such pre-existing connections, and worth looking for as you select software. If no pre-existing connector exists, however, youll have to build this interface yourself. While certainly possible (assuming, of course, that you can access the softwares data via code), this is not a task to be undertaken lightly, and involves some substantial drawbacks: High setup time or cost. Youll need to either code the automated connector in house, or hire someone to do soa signicant investment. Youll need to carefully plan the technical archi-
An automated connector between best-of-breed applications is for most organizations the most desirable integration method but building it yourself requires a considerable investment. When looking for software, factor in existing connectors to other useful software packages as a huge benet. If a solid automated connector already exists, you get all the benets of this powerful integration method with little of the downside. If no connector exists, however, does it make sense to build your own? This is a good option for tech savvy organizations who are ready invest in data integration, especially those who nd that their needs are not well met by the existing integrated packages, or are committed to the tools they are already using. If youre looking at software packages with an eye towards one that can be integrated via automated connector, its critical to determine whether the package offers a method to access the data via code. Ask your technical expert to evaluate the technical specication to make sure its compatible with the packages with which youd like to integrate it. If real time integration is important to you, conrm that you have the necessary system access to make that possible. Which One is Right for You? Which option is the right choice for you? As always, it depends. There are valid reasons to go with any of the three of these. Youll need to carefully evaluate your own needs and concerns, but the following decision tree can help you navigate some of the most common reasons for choosing one option over another.
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Whichever option you choose, dont underestimate the planning element in all of this. Before you purchase any software, make sure you have a data strategy for the new systemhow will the data relate to your existing data? How will it be maintained? Remember that no system or option can keep your data clean and useful by itself. Someone or multiple people in your organization will have to take ownership of the data, set data entry standards, and keep watch to make sure that information ows usefully across the organization. Data integration isnt a trivial undertaking, but its well worth the effort. Just imagine it: the assurance that the data in any system is the most accurate and up-to-date information you have. The ability to target communications based on a full picture of each persons involvement. And best of all increasing
your ability to truly understand and connect with your constituents.
For more information

GETTING IT ALL IN ONE PLACE: DATA INTEGRATION STRATEGIES
http://www.beaconre.com/news/features/ nten_presentation_data_integration.php
THE INTEGRATION PROCLAMATION
www.IntegrationProclamation.com
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CHAPTER 16
Drive Advocacy and Action with CRM

JON THORSEN
KINTERA INC.
Constituent relationship management is a necessary catalyst for nonprots to best utilize their greatest asset: information.
CRM has become a vital tool for many nonprot organizations. CRM systems offer the collection and analysis of information critical to an organizations survival and allow the outcomes to be shared and utilized across departments, chapters and even the entire organization. CRM systems provide the technology necessary for improved business processes, improved donor relationships and improved fundraising results from beginning to end. Moreover, nonprot organizations want and need the free ow of information that is essential to implement best practices and get internal players working from the same set of data. Another major shift in the technology industry has made CRM an application for all. Software as a service (SaaS) is the delivery of software via the Internet. Early in this publication, Daniel Burton discussed SaaS in political campaigns. This chapter looks at SaaS for nonprot organizations and advocacy groups. Prior to SaaS, organizations had to implement traditional client-server applications. These applications were installed and housed on the organizations own technology equipment. Organizations were forced to purchase additional equipment needed to install client-server database applications and, overtime, they found themselves incurring additional costs associated with hardware and software upgrades. For nonprot organizations with tight budgets and limited cash ow, sudden and unpredictable costs are a serious burden. As it has in the corporate market, SaaS has also proven extremely valuable to nonprot organizations. In the SaaS delivery model, CRM providers accept the responsibility of software maintenance and house data in offsite, secure data centers. Nonprot organizations do not have to incur the costs of equipment, pay for minor updates or implement increasingly rigorous security measures. Because it is delivered via the Internet, SaaS enables nonprot organizations to view customer data from anywhere that has Internet access. This feature is extremely important for many political campaign workers that frequently work remotely. Dening CRM for the Nonprot Sector CRM systems, when implemented adroitly, become the central nervous system of an effective organization and introduce a set of processes and pro-
Customer relationship management has been around in the corporate sector for years. It began primarily as a sales application to help salespeople guide prospects through the sales cycle. Early CRM applications allowed users to schedule calls, send emails, and register contracts and orders with the intention of developing and fostering the relationships through the close of the sale. It proved to be a great management tool, even providing the ability to report a sales pipeline and create revenue forecasts. Later versions added functionality that enabled mass emails to be personalized, and segmented the database into various groups. Functionality like this was cutting-edge, and organizations that used these CRM applications reported an initial increase in sales and greater ROI.
Kintera provides a software as a service technology platform to manage email and communications, Websites, events, advocacy programs, wealth screening and accounting. For more information, visit www.kintera.com.
Todays environment is far different than it was in the early days of CRM and applications are far different, too especially in the nonprot space. The nonprot sector is approaching a crossroads. Organizations are striving to improve and evolve, but dont necessarily understand the processes or change management needed to continue growth and streamline efciencies. Constituent relationship management is a necessary catalyst for nonprots to best utilize their greatest asset: information.
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cedures for collecting detailed information on each individual constituent. Contact information can include data captured automatically via the Internet or entered manually by staff. The most common type of data includes demographic, behavioral, historical or event-driven data. The result is a truly holistic picture of the relationship between the organization and the supporter.
ents, it is only a snapshot of constituent behavior. CRM provides political organizations and fellow nonprots with new views of the relationship between the organization and its constituents that is most easily achieved in a SaaS model. It helps nonprots unite the online and ofine experiences of constituents into a single view. Social CRM provides nonprots with critical data needed to build relationships with donors, members, prospects, participants and volunteers all in a single, interactive system.
CRM systems, when implemented adroitly, become the central nervous system of an effective organization and introduce a set of processes and procedures for collecting detailed information on each individual constituent.
Constituent relationship management systems help organizations leverage collected information and manage relationships with contacts in an organized fashion. To include details provided in face-toface conversations, many CRM systems enable staff members to add information to constituent records. Organizations are then better equipped to determine how to engage existing contacts and acquire new ones. Constituent relationship management systems are also frequently used to help organizations manage relationships with donors. Information pertaining to donor demographics, custom information data sets, and promotion/transaction histories are maintained in the CRM application. In addition, all donor activities and participant history can be viewed. Complex processes automate the management of individuals within units (families and sponsors) and track interactions and relationships within and between units. Donor management systems also help organizations set up, plan, and execute nancial development efforts, institute accountability measures for staff and keep track of all donor-related historical activities. The Concept of CRM Constituent relationship management is a technology tool that records signicant interactions with constituents. (For the majority of organizations, CRM data is limited to sales and service information.) Information on a constituents last donation amount or campaign contribution is an example of the type of information political organizations and nonprots store in CRM applications. Although this information helps organizations better understand its constitu-
CRM helps non-prot organizations

Manage constituents Communicate with constituents Increase the number of constituents Maintain constituents Encourage behavior Develop an individual relationship with each constituent
Some organizations may need to use all CRM features and some may only require the use a few. It all depends on an organizations mission and goals. 1. Building a Unied Database Organizations sometimes rely on multiple databases to track interactions with constituents. There may be an address book or database in the email client that contains basic contact information. There may also be a database at the website that tracks trafc and the interests of web visitors or a database that tracks donations and each donors contact information. Other databases may track program-related information. This separation of data inevitably leads to data integrity issues, greater inefciencies, higher costs, and limited information. But above all, this separation of data means lost opportunities. CRM offers a unied platform for managing all the database functions mentioned above. Organizations using CRM can store a common set of biographical, behavioral and historical information including online and ofine interactions (email, direct mail, phone messages, donations, registrations, and web interests). In addition, robust CRM systems should utilize industry standard formats to help ease the database migration process. The result is a sole contact/donor management system that meets the organizations entire database needs and provides a comprehensive view of the relationship between a
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constituent and the organization. Changing database systems is a painful process for many nonprot organizations. But as they continue to understand that disparate systems and information silos hinder growth and recognize the organizational benet of shared knowledge demand for CRM will continue to grow. 2. Managing Websites A CRM system seamlessly integrates with a CMS (content management system), allowing for a backand-forth ow of information between the organizations website and database. Nonprot and advocacy websites typically have interactive components that enable constituents to interact with one another and the organization according to shared interests. This fosters a sense of community among supporters and allows them to work together toward a shared goal. It also makes it easier to marshal action for particular purposes and causes. By sharing content, goals and a common set of data on a CRM system, volunteers, supporters, activists and nonprot employees can dramatically enhance communications and community spirit. Interactive features, such as bulletin boards and calendars, drive the group to efciently achieve advocacy and fundraising objectives while creating an extraordinary sense of accomplishment and commitment. This type of website activity is then tracked and leveraged in exciting new ways. Consider social networking and outreach tools. These outlets allow members to recruit friends, family members or colleagues by sharing the cause with their contacts. Organizations can help constituents become advocates by providing tools like email and Website communications. Supporters are provided easy-to-use tools to build a personalized website. The supporter soon invites friends to become members of his or her community. These friends then register to receive additional information about the nonprot. All actions taken by the advocate, their friends and their friends friends are tracked in the nonprots database. This information can then be used to send specic e-newsletters based on each constituents individual interests. CRM enables nonprots to gather and use this granular information, which is vital to developing and maintaining relationships with constituents. 3. CRM Applications for Specialized Needs A CRM system should include a set of features tailored for the multiple and varied ways in which supporters interact with the organization: 1. Prospect management enables nonprot organizations to manage prospects through a solicitation and/or stewardship cycle. With
2.
3.
prospect management, nonprots can create custom stages to suit each organizations specic fundraising cycle and custom form elds so staff can input information on opportunities at each stage. Volunteer management features help increase volunteer involvement and streamline volunteer-related management, communications, and registration processes. This also helps nonprots recruit new volunteers throughout the year, and enhance image and goodwill in the community. Member management features allow membership-based organizations to efciently increase their membership base and donations through membership dues. Additionally, members are able to securely view and modify their membership prole and history. This feature helps decrease the need for manual entry, thereby saving time and decreasing the chance of error.
4. Segmentation Segmentation is the ability to slice and dice the database based on specied characteristics. It is commonly used to identify constituents within a specic geographic area or constituents of a certain age group. Although these types of demographics are necessary, todays environment requires organizations to know constituents in a more personalized way. Organizations need to show constituents that they know who they are and what they like.
Segmentation is the ability to slice and dice the database based on specied characteristics. It is commonly used to identify constituents within a specic geographic area or constituents of a certain age group. Many CRM tools enable nonprots to segment the database based on individual preferences and likes or dislikes. This level of segmentation enables a nonprot organization to communicate with constituents about things that are of interest to them. Lets say Jane Doe is running for the House seat in her district. She has a list of supporters in her CRM application, and has gathered information such as phone number, address, past volunteer activities, and so on. But Ms. Doe has gone a little deeper and knows which issues are the hot buttons for each constituent in her database. She knows exactly who shares her views on healthcare reform and who shares her view on land use. Since Ms. Does campaign assistant knows that half of her healthcare supporters dont really care about land use policies, she isnt going to waste their time by sending information
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about something that wont engage them. Instead, she is going to communicate about the work she is doing on healthcare reform. By communicating with constituents on issues that are of the most concern to them, Ms. Doe has been able to develop greater loyalty among her healthcare supporters. Furthermore, Ms. Doe has been able to demonstrate with these supporters that she listens to their concerns and has taken action on their behalf. She has successfully created a deeper, stronger bond with her healthcare supporters. After two months of heavy campaigning, Ms. Does assistant reviewed data from the campaigns Website. The assistant found that almost half of Ms. Does healthcare supporters had also clicked and viewed pages on land use issues. These supporters began to receive targeted information on Ms. Does land use policies. Over time, Ms. Doe grew her list of land use supporters by 25 percent based solely on her previous healthcare-only supporters. Ms. Does campaign had successfully used its social CRM system to convert prospective votes to denite votes. This example demonstrates the effective use of CRM data and the power of such data to the organization and fundraiser. 5. Reporting and Analytics Reporting and analytics are the back-end functions that demonstrate success and identify areas for improvement. They provide both a granular view of constituent behavior as well as a landscape view. A CRM system also includes reporting and analytical capabilities to measure and assess the success of constituent-based initiatives. Reporting tools provide organizations with email open rates, clickthrough rates and length of time spent visiting a web page. It is important to track this information to determine which specic messages led the constituent to open the email, which initiative inspired the donor to click through to an article or web page, which web pages the constituent spent the most time reading and what they forwarded to their friends. Remember, the full picture of a supporters involvement with an organization does not end at a source code or clickthrough. Therefore, reporting that demonstrates constituent behavior after they click through is critical. Specically, reporting and analytics should offer information that will allow nonprot organizations to identify who supporters interact with, what relationships they have with other supporters, how many supporters they have recruited on behalf of the organization and what messaging or appeals inspire them to act. The inclusive reporting found in CRM systems gives nonprots valuable data to increase the success of grassroots mobilization and fundraising efforts.
The full picture of a supporters involvement with an organization does not end at a source code or click-through.
A CRM system should also provide quick macro views of advocacy campaigns and fundraising efforts. Knowing what works and what doesnt work with each audience will allow organizations to rene and improve campaign results. CRM stores all supporter information an organization may need in one place. Benets of CRM Constituent relationship management has a variety of uses. Over the years it has evolved to become a tool to manage donors, members, volunteers, prospects, supporters and advocates. But how does CRM and its sophisticated sibling, CRM, alter the way political organizations conduct fundraising campaigns and promote advocacy? 1. Unites front-end applications with back-end data applications. A social CRM system is designed to limit the amount of manual data entry. By gathering constituent information from a variety of sources and storing it all in a single database, nonprot organizations are able to save time and money. Accruing more information directly from the supporter also leads to more thorough and accurate information. Provides a full view of constituent interactions. Because CRM gathers information from different sources and places it in a single location, nonprot organizations are able to get the broad view of constituent interactions as well as the granular view. With social CRM, nonprots are able to determine whether a particular constituent signed up on the Web, was a friend of a volunteer and donated to a particular issue, has a particular interest, or any other combination of information. Enable personalized communication. CRM applications have long had the ability to add the rst name of the recipient to an email blast. CRM takes personalized communication to a new level. By having data gathered from multiple sources and stored in a single location, social CRM gives nonprot organizations a better view of constituents that ultimately leads to better, more relevant communication pieces. This is the next level
2.
3.
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What should I look for in a CRM solution?

1. Does it have the functionality you want and need? Will the solution allow you to do the types of things you expect? Sometimes it can be hard to determine what functionality you want, and whether a particular product delivers it, especially when you are looking at CRM for the rst time. A good tip is to go back and look at old events and campaigns to determine areas where technology may have been helpful. 2. Does the CRM solution include applications tailored for your specic vertical or industry? For example, if youre an advocacy organization, make sure the solution allows supporters to drive ofine networking and organizing, such as tabling on college campuses, house parties, meetups or even virtual parties on a supporters personal activism page. This type of interactivity allows organizations to grow their network both online and ofine. Nonprots can leverage the power of highly involved supporters without having to incur high administrative costs. 3. Is the system scalable? Will it be able to grow as your organization grows? Its important to identify whether the vendor offers a comprehensive solution or whether the vendor is limited to just a few individual applications. 4. Is the application accessible via the Internet? This characteristic is especially important for political campaign staffers who frequently travel. Web-based applications, like CRM, provide staff with vital information no matter where they are. 5. How customizable is the solution? Can workow be recongured to match, or help direct, your organizations processes? Will you be able to easily add and delete elds as your organizations goals and objectives change? 6. What security practices does the vendor have in place? How can they ensure your data is secure? Make sure your SaaS vendor offers multiple data centers in commercial co-location facilities with state of the art monitoring, full data encryption and advanced virus protection. (This type of secure high-performance infrastructure would cost a nonprot a fortune to replicate either in-house or off-site in a shared hosting facility.) Also, is the vendor SAS 70 Type II and PCI compliant?
4.
of personalization. Personalization within a CRM system means that constituent communication is constituent-focused. It is information that the constituent has shown is important to him/her. Reporting and analytics. Taken as is, reporting and analytics are just another function of CRM. Taken in a CRM system, reporting and analytics are the methods constituents use to communicate with an organization. When constituents visit certain areas of a website or read one article but not another, they are providing vital information to the organization. What constituents dont do is just as important as what they do. Because CRM enables nonprots to gather information from multiple sources and store it in one location, nonprots get a more comprehensive understanding of their constituents.
Fundraising A key goal of virtually all nonprot organizations is to raise money to further their missions, making
fundraising a vital component in any nonprot organization. Many organizations rely on donations and gifts to survive, but a delicate balance must be kept when spending money to make money. Therefore, nonprots use a variety of tactics from events to enewsletters to help increase donated dollars. CRM plays a signicant role in effective fundraising efforts. One of the most useful features in a CRM system is the ability to analyze and evaluate online behavior. Information about constituents based on their online behavior holds clues to help fundraisers determine the most appropriate method to approach a particular constituent. With this information, fundraisers can engage constituents based on their interests. For example, if a constituent visited the site of a candidate and they focused primarily on the pages that discussed the candidates stance on tax cuts and privacy laws, then fundraisers now know that these two issues are of high importance to this constituent. Subsequent communications will focus on the candidates speeches, proposals, and actions related to these two topics. Chances are, this potential supporter will be more open to these messages and have
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a positive feeling associated with the candidate and hopefully show it with a vote or donation.
Advocacy For many political organizations, advocacy is the key to inducing social change, and CRM is the foundation that bolsters successful advocacy campaigns. The ability to segment databases based on constituents interests is quite useful for political advocacy groups. Organizations are able to harness the deep emotions of a select group of constituents to increase the effectiveness of advocacy. It can be argued that there is no harm is mass mailing the entire database. Perhaps someone not interested in the topic knows someone who is. However, as discussed, constituents become more invested in those organizations that connect with them as individuals and not one of the masses. A mass solicitation may actually undermine an organizations effort. Even with the best intentions, some recipients, no matter how considerate they are, will feel that their time is being wasted by something they dont care about. Instead, organizations can conduct multiple, targeted advocacy campaigns simultaneously, resulting in much higher afnity among supporters. CRM actually enables political advocacy organizations to advocate more. Organizations can divide their CRM records by areas of interest and conduct advocacy efforts that are directly related to those groups. Once the initial solicitation is set and the website updated, organizations are free to give more time to other efforts or activities that support the current initiatives. These other efforts may include more time on The Hill lobbying for a bill or reform. Additionally, organizations can use tools like Friends Asking Friends or forward to a friend, and use the power of viral marketing to increase advocacy results. As odd as it may sound, organizations may be able to increase advocacy by sending more specic invitations to fewer constituents. Conclusion Technology has advanced from the stand-alone personal computer to the Internet age, and so too have CRM applications. Once a luxury for nonprots and businesses, CRM applications are now critical. Todays CRM applications have advanced to include a plethora of functionality and many organizations have been able to successfully use CRM applications designed specically to manage advocates, donors, prospects, volunteers and event participants. Like many mature products, CRM is no longer a luxury only large organizations can afford, but a cost-effective application that even the smallest campaign can utilize. Since CRM has become an affordable necessity,
Do you want to engage your constituents? Then watch what they do online. Information about constituents based on their online behavior holds clues to help fundraisers determine the most appropriate method to approach a particular constituent. CRM helps nonprot organizations increase fundraising success in a number of ways. In addition to data provided by Web analytics, fundraisers can also gather data from e-newsletters, online forms, events, and other e-communications. Information gathered from these sources feeds directly into the CRM application where all constituent data is stored. A fundraiser can go to the CRM database and determine how much money each constituent has donated each year and to which campaigns. Fundraisers are able to determine which constituents are most likely to give based on past giving and identied interests. Some CRM providers even include automatic wealth scoring and segmentation to help fundraisers determine appropriate ask amounts and increase fundraising results. Similarly, because CRM allows a holistic view of the constituent relationship, organizations can tailor their stewardship efforts based on numerous factors. Rather than focusing solely on the number and amount of an individuals donations, the organization can assess factors such as advocacy actions taken, volunteer efforts completed, events attended and members recruited to recognize key supporters. There is no arguing the truth: people are more likely to give to those organizations with which they feel a sense of belonging and trust. CRM enables an organization to provide quick, accurate and thorough reports of supporter contributions. In todays landscape, these reports are an excellent tool to increase donor condence and demonstrate in an open and responsible manner the proper management of donations. This gives nonprot organizations, whether a political advocacy group or a campaign for election, the tools necessary to develop relationships with constituents that will increase fundraising success.
There is no arguing the truth: people are more likely to give to those organizations with which they feel a sense of belonging and trust.
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political organizations must jump on the CRM bandwagon. Businesses have been using CRM to build and maintain customer relationships for years. The advanced tools available in todays SaaS CRM solutions have enabled nonprot organizations to create twoway communications between the organization and its constituents. This methodology is vital for political organizations that seek to encourage constituents to act, vote, advocate or volunteer. CRM provides the means to capture the totality of the constituent relationship, and to communicate the importance of the relationship to the constituent.
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CHAPTER 17
Finding the Political Inuentials in Your Database (Tip: Theyre hiding in plain sight)
CAROL DARR
people who visit online news sites, and at the people who read and post comments to political blogs. And pay particular attention to the people who have already demonstrated an interest in your candidate or cause through their donations, attendance at your events, or by signing up for your newsletter. They are your Inuentials, your peeps.
As you assemble a database from your various lists, the thought no doubt occurs to you: The names of some of these activists are more valuable than others. Youre right, of course. Some activists are more, well, active than others. Not all people are equally important to a political organization or an issue advocacy group. So heres the question: How do you identify the people on your list likely to be the most active the individuals who will donate, volunteer, promote your cause or candidate, and get out and vote on Election Day? And heres the deceptively simple answer: nd the Inuentials, especially the subset of them who are politically active online. The purpose of this chapter is to explain who these Online Political Inuentials are, why they are so important, how to target them, and how to mobilize them. To cut to the chase, heres a summary: Inuentials are the people who are active, civically and politically, in their local communities. Ten percent of the general adult population falls into this category. However, because Inuentials are news junkies and political junkies, they tend to congregate online. In fact 69 percent of online political activists are Inuentials, according to a study conducted by IPDI in 2004. In other words, the Internet skims off the cream of the ten percent of the general population who are Inuentials, and particularly the ones who are politically active, and concentrates them online. This means what when you are looking for activists who will advance your cause or candidate, look online at the people who are coming to your website, at the
69 percent of online political activists are Inuentials, according to a study conducted by IPDI in 2004. For more information, check out Online Political Citizens in the 2004 Campaign, available for download at http://www.ipdi.org/ UploadedFiles/inuentials_ in_2004.pdf.
Inuentials? Who Are these People? In 2003, GWs Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet conducted a groundbreaking study that demonstrated that people who actively participated in presidential politics over the Internet were seven times more likely to belong to an elite cohort of local opinion leaders called Inuentials than the general adult population. Inuentials are the one in ten Americans who tell the other nine what to buy, who to vote for and where to eat, according to the book, The Inuentials,36 by Ed Keller and Jon Berry, the then-CEO and VP for Research, respectively, of RoperASW. According to them, Inuentials exert a multiplier effect on the public at large, are canaries in the mineshaft for looming political ideas, and tend to be three to ve years ahead of social and political trends. IPDIs study, Political Inuentials Online in the 2004 Presidential Campaign,37 challenged the stereotype of online activists as the sad, the mad and the lonely and showed that the opposite is true: Online political activists are more likely to be active in local civic and political affairs than their neighbors. Moreover, they are more likely to donate, more likely to volunteer and more likely to engage in word of mouth advocacy of causes and candidates they favor. 36 Ed Keller and Jon Berry, The Inuentials (New York: The Free Press, 2003), book jacket. 37 Joe Graf and Carol Darr, Political Inuentials Online in the 2004 Presidential Campaign (Washington, DC: The Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet, 2004).
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How to recognize them Inuential Americans serve as opinion leaders in virtually all aspects of their lives, but their involvement in civic and political affairs is the common denominator. RoperASW has devised a set of eleven questions, participation in three of which qualies a person as an inuential. These questions can be found in the book The Inuentials, and in IPDIs study, Political Inuentials Online in the 2004 Presidential Campaign, at page 16. In short, Inuentials are hard-working, energetic individuals who balance families with careers, read newspapers online, join community groups and professional organizations, and utilize their large network of friends, neighbors and family to get things done. Inuentials are highly connected activists and joiners. They are the kinds of people who seem to know everybody and if they dont, they know somebody who does. Their common denominator is their involvement in civic and political affairs two areas in which they want to make a difference, whether by working within mainstream political parties or by joining independent groups. They possess both the desire and ability to make a contribution to society through both traditional and nontraditional means. Often they are mavericks, and they tend to be 3-5 years ahead of their peers in terms of trends. What most identies Inuential Americans, however, is their activist orientation to life. They are involved in life in the broadest sense, and that shines through in both their ofce and leisure time.38 Moreover, they continually seek out information to satisfy their active minds and diverse interests, and they use technology like the Internet and mobile devices to communicate and keep up with the news. Heres another way to spot Inuentials. Inuentials are more likely to forward emails than other people. (So a good way to recognize Inuentials among your own friends is to pay attention to those who send you emails they think will interest you funny lists and cartoons, insightful news articles, outrageous little videos, etc.) The other thing about Inuentials is that they tend to know other Inuentials. Think about it. They are not out networking with couch potatoes! Theyre interacting with other networkers, joiners, and doers. So when you tap into the network of an Inuential, youre tapping into interlocking circles of the active people who run things, whether its the PTA, or the Rotary Club, the church choir or the local chapter of your favorite cause.
What most identies Inuential Americans, however, is their activist orientation to life.
Why are they so important? At this point, surely its obvious. They are the holy grail of marketing, whether its commercial marketing or political marketing. They are the ones that spread the word about what they like and dislike. And they tend to have social and professional networks of friends and colleagues that are twice as big as the average person. So they wield a powerful megaphone. In politics, they are the ones that spread the word about causes and candidates, and being activists, they put their money and their time where their mouth is. According to IPDIs study, online political Inuentials are over four times more likely than the general public to have donated money to a political candidate, and over seven times more likely to have worked for a political party.39 What Are Their Unique Characteristics Weve already touched on several characteristics: Inuentials are opinionated, and they are connected. They know more people, participate in twice as many groups as average Americans, and have strong ties to those groups. For these reasons, they serve as a force multiplier. If word of mouth is like a radio signal broadcast over the country, Inuentials are strategically placed transmitters that amplify the signals, multiplying the number of people who hear it,40 according to Ed Keller and Jon Berry, formerly with RoperASW, and now principals in the Keller Fay Group. Inuentials are also knowledgeable. They stay abreast of news and current events; hence the Internet is their lifeline. They are particularly knowledgeable about politics, and they are asked their opinion on politics more than on any other topic. And when they promote a cause or a candidate, people listen. They are also trendsetters. They are not usually the earliest adopters of new ideas and new technologies, but when they decide to embrace a cause or purchase a device or gadget, you should take it as a good sign that the idea or technology is about to go mainstream. Moreover, Inuentials are active online and ofine. As more Americans get broadband coverage to their homes, the distinction between online and ofine activism will continue to blur. The Internet is becoming another communications tool albeit the 39 Graf and Darr, 16, 17. 40 Keller and Berry, 14.
38 Keller and Berry, 39.
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most important one that helps them stay connected to their friends and colleagues. Finding Your Inuentials Your Peeps Where to look? Start with the people already on your list. Identify the people who help you the most. Who has made a donation? Make a note of it. How did they make it? by snail mail, online, or over the phone? Again, mark it down in the le. Who forwards your email? Software exists that can track this activity, and while it has obvious privacy implications that should be clearly set forth in your privacy policy, it provides an important indication of who your Inuentials are. Because thats one of the things that Inuentials do: they forward email to their friends and colleagues, four times more often than do average Americans.41 As you collect information, keep adding it to the le. Pretty soon your Inuentials will, like cream, start oating to the top. But even though they may be hiding in plain sight, you wont know who they are unless you keep careful records. So document, document, document. While you are identifying the Inuentials already on your list, cast your net for new ones. This is a little more difcult. There is no master list of Inuentials. Instead there are lots of smaller lists. And what motivates one group of activists may not motivate another group. The trick is to nd people who are actively involved in the issue you are advocating or an issue similar to it. For example, if I were running People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), I would try to nd lists of dog owners, save-the-whales types, cat fanciers anyone who has show concern for the well-being of animals. The names of people who have signed up for, paid dues or made a contribution to these organizations are often available for purchase from commercial list brokers; and if I were doing an email outreach to solicit new members, Id use these lists. Better yet, I would nd websites where these people congregate, including social networking websites like MySpace or Facebook, and link from my prole back to my own site where people could nd more information. Id also purchase advertising on blogs with similar interests. But the animal lovers of the world that constitute PETAs Inuentials are not necessarily interested in, say, foreign affairs. Those Inuentials will congregate in other places and thus require a different focus. Is There a Subset of Political Inuentials? Yes. About half of Inuentials are politically active. And among that half, one size may not t all. The habits, attitudes and manner of political involvement 41 Graf and Darr, 27.
of, say, a white, high school educated baby boomer who is extremely inuential in her rural community are likely to differ from those of , say, a highly educated, urban African American man who is very inuential among his friends and colleagues. A study that IPDI is currently conducting will attempt to answer the question, how do the various cohorts differ? The new Poli-uentials study will be published in late spring of 2007. Stay tuned! How Do You Motivate Them to Work for You? IPDIs earlier publication, Putting Online Inuentials to Work for Your Campaign,42 identied ve ways to capture the Inuentials energy and enthusiasm for politics, and take advantage of their strong ties to their communities: They are activists, so help them lead. Ask for their help. They are used to participating, organizing and leading, so make a clear request, and provide specic directions. Tell them what you need. Or, stated from the opposite perspective: Dont ask; dont get. They are joiners and networkers, so build an online community. Form online communities around key issues and constituencies. Take advantage of preexisting online communities on blogs and social networking sites. Create an organizational blog so that they can communicate with each other. Take advantage of their social and professional networks by emailing them information that they can forward to their friends and colleagues. They are news junkies, so feed their habit. Post news stories on your Website, or better yet, ask them to sign up to a permissionbased list serv that distributes relevant news updates. Provide links to other news sources, blogs, etc. They are opinionated, so give them a microphone. Inuentials are the kind of people who write letters to the editor and call into radio and 42 Carol Darr, Julie Barko and Brandon Robinson, Putting Online Inuentials to Work for Your Campaign (Washington, DC: Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet, 2004) 5, available at www.ipdi.org/publications
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TV talk shows. Help them articulate their views with solid, sourced background information and concrete talking points. Finally, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, they are busy, so make it easy. Do the grunt work for them, thereby demonstrating that you appreciate their precious and limited time. For example, if you want them to call into a radio talk show, post the times and the stations call letters, and provide telephone numbers and the names of the hosts of the show. Provide a link to the radio stations URL, and give them some suggestions about getting on the show and some talking points. Think of the Inuentials in your database as the ecks of silver and gold in your bucket of sand. Then spend time identifying, cultivating, motivating and mobilizing them. Its that easy, and that complicated.
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CHAPTER 18
If the Shoe Fits: Finding an Open Source CRM Solution for Political Nonprots
DAVE GREENBERG
CIVICRM
all. This chapter looks at developing a CRM system for international organizations and non-prots. How do you design an Open Source CRM solution for the non-prot, non-governmental space that is fully international and localizable from the moment you open the box? Most affordable CRM tools are not designed for this space. International organizations that use their databases to handle contacts across geo-political borders should not have to settle for a single-language based system that only focuses on one country (usually, the United States). How do you create a system that allows organizations to track and solicit donations, memberships, constituent contact info and preferences, volunteer skills, events, responses to newsletters and other communications, and a whole range of other critical interactions? This was the goal we set for ourselves when we started to design and build CiviCRM.
The non-prot world has a tradition of using too much paper. Instead of tracking donors, program ofcers, volunteers, and constituents in a safe, reliable, easy to navigate database, many nonprots use 3 x5 cards or an Excel spreadsheet. Maybe they throw together a rudimentary Microsoft Access database to keep their address books. Or maybe they just use Outlook as an address book. These kinds of castle walls have cracks, and when they crumble, your entire supporter or donor outreach program becomes vulnerable and, in some cases, completely dies. Sometimes, all it takes is the removal of one block a staffer leaving the organization, a computer virus, etc. and your entire data program falls apart. Spreadsheets disappear and years of organizational intelligence and organizing can be lost. This happens more often than people realize in the non-prot world. Perhaps its even happened to you. Its time for a better system.
There are signicant differences in the ways that political campaigns, advocacy groups, and service-based non-prots operate. Those boundaries are blurring, but for many organizations, a standard solution isnt a solution at all.
Look for solutions that combine CRM with your websites content management system. One of the unexpected rst lessons we learned was that having a constituent relationship management system or application hosted within a content management system (CMS) had a lot of benets. Most of us consider a database and a website to be two different things. However, synchronizing the CRM system on one side and the website on the other allows you to host constituent information online and then selectively enrich it through interactions that happen online. Second, it can reduce the burden of data entry on the organization by transferring responsibility for maintaining current and accurate contact information to your constituents. Third, it leads to creative communication that actually strengthens your community. A content-rich interactive website becomes a place for constituents and staff to collaborate in the work of the organization and a powerful tool for the organization to extend its reach. Content management systems like Drupal arent just about publishing content. Increasingly, they can create multi-directional communications that range from blogging to online
CiviCRM is the rst open source and freely downloadable constituent relationship management solution, designed specically to meet the needs of advocacy, non-prot and nongovernmental groups. For more information, visit www.civicrm.org
Sometimes an out-of-the-box solution simply wont do especially when it comes to CRM. The reason is a simple one: you are unique. There are signicant differences in the ways that political campaigns, advocacy groups, and service-based non-prots operate. Those boundaries are blurring, but for many organizations, a standard solution isnt a solution at
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forums to wikis for community-contributed content. In short, content management systems arent just about posting articles on your site anymore. An integrated CRM system allows you to add constituent proles, membership and volunteer signups, event registration, surveys and more to this mix. The trick is synchronization. Any time each of these transactional interactions occurs with somebody in your constituent base, that interaction becomes part of your CRM. In other words, your CMS (website content management system) and CRM (constituent relationship management) work as a team.
Most of us consider a database and a Website to be two different things. However, synchronizing the CRM system on one side and the Website on the other allows you to host constituent information online and then selectively enrich it through interactions that happen online
For example, if your organization needs volunteers for a fundraiser next week, you might consider placing a notice on your Website saying, Please sign up here. If someone signs up who is not already in your constituent database, then that person is immediately added and a follow-up message with instructions is immediately generated. When this volunteer actually serves her time, then the system records those hours and generates a thank you note. It allows the organization to track how often someone volunteers and his or her strengths, likes, and dislikes. Next month, when youre looking for a volunteer to serve as event organizer, you know exactly who to turn to. Synchronization builds intelligence and history about your whole community into your database. You dont need a backroom full of staffers or volunteers taking information from 3x5 cards and plugging it into a PC.
If you work in other countries, nd a system that can speak all your languages. If youre an international organization, then you need a CRM program that works just as well in Spain, Brazil, and Poland as it does in the United States. Its not an easy thing to nd: developers face many challenges in developing this type of program. After all, it may be difcult to nd a programmer who can speak the languages of each country you work in well enough to create a system that responds to surnames in Arabic or streets in South Korea. The need to be multilingual isnt just a characteristic of your CRM. Sometimes your website also needs to be navigable in other languages. But a multi-lingual site doesnt end with the translation of a few articles or documents. Make sure the form labels and form choices on your sign-up and donation pages are easily translatable. Otherwise, you can end up with usability problems or even discrepancies in your database. Other language issues include things like date formats (in the United States, we typically write our addresses as month/day/year, while other countries write their dates as day/month/year), address formats, and character sets. Many languages dont use the Roman alphabet. Currency is also an issue. Depending on your organizations scope you may need a program that supports multiple currencies and currency formatting. If your organization operates outside of the United States, then all of these technical issues should be broached during your evaluation process.
If youre an international organization, then you should consider some of the following elements before you select a CRM program: How many countries do you work in? How many languages? Are the form labels and choices on the sign-up and donation pages of your website easily translatable? Do the people you serve write their dates differently? Are addresses written differently in the countries you serve? Do you need to use a character set other than the Roman alphabet? Do you need support for multiple currencies? This is an area where an Open Source program has many advantages: you can open up the development and translation process to people around the world, not just people who sit in your ofce, or the ofce of your CRM developer. You can potentially share the cost and effort of translating the software with other organizations and institutions in your region.
What is Drupal? Drupal is a free content management system (CMS), a software package that allows an individual or a community of users to publish, manage and organize a wide variety of content on a website. For more information, visit http://drupal.org/.
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The CiviCRM project provides an online tool for collaborative translations which requires a minimum of technical skills to use. This type of facility is proving to be a powerful means of propagating the software into multiple languages, which in turn helps make sure that we can continually improve our support for locale-specic needs.
By choosing an Open Source solution, you can potentially share the cost and effort of translating the software with other organizations and institutions in your region.
Look for a system that makes it easy for the end user (you) to generate reports. All the data in the world is useless unless you, the end user, feel comfortable enough searching and analyzing the data to make good decisions. Think about your donors. Anytime somebody donates on your website, he or she becomes part of the database. All his or her contact information is recorded. You need a system simple enough to allow you to view who donates, when, how much, and why, but complex enough to show details, such as which programs he or she cares most about, and where necessary, log ofine communications, such as phone calls and faceto-face visits, with that donor. Look for a system that allows you to incorporate all of these things into one database and potentially allows you to create visual presentations (charts and graphs) to help you better understand your donor base. People use technology differently in different countries, so reach them appropriately. Different parts of the world have different levels and types of technology penetration. Broadband-connected desktop computers may be quite prevalent among constituents of an environmental advocacy organization in the United States making e-newsletters a great medium for communication. However, organizations in third world countries (as well as organizations who target youth) increasingly rely on cell phones and text messaging to reach their audiences. CRM platforms need to begin incorporating these modalities in order to stay relevant to these diverse needs. Find a solution that treats your constituents like constituents, not like customers. Classic CRM systems focus narrowly on the salesman/customer relationship. You can try to squeeze
a round peg into this square hole, but it might not always work for your constituents. Lets start with CRM terminology. Instead of working with companies and buyers, youre working with individuals, households and organizations. The kinds of transactions that occur in non-prots are not limited to a phone call that leads to a sale that leads to an invoice. By contrast, transactions in the non-prot space range from obtaining volunteers for an event to getting people to donate to distributing services. Non-prots who use CRM software must dene what their transactions are, what the interactions are, and who their constituents are in an open way. This will help them decide how to track their communications and search their databases. You need a platform that resembles a Craftsman toolbox which has the exibility to model a wide variety of data and transactions. Even more importantly, you need to devote the time and resources to planning your CRM implementation. This means evaluating your existing work-ows and the data currently being stored to determine whats working and whats not. The community of users for an opensource platform can often be a good resource during this process. If budgets allow, engaging a professional service organization which specializes in database and work-ow design for non-prots can also help ensure that you get off on the right foot.
Case Study
I recently worked with a nonprot organization that helps families nding missing people who suffer from mental illness or substance abuse, the homeless, and children from foster families. Goals In 2006, the nonprot wanted to implement an Open Source CRM system called CiviCRM to synchronize data from its Website. In particular, it wanted to allow users to: 1. Submit a missing person form 2. Submit an unidentied person form (law enforcement and/or forensic investigator submit an unidentied form in the hopes that the public can help make an identication) 3. Search for missing person and unidentied person details The Plan The nonprot needed a customized CRM system, and they didnt have the in-house staff to do it. I worked with the nonprot to help them customize the CiviCRM platform and synchronize it with their Drupal-hosted Website. First, the nonprot brainstormed some of the elds that they wanted to include on each of their
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Web forms, which include submitting a missing person and an unidentied person report. I compared those elds to the eld names already included in CiviCRMs standard data platform. I then created custom data elds for all new areas: Standard CiviCRM Data First name Last name Birth date Gender New Fields Created for the Nonprot Date of disappearance City/last known location City/location missing from Age at disappearance Height Weight (lbs) Hair Color/ Style Eye Color Race Aliases Distinguishing characteristics scars, birthmarks Medical conditions Clothing and Jewelry DNA sample available Dental Records Available Fingerprints available Contact Name, Address, Phone, Email Submitter Name, phone, Email Submitter Relationship Law enforcement agency Investigator Case classication Additional case details I supplemented the already created CiviCRM Prole with additional custom data elds that I created myself. Some of the elds, such as location types, where adapted from CiviCRMs existing address elds.
The process wasnt too difcult. Lets use the additional location elds as an example. I started on the CiviCRM prole and custom data page and clicked on Go to Location types (home, work, etc.). I clicked on New Location Type and entered Submitter Location in the box following Enter Name. I clicked on vCard and added the description: Person submitting form. I then clicked the Enabled box and Default. When a user submits a missing person form, or an agency submits an unidentied person form, a nonprot staff volunteer reviews and sorts it by placing it into several groups all contained in the CRM program: approved, rejected or pending. Lessons learned 1. Always save your work. Especially if you decide to create elds on your own. 2. Ask for help. If you choose an Open Source solution, like CiviCRM, then chances are good that it already has its own family an active community of developers just like you. Many of them may know the answers to your questions. 3. Build on an existing system. The beauty of an Open Source solution is that you get to build on the work of others. That means that much of the programming work is already down for you. The customizing is your job, but many people can walk through the steps with a little support. 4. When building Web forms that you want to synchronize into your database, ask the following questions ahead of time: a. Is this eld required? b. Who can view this eld once it is in your database? Who can edit this eld? c. Do you want the information contained in this eld to be viewable on your Website? d. If so, do you want these elds to be searchable from your Website? That is, do you want to give people who visit your site the ability to search for information
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CHAPTER 19
Your Website Is an Interaction Tool

AARON WELCH
ADVOMATIC
mostly to feed the email list. Beyond this, however, are very few examples of organizations that provide a place for members to become part of a true force for advocacy and messaging for the organizations causes. The reason for this is partly because this level of participation is a fairly new dynamic between membership organizations and their members. Members have begun to do more to promote the cause of their organizations than send checks and receive updates. It is partly also due to the failure of many to look at what prompts a person to participate in the various levels of civic action. The Civic Fish Ladder When talking about prompting people to civic action I like to use the analogy of a sh ladder. This analogy takes me back to my childhood in Seattle, watching salmon returning to Lake Washington from the Pacic Ocean to spawn. As people began to dam and block the river ways that sh use to spawn, they realized that they had to provide some way for the sh to return or they would quickly die out. The solution to this problem is a set of ascending pools of water alongside the man-made obstruction that the sh can use to jump up, one-by-one, until they reach the top and can continue on their way. Interestingly enough, a sh ladder will only work when the correct amount of counter-current is present. Too little and the sh cannot determine which direction to swim; too much and the sh become exhausted and unable to swim upstream any longer. This analogy applies strangely well to encouraging civic action and participation with people at almost any level of engagement. Without some counter-current, people will become bored and fail to continue to move up the ladder. Im sure the parallels between the critical life cycle of salmon and the equally important role of civic action in our society will not be lost on advocacy and political organization leaders. At the lowest level of civic engagement is a large, disengaged population group that is functionally at the bottom of the ladder. They might only glance at newspaper headlines or not pay attention to politics at all. The most action they may be taking is the act of voting. As political consultants and issue advocates, our goal is to help our constituents take their rst jumps into the lowest pool and prepare them for the next jump usually something very simple, such as signing up for an email list.
How do you promote deeper participation from your web membership, collect valuable demographics from them, and avoid triggering common negative reactions to data collection? With a website that supports your constituent relationship management program. With a clear set of objectives for your website, and some new ways of structuring features, you can help guide your members to action on behalf of your organization, all while collecting the information you need without turning off supporters with scary datacollection forms.
Advomatic builds Internet infrastructure for progressive political, grassroots and arts communities. For more information, visit www.advomatic.com.
Thank you all for coming. Here are some brochures. Now please leave. In many cases, organizational websites are brochure-ware, lled to the brim with static content: mission statements, downloadable PDFs, and Who We Are pages with smiling headshots and bios. This type of site serves a basic purpose: to have a presence on the Internet for visitors to get information and establish a certain amount of legitimacy. For membership-based organizations and advocacy groups however, this type of at, non-interactive site is quickly becoming unacceptable to the growing number of members who demand to be included in more ways than a semi-annual direct mail campaign asking for donations. In response to the growing role of online activism in our culture, many organizations have made some progress towards fostering member participation. Almost all the major membership organizations have online donations, membership sign-ups and email lists. Some have more sophisticated tools like online petitions and send to a friend features that serve
MoveOn provides a great illustration of possible rst levels of civic participation. Signing up for their email list is a very small action that doesnt take too much time. You might not be ready to take the next jump, but you are interested in staying informed. All of MoveOns little jumps move upward from there.
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For example, MoveOn might send out a call to action that asks its members to call their congressmen about an issue. When people make that call, they jump into the next pool of civic participation. You can use this same theory. The sh ladder metaphor works all the way up the ladder of civic participation, from signing up for emails to running for ofce or working on a campaign. Or, to use another metaphor, if you want to feed your party, you do it one bite at a time.
and turn out at the polls to vote for our candidate. They may even go on other blogs and talk about how fantastic the candidate is. All this information is valuable in determining what steps the campaigns sh ladder should contain. Building the Fish Ladder: A Working Example The perfect sh ladder for any organization ultimately depends on the specics of the organization and its membership.
As political consultants and issue advocates, our goal is to help our constituents take their rst jumps into the lowest pool and prepare them for the next jump usually something very simple, such as signing up for an email list.
Determining what pool your members are in, what level you want them to be, and what the steps are in between is critical to growing the population in the top pools of your sh ladder. First, determine what the targeted level of participation is for all types of members: newcomers, current supporters and even donors. Some people will stop at a certain point a comfort zone and thats ne. For a healthy, active membership the organization should ensure that there are people at all levels of participation. No one wants to be alone on the road toward greater civic participation. To continue with my previous example, MoveOn casts an extremely wide net. Anyone who pays any attention to politics is a potential email registrant. Once people have signed onto their email list, MoveOn sends gigantic blast email campaigns in an attempt to prompt even a small fraction of its list membership to take action, and the net effect is still enormous. Comparatively, a political campaign has much different goals. If I run a campaign for federal ofce, then some of my supporters probably already congregate somewhere online. Further, if I have been courting them correctly online, then I already have a community of people who read my website, watch my videos, and maybe post comments on my blog. They have already made their way up a few steps on my sh ladder. As a campaign, we can make a lot of assumptions about what these people are willing to do in terms of spending time and energy supporting the campaign. If the campaign is for a Democratic candidate, then most of our core supporters are probably already on MoveOn. They are probably very well informed about the issues. They know our background. They are registered to vote and will most likely donate
The perfect sh ladder for any organization ultimately depends on the specics of the organization and its membership.
First, we know our supporters are already as active as we need them to be online. They advocate for us on other websites, comment on our blog, invite their friends to sign up and identify our candidate as their choice. They are committed and have a great sense of identity around the campaign and candidate. The next step on the sh ladder is the holy grail of a political campaigns web campaign: real-life action. What can we do to prompt real-life action to help get the campaigns message out into our supporters communities and start lling our ladders rst pool with new supporters? A lot of organizations take the shotgun approach and blast their visitors in the face with features, hoping that they will take advantage of some of them to achieve some possibly ill-dened goal. More often than not, they lose many supporters along the way paved with WIKI! FORUMS! BLOG! TAKE ACTION! DONATE! ENGAGE! PLEASE SIGN UP FOR OUR EMAIL LIST FOR WEEKLY UPDATES! A focused plan, with a well-dened set of steps towards greater participation will always yield better results. All of the features listed above are perfectly valid tools, but how does one move from signing up on an email list to collaboratively authoring content on a wiki? When presented with so many options and no clear direction for my level of exposure and buy-in, your online supporters may be too confused to continue. You need to know what you want to get from your site rst and then determine which features will help you accomplish those goals. In order to build a better site, you have to know where your audience is and where you want them to end up. Otherwise, how are you going to know what you want them to do? Build a road map, even if it is small, at rst. If your end goal is to build a blog that contains all of your deepest thoughts, then you
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dont have much work ahead. Just put a blog up with comments. You probably dont have to worry about learning much about your readers. If, however, you want to mobilize a massive get-out-the-vote effort, then you need a completely different road map and a completely different way of knowing and engaging your supporters.
In order to build a better site, you have to know where your audience is and where you want them to end up.
How do you encourage your core online community activists to talk to each other and their neighbors? A great example of this is Meetup.com and Howard Deans presidential campaign in early 2003. Thousands of supporters had signed up on the Dean email list and were actively donating money and time online. Once Meetup.com was offered to supporters as a tool to organize meetings in real life the campaign really took off. This was a perfect way to foster several levels of participation. The dedicated supporters could be utilized to bring buttons and bumper stickers to hand out, collect contact information of other meetup-goers, and provide campaign provided talking points. It also provided a way for those who were just curious about the campaign to meet, talk to other supporters in their communities, and eventually move up the ladder to become advocates themselves. If you want to accomplish a similar goal, then you need to be able to call on local groups to do targeted tasks as needed, perhaps to help bring people to campaign stops and speeches, or to write and call local media outlets to combat some negative press. One way to do this is to create features that allow the forming of local groups, online chapters or small sub-organizations another step up the ladder. Next, allow your stalwart supporters to declare themselves the as captains and organizers and give them something more to do. They provide a great foundation. You also need to attract new supporters by providing steps for them on your website. We call this group drive-bys visitors who come to your site for information. These visitors need a much lower step to jump up to, and the right amount of counter-current so they know the right way to go. You do this by helping them build relationships with each other. Consider one of the most popular websites on the Internet today, MySpace. One of the reasons why MySpace is so popular is the way it allows people to nd friends, friends of their friends, and strangers
with common interests. People go back to MySpace to establish relationships with other people and to see how they t-in with their peers. No one has ever said, Id really like to nd a group of strangers who have nothing to do with me or anything Im interested in. Indeed, I may even want to get together for coffee or engage in some civic action in my community with these very strangers. Thats not how MySpace coalesces, and it is certainly not how a federal campaign becomes successful. The primary reason your blog has readership and your campaign has a community of supporters are the common interests that your candidate or values represent. The other attractive characteristic of MySpace is the pictures. Photos provide a see what you missed? teaser, which prompts the visitor to click links for more information or to sign up for events.
No one has ever said, Id really like to nd a group of strangers who have nothing to do with me or anything Im interested in. Indeed, I may even want to get together for coffee or engage in some civic action in my community with these very strangers.
Finally, promote your most active supporters up the next step of the ladder. Make them eld captains and give them responsibilities, such as helping with meetings or leading small groups of supporters. These eld captains can also serve as local, trusted points of contact that your organization can use to organize attendance at rallies, speeches and public appearances. Balancing-act: Welcome visitor! Give me all your information. Wait, where are you going? Wait. Before you begin, dont forget one of the most important elements: knowing your supporters. Who they are, what they care about, why they came to your site. In order to best utilize and support members, supporters and advocates online we have to know what their concerns and demographics are. Knowing what is important to your members affects everything from the blog posts on the homepage to direct mail campaigns. Pick up the wrong side of an issue and you can bleed support and trafc; pick up the right one and you will benet from swarms of cross-posts and new supporters. Unfortunately, traditional methods of collecting the information are often the rst barrier to participa-
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tion a potential new supporter faces. When faced with a lengthy information submission form, lled with requests for personal information, many will simply leave. I personally have found myself frozen, mouse hovering over the submit button, even after spending the time to ll out the entire form. Nine times of ten, I close the browser instead of submitting the form. I doubt this is unusual behavior. For membership and advocacy based websites the balance between the collection of demographics and low barrier of entry is most critical.
When faced with a lengthy information submission form, lled with requests for personal information, many will simply leave your website.
If you want to know your supporters, then pay attention to what they do on your website. Activity patterns and interests are just as important as demographics if not more so. It doesnt matter if the information you collect comes from a form, a doorto-door canvasser, activities on your Website, online games or polls. These things allow people to classify themselves in a more interesting way and provide a more rounded view of the individual. Look at some of the most popular social networking sites, such as MySpace and LinkedIn. One of the things that makes these sites so popular is their ability to provide ways for people to nd other connections and common interests within the site member-
ship. Notice that most of the data collection occurs after the sign-up process. Instead of investing all your time in a signup form, present your website content in a meaningful way. Additionally, you can also use browsing behavior to instruct you as to what that users interests are without asking them explicitly. For example, if someone visits the same prole on a dating site ve times in one week, then we can infer that that person is romantically interested in the other persons prole. Likewise, if someone says that her biggest political issue is abortion, but spends most of her time reading articles on homeland security, then you can assume that homeland security is also a big issue for her. Peer pressure is also an excellent tool to get people to provide additional information and jump to higher levels of engagement. For example, if we provide a way for members to raise money and compete with other members, and provide a public way to display these results, then many people will be more willing to engage if the spirit of competition. . Conclusion In the end, all the statistics, demographics and features in the world will not provide the ultimate online community of your dreams. A good outline of what you expect to get from your relationship with your online membership, and equally important, what you expect them to get from you, will inform all subsequent decisions. Start small and watch how your supporters use your website. Consider yet another way that your supporters communicate with you. Its all about monitoring how people interact with your online face your website and changing your tactics accordingly.
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CHAPTER 20
Small Nonprots Have a Seat at the CRM Table

DAVID GEILHUFE
CIVICRM
Providing technology solutions to nonprot organizations and civic groups is a $100 million a year industry. All the high-end tools and applications that nonprots need to build community, manage programs, and build a database of donors cost a considerable amount of money. Good service the kind of service that really grows your organization usually costs $1,000 a month, and most nonprots cant afford that. Not even the worthy ones. What can a nonprot do when the heart of organization infrastructure a CRM database is unaffordably beyond reach? If this sounds like your problem, then open source CRM programs may, in fact, provide the solution.
What can a nonprot do when the heart of organization infrastructure a CRM database is unaffordably beyond reach?
Regardless of the size of your organization, one thing is certain: you need to actually know who you know. You need to know who gave you money last year, so you can ask them again for money this year. You need to know who visits your Website, so you can engage them in your cause and, yes, ask them for money. You need something different. You need data plans and applications that you can customize with your budgets and you can learn to use easily. Picture a small civic organization planning a creek cleanup. Four kids in high school decide they wanted to do something good for the environment in their community, and they organize a City Creek Cleanup. They are very engaged in the cause, people get excited about their idea and their idea grows. Now they want to run creek cleanup efforts once a week. Even though they are an all-volunteer
organization, they still have some costs, such as the price of garbage bags. Their total budget is $700 a year, and they raised most of it from their parents and families. They have a vision, and they want to raise money and organize their volunteers online because that is where they spend most of their free time anyway. Unfortunately, they cannot pay $500 to $1,000 a month for a database system that will put all of their operations online. What should a group this size look for? City Creek Cleanup needs two things in a database program: simplicity and affordability. These are kids, not full-time tech support or development staff. They are average folks who need a tool that works with the intuitive ease of a Yahoo! email account. They need something the can customize easily without a big price tag. The kids at City Creek Cleanup should look for a exible program that allows them to do what they need to do. An open source solution potentially allows the City Creek Cleanup crew to nd software developed by another, similar organization and take advantage of the investments those that came before them have made. This minimizes required customization and cuts down on costs. An open source resource like CiviCRM is used by over 4,000 organizations, and it comes with a consulting community that has implemented CiviCRM for many organizations within a community that culturally is eager to share their knowledge and expertise. In other words, an open source solution can allow you to learn from and use tools developed by other groups. You think your organization is unique, but you have a lot in common with other groups. Many nonprot organizations have different purposes but possess common elements, such as the ability to receive online donations or send email. Donor databases and email are generic technology tools. An open source solution carries with it institutional knowledge about each of these areas and more that a small organization might not otherwise be able to afford. For example, a large advocacy group might spend $15,000 to customize an open source application, such as a database. Smaller organizations can then access the programming that went into that expensive system and adapt it for their own use. In this way, customers that can afford to pay build the rst general advocacy prole for an open source database that is then used by less afuent groups who can only afford to invest $2,000 or less in development. Knowledge comes in layers. The most common kind of failure you see in nonprot fundraising is when the people who raise money cant tell you precisely who they raised money from last year. Clearly you want to ask everybody who gave you money last year for money this year. The next layer of knowledge is learning more about the people
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your donors know. The great innovation in fundraising technology has been fundraising pages where an individual can create a web page and then point their friends to it to donate to the organization. This is a social network where your donors introduce you to more donors.
How do I do it?
Heres what you need to know if you want to build social networking programs into your database system. 1. Use a content management system (CMS) with user authentication so that you know who is visiting your website. This will allow you to provide member-only content for your donors and supporters. You want them to log into your site so you know who is raising money and who is not. Integrate your Websites content management system with your CRM database. Some open source solutions, like CivicSpace, pre-integrate the CRM and CMS, in this case with the Drupal content management system. The information you collect will help you make decisions about targeting and segmentation. Track what your members do on your site. For example, if someone creates a fundraising page on your Website, then you know he or she cares more about your organization than the average member does. Use the information you collect to build a better a relationship with your members. Acknowledge their effort in your newsletter or send them a thank you note.
2.
3.
4.
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CHAPTER 21
The E-mail Factor: Tailoring Your Communications Program

SHEERAZ HAJI
CONVIO
The online world has dramatically changed the way in which people interact with each other. From an advocacy organizations perspective, the Internet has provided a new cost-effective and efcient communication channel to reach out to constituents. A decade ago, advocacy groups had to spend a lot of money to communicate with people. Today, groups from Planned Parenthood to AFL-CIO to MoveOn. org use email to communicate with their supporters. However, to what extent can a simple, inexpensive tool like email change what smaller groups with fewer resources can accomplish? The answer: signicantly, and in many ways, it already has. For example, MoveOn.org has a staff of ve people and an annual budget of $3 million, yet it has become one of the most powerful advocacy groups in the country by using email as the foundation of its communications strategy.
Convio is an Internet software and services company that provides online Constituent Relationship Management (eCRM) solutions for nonprot organizations. For more information, visit www.convio.com.
mile away or on the other side of the planet. To some people, email might seem like a different communication medium; however, in many ways, it is like traditional database marketing tools. Specically, you need a list in order to communicate with people, but rst and foremost you need to know with whom you are trying to communicate. After the target audience has been established, in the old world of database marketing, the next question that an experienced marketer would ask a client would be How big is your list? With a direct mail campaign, the size of the list would heavily inuence the parameters of the direct mail campaign because with traditional mail, the larger the list, the higher the cost of the campaign. The subsequent questions are relatively standard for any marketing outreach campaign: What are you trying to accomplish? What is your offer? What are your goals? All of these questions are similar to those that need to be answered prior to the design and launch of an email advocacy campaign. A major difference between traditional direct mail campaigns and online email campaigns is an organizations ability to grow its list. Through the use of basic emails, e-newsletters, and online action alerts, organizations are able to quickly and effectively increase the size of their lists without incurring signicant costs. The Internet provides a unique medium in which viral marketing is instantaneous and virtually free to organizations. As emails are forwarded, and action alerts are shared with friends who have similar interests, an organizations list grows organically, without additional investments in list buys or direct mail campaigns. As an organizations list grows, so does its ability to segment its database of constituents so that it can launch targeted campaigns that resonate with the intended recipients and foster an environment that builds community. However, the increasing importance of targeted campaigns should not begin and end with demographics. Data needs to be examined from various perspectives and is most easily divided into three major categories: 1. Demographics. What do you know about each of the individuals on your list? Your organization probably has some high-level demographic information for each member, including gender, geographic location, and perhaps age group or occupation. Preferences/Topics of interest Are you able to discern the preferences or hot buttons for each of your list members? To gather this level of information, you need to ask each of your constituents about their interests. From The American Lung Associations perspective, for example, it is important to know if each list member cares more about tobacco issues or clean air issues.
The power of email lies in both its immediacy and its ability to transcend geographic boundaries. It allows groups to respond immediately to events that occur in the news, whereas snail mail requires much more lead time, and thus has a lesser impact because of the inherent lag time. Emails virtual nature allows organizations like the Surf Rider Foundation (which started as a small, local, west coast group focused on surfers) to reach people around the world and gain the support of surfers in Australia, Europe, and Asia. Email is not restricted by distance. An organization can have a message reach all of its constituents at virtually the exact same time whether they are one
2.
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3.
Behavior How do your constituents behave online? It is essential to track clickthrough data, email open rates, and email forwarding (tell-a-friend) information, in addition to other behavioral data. The ability to track and analyze the behavior of each list member enables an organization to gather valuable information about the persons interests, beyond the basic information they provided when they signed up to receive online communications from the group.
CASE STUDY B
Oxfam America Oxfam America (Oxfam) employed targeting based on previous actions taken for a 2006 fair trade campaign, which was focused on lobbying Starbucks to sign a licensing agreement that will allow coffee growers in Ethiopia to control the names of their coffee. The agreement would allow Ethiopia to determine an export price that guarantees farmers receive a fair share of coffee prots, enabling them to feed their children, send them to school, and get better healthcare. Oxfam included an advocacy alert in its early online campaign, and then conducted followup communications with its members. People who had taken action on the original campaign received a very different message than those who had not. For example, past participants were sent an email that thanked the person by name for taking action, provided an update about the campaigns progress, and asked them to forward information about the campaign to friends and family. People who didnt take an action in response to previous emails received a very different, informational email that brought them up to date on what Oxfam was doing on the issue of fair trade. The email was a strong sell, discussing the importance of the issue, and specically explaining why it was important to get involved and take action. Oxfam knows that not all members will respond to a request to take action the rst time it is received; however, the organization also knows that this initial lack of action does not necessarily mean that the member is uninterested in the campaign. Additional communications that contain new information about the subject may compel them to take immediate action.
While demographic and preference data have long been a staple of targeting and segmenting within direct response email, behavioral targeting is something that is more easily leveraged through online campaigns. At the simplest level, gathering behavioral data involves paying attention to who takes an action in response to an email (e.g. clicking on a link or forwarding the email to a friend). At a more sophisticated level, conducting a detailed analysis and review of results following the launch of an online advocacy campaign or email appeal allows an organization to modify future campaigns based on past behavior.
CASE STUDY A
Environmental Defense A good illustration of this kind of targeting is Environmental Defenses campaign on global warming. Instead of sending a generic email to people who had participated in previous action alerts, they spoke to their core activists in a completely different tone. They didnt have to give them extensive background on the organization and what they wanted to accomplish. Instead, they went right to the issue, in this case an upcoming vote on an amendment to the 2005 Energy Bill, and articulated their ve goals for getting the bill passed. They knew that these activists had already responded to previous action alerts on global warming. Therefore, it wasnt necessary to sell the importance of the issue to them. They also knew that they could update these activists in the future and ask them to take further action. The campaign led to the passage of a Senate Resolution putting senators on record in favor of supporting a mandatory cap on pollutants that contribute to global warming.
Oxfam America is a non-prot organization that works to end global poverty through saving lives, strengthening communities, and campaigning for change. For more information, visit www. oxfamamerica.org/.
CASE STUDY C
American Lung Association The American Lung Association found that its constituents primarily donated for one of two reasons: either they had personal experience with lung conditions (such as a family member with asthma or respiratory problems), or were vehemently opposed to tobacco. The former group cares most about the
@
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Environmental Defense was founded in 1967 as the Environmental Defense Fund. Today, EDF has 500,000 members. For more information, visit www. environmentaldefense.org/.
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air quality in their local area, as well the latest news about respiratory illness. The latter group wants to help the American Lung Association lobby against the big tobacco companies, and is interested in hearing about lawsuits in the tobacco industry and the latest legislation on tobacco control. Obviously, these are two very different constituencies, each of which is looking for very different information. If the American Lung Association uses the same generic voice to address both audiences, and presents the same generic piece of content, then the response to any communications would be low since the message was not customized to the interests of the target audience. The value of targeting is signicant, both from traditional measurements of response rates and from the perspective of building community online. Similar to email, a website should contain elements which attract the attention of the target audience and encourage them to become involved with the organization. The best way to engage website visitors is to offer specic features which help build community. For example, for individuals struggling with the effects of lung disease, the American Lung Associations website offers a message board titled Living with Lung Disease. This community-based forum provides an opportunity for people to share their stories, seek advice, and provide moral support for others who nd themselves in a similar situation. People are passionate about this type of personal interactions and community-based involvement.
visit CAREs life changing projects in-person. Devoted volunteers are able to create and manage their own personal Web pages which can then be used to recruit friends and family to donate, or to encourage people to participate in advocacy campaigns. However, the communication tactics change slightly and are more informal when it comes to CAREs less active supporters. Instead of encouraging people in this group to become actively engaged in the organization, CARE asks less of them. The goal is to try to engage them in a way that encourages them to eventually progress to a higher level of engagement, both online and ofine in CAREs community.
CARE USA is a humanitarian organization ghting global poverty. For more information, visit www. care.org/.
The American Lung Association is the oldest voluntary health organization in the United States. Its mission is to prevent lung disease and promote lung health. For more information, visit www. lungusa.org.
CASE STUDY D
CARE USA In the end, constituents and stakeholders are two different audiences (dened by their level of engagement with an organization), and each group responds to different types of messages. Therefore, it is important to develop unique strategies to build relationships with the members of each group. CARE USA, for example, has a program called CARE Corps, which targets its most engaged supporters and volunteers. In communications with this group, CARE USA employs a very different strategy than mass emails. CARE Corps members are offered a unique opportunity for select groups of CARE supporters to
Remember These Three Things First, targeting does not simply fulll a marketing purpose; rather, it makes your message relevant. Put yourself in the shoes of your constituent: a busy person who works full-time, and receives more email than they want. How is your organization going to capture the attention of these individuals and engage them in a way that compels them to become involved by responding to an email, attending an event, or participating in an online community? One of the most important elements of using online tools to engage your audience and build community is to have a compelling story or value proposition. People are looking for an idea so compelling that it drives them to take action and engage with an online community. Second, when using targeting to build community, choose a specic, focused topic, rather than a very broad, generic statement. The Humane Society of the United States achieved success with a very specic campaign called Petition for Poultry, which focused on the ethical treatment of poultry. People understood the nature of the issue because it was specic, targeted, and timely (launched just before Thanksgiving). This is a great example that demonstrates an organizations ability to think about issues from a constituents point of view. Finally, start planning early and set specic goals. Many advocacy groups are too busy to step back and ask themselves about their goals again: Do they want to increase donations? Engage people and communicate their mission? Educate people? Push a big public policy initiative? Articulating goals that specify why an organization is trying to engage people and build community online is critical to driving success. Regardless of the message, topic, or goals, dont wait one or two years to move your organizing online. Do it now.
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PART IV
Managing Constituent Communications in Elected Ofce

One of the Top Takeways of this publication is that CRM doesnt end on Election Day. If you work in a congressional ofce, then you probably already use some CRM principles. You just call it something different: correspondence management. The authors in this section discuss practical approaches to merge the correspondence management programs you already use with a full-blown CRM system. They argue that building integration and interactivity into your existing correspondence program can help your ofce handle constituent mail and build better relationships with your voters.
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CHAPTER 22
Turning Problems into Opportunities: Why CRM Makes Congressional Ofces Proactive
JEFF MASCOTT
ADFERO GROUP
right direction, but the newer systems have been built with the older (and archaic) mentality, when the vast majority of inbound communications to Congress occurred ofine through personal letters, faxes, postcard campaigns, and phone calls. During the past decade, the way people communicate has changed. While the number of phone calls and faxes to congressional ofces has stayed relatively stable, the number of email communications has exploded, leaving staffers ill-equipped to manage the massive amounts of inbound email.
CMS vs. CRM

In this chapter, CMS refers to correspondent management software, the software tool used by congressional ofces to handle incoming communications, such as email. The problem with the way constituent communications are handled on the Hill is not that members are receiving too much email. Rather, the problem is that they are not recognizing the opportunity to listen to those emails and respond. For example, receiving 50,000 to 75,000 emails in a year, as it occurs in the House, shouldnt be interpreted as a threat or a bother; it should be viewed as a way to build an email list of 50,000 individuals in your district, tagged by the organizations that they are afliated with, the issues that they are interested in, and the specic bills that they care about. And now they can use that information to communicate with these constituents at virtually no cost and with a fraction of the staff time that it takes to send out letters on issues that are very specic to their heart.
When we look at the evolution of technology, a few years can seem like a decade, and a decade can seem like a lifetime. Yet, sometimes even the most hard-working ofces fall back on outdated applications that can actually create more work and are less effective than new systems. This is particularly true of Congressional staff and CRM systems. Think about the thousands of emails, phone calls, faxes, and pieces of snail mail that each congressional ofce receives on a daily basis not to mention the amount of messages sent to constituents from the ofce. These form an unceasing deluge of constituent communications that pile up, and, even in the most diligent ofces, go unsorted or unanswered. With each communication, one opportunity to respond effectively to a constituent is lost.
Adfero Group is a strategic public affairs rm that provides innovative online and ofine programs and campaigns for high-prole interest groups, associations, and elected ofcials. For more information, visit www.adferogroup.com.
The ideal solution appears to be a good CRM system, and yet congressional ofces have yet to adopt a complete CRM program. In fact, the platform that Congress currently uses to handle constituent communications was designed a decade ago, in the early to mid-90s. Those early programs required a software program that had to be loaded onto an ofce computer. A decade later, many ofces have moved to web-based correspondent management systems (CMS), which is a step in the
The problem with the way constituent communications are handled on the Hill is not that members are receiving too much email. Rather, the problem is that they are not recognizing the opportunity to listen to those emails and respond.
The Problem: Too Much Email, Too Little Technology Most members of congress in fact do not have a
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public email account, but they do receive electronic communications through forms either on their own Websites or the ofcial House of Representatives Website. The benets of using a web form are twofold. First, it prevents spam messages. Second, it ensures that all inbound electronic communications are received by constituents from the state or district that their member represents. Third, the member is able to collect a physical address location, which gives the ofce to respond through either email or postal mail. But even when ofces use these web forms, they still feel overwhelmed. The fact is, congressional ofces do not have the software tools to manage the explosion of inbound electronic communications from their constituents. Congressional ofces still use a software tool called Correspondence Management Systems (CMS) to process all incoming communications from constituents and respond. These CMS systems, designed before the advent of the Internet and email, were primarily used to respond to inbound postal communications, whether a handwritten letter or a postcard campaign, with postal letters. Only recently have these platforms been modied to handle email. Unfortunately, they do not handle email in an intelligent, elegant manner. Since email is so easy for constituents to send, staffers now have to respond to a great deal more mail. The software packages they use do not have sophisticated tools for staffers to organize and respond to the increased amount of incoming communications. Most email into congress comes by way of an effort by an organization, advocacy group, or movement. However, staffers do not have a way to determine that, for example, 35 emails today came from members of the American Dental Association. Collecting this information will allow them to determine dentists in their district. Likewise, there are no good sharing mechanisms among ofces, so that if one ofce detects a new in-bound email, that email can be posted on a public system that shares information with other ofces about who is behind the email and what the email is about. Yet, this is exactly the thing that congressional ofces should be doing: tracking patterns, collecting data about individuals, and responding individually. Staffers were overwhelmed. As a result, House Information Resources (HIR), a group that is responsible for implementing technology solutions on the Hill, developed a way to manage constituent communications by curbing the number of emails sent from groups through an outside website (i.e., the website of an advocacy group or organization, not the website of a representative). They wanted these groups to direct their members to the web form on each congressmans site. When a constituent sends an email through a congressional Website, he or she must ll out a Web form, which is
designed to lter out non-constituents. The email then gets sent into Outlook, and the platform scans Outlook and pulls the information form out. However, these platforms do not posses an articial intelligence system, as most corporate CRM platforms do, that scans email content and nds patterns within a stream of emails for example, several emails that have the same rst sentence or it talk about HR-123 or that mention partial birth abortions.
Why is email important?

Consider the following research from the Congressional Management Foundation: Congress received four times more communications in 2004 than 1995 due to Internetbased communications, like email. In 2004, this means a total of 200,388,993 different communications. Of this, the House received about ten times more online communications than letters (99,053,399 online compared to 10,400,000 letters. The same is true of the senate (83,000,000 online compared to 7,935,594 letters). Eventually, HIR decided that they would add a logic puzzle to make sure that individuals were sending the emails. To say that the logic puzzle antagonized the advocacy groups is an understatement. They were enraged, and technology companies that work with these groups rapidly began to develop ways to solve the congressional logic puzzles. John Hlinko, VP of Grassroots Enterprise summarized their disbelief: Whats next, a Survivor style challenge to give your letter to the postman? A guard at the ofce door, asking you the average airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?43 Another wag quipped that it is easier to serve a subpoena on a fugitive than to deliver an email to a Representative. During its rst two weeks on the market, more than 60 members signed up for the service. Yet, at the end of the day, there is no way to prevent these outside groups and their vendors from processing email from legitimate constituents through congressional websites en mass. In fact, all those emails may actually be a gift not a threat or hassle as I will explain a little later. However, sometimes the needs of the staffer (who simply cannot handle the amount of email) differ from those of the elected ofcials they serve. Overall, members of Congress love receiving as 43 Congress Begins Blocking Constituent Emails; New Coalition Launches Campaign to Stop Use of Logic Puzzle Web Forms, U.S. Newswire, June 28, 2006.
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many communications as possible from their constituents. Each communication means more opportunity for them to build relationships. Ideally, email should be a lot easier to respond to than snail mail, since it occurs at the click of a button. Further, a good email system should allow them to build and update their databases and tag individuals each time they attempt to communicate with their elected representatives. All of this is, of course, the ideal scenario. Technology is a wonderful tool, but it is simply too hard to get past the fact that congressional staff are too overwhelmed to take email communications to the next level. They simply do not realize that 90 percent of the work can be done for them. There is a solution.
The Franking Commission

Any congressional letter campaign over 499 pieces of mail with the same topic has to be sent to the Franking Commission for approval. So, for example if after a oor vote, a member of Congress wants to send out a mailing to the 1,200 people who are interested in immigration issues, then he or she has to obtain approval from the franking committee. The same is true if that same ofce wants to send out a mailing to all the seniors in the district. The franking committee looks at all the details, such as measuring the size of photographs in the mailing and how often the members name is used. The franking committee comprises both Republicans and Democrats, and both sides have to approve each mailing. For more information, visit http://cha. house.gov/services/franking_commission. htm. The Solution: Using CRM to Communicate More Effectively Congressional ofces need a system that allows them to plan ahead and sort and respond to constituent communications intuitively. Many aspects of a good constituent relationship management system can help if you know how to use them. 1. Gather Communications Currently, no one solution helps congressional staffers effectively handle the massive amount of inbound email they receive. Why? Most systems lack automation a valuable way to cut down on time and make the process more effective. Automation is a scary concept for elected ofcials. Many ofces worry that automating corre-
spondence management will make it sloppy. For example, they fear a person who emailed with a line about treating people like animals is actually sent an email response that addresses the issue of animal testing and not the prisoner abuse concerns they wrote in about. The stakes are higher for a member of Congress or the Senate than they are for a business. When a member of congress responds incorrectly, there is a chance that it may end up as a letter to the editor in the local newspaper. Automation does not mean that responses are sent out without at the very least a staffer checking the inbound communication and the response to make sure it is appropriate. How does it work? Automated systems 1. Scan inbound email. When an ofce receives email, the system scans the subject line and body for key words and phrases. For example, all the emails that contain the phrase oil tax are sorted into one pile. Scanning can also help congressional ofces detect trends in email writing, such as when an organized advocacy groups asks its members to contact your ofce about an issue. 2. Make assumptions about the nature of the email. Based on data collected over time through the scanning process, the system makes assumption about the nature of an email. For example, if an email contains the phrase vote no on oil tax. 3. Suggest a follow-up or response. This includes the method of contact, such as a letter or email, and the content of that communication. For example, the National Association of Coffee Growers urges its constituents to contact their members of congress about a bill that affects coffee growing. Even though hundreds of people write letters, most contain a similar phrase I urge you to vote for H.R. 11, the coffee growing bill. Once the rst email from a member of NACG comes in, the staffer tags it for the phrase, the issue, and the name of the bill. All future emails with that phrase generate the same follow-up or response. 2. Build a Database with Granular Information The current CMS system uses one linear, nonhierarchical set of tags called afliations. However, constituent correspondence comes in many different forms, and the constituents who write those letters are just as unique. Simply tagging all keywords as afliations doesnt cover the detail or nuance of most communications. Congressional ofces need a system that allow s them to organize inbound communications using four different types of tags:
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Issue What is this constituent writing about? This category is hierarchical, so that if someone writes a letter that is pro estate tax cuts, she receives a reply about estate tax cuts. The system also tags her to receive future email about tax relief in general, but because estate taxes are such a specic issue, she will not receive future email about capitol gains tax. Bills Is this email for or against the issue or bill? Emails should be tagged very specically, for example either pro H.R. 123 or against H.R. 123. There should never be one big pro pile and another big against pile. This way, your ofce can follow up with a specic response and send out very specic communications everyday there is a vote. Organization Does the sender belong to an organization? This is important because you can learn a lot about the individual based on which group he or she belongs to. For example, if you know someone is a social conservative or a member of an environmental group, then you have a better chance of sending out targeted communications in the future. Afliations Who is the writer? This category is also hierarchical. For example, if you have a category for teachers, then you need subcategories for elementary teachers, secondary teachers, special education teachers, etc. This way, communications can be sent out to subcategories or to the whole group. An email about secondary education probably shouldnt be sent to an elementary school teacher. However, both elementary and secondary teachers can receive general email about education.
spond faster and more efciently to most of their letter writers, since most people now communicate with their representatives online. Further, email will offer congressional ofces the opportunity to communicate with their constituents about an issue before they hear it anywhere else. At the beginning of each week, a staffer should be able to look at all the bills going to the oor and ag four or ve bills that they can legitimately use to update their constituents. An ofce could ag two suspension bills on a Tuesday, one bill on Wednesday, and then the members own big bill on Thursday. Instead of being trapped in the 48-hour process of drafting a two-page letter, they can draft two- to three- sentence emails, such as, I just left the oor 15 minutes ago, where I voted yes on HR 123. Knowing of your interest in the issue, I wanted you to be the rst to know. Which is more effective: receiving an email that says, I just got off the oor 15 minutes ago and wanted you to be the rst to know, or eventually receiving a piece of mail a week-and-a-half after the fact? Actually, members should use both, but they should do so strategically. Email does have one downside: it is not printed on ofcial, creamcolored paper with a seal on top. Every representative has learned to seize any opportunity to use ofcial stationary, and there is still some benet to mailing a letter directly to someones house. At the same time, they can also send a full-color email that looks like it is ofcial stationery with the seal at the top and the members name in Times New Roman font. Email seems to work best for two or three short messages a week. Snail mail seems to work best for longer, rarer communications.
3. Proactively Send Out Communications Typically, congressional ofces send out mail based on a vote the member cast. Without strategically planning constituent mail, the staff will say, The big vote was today, so we have to send a letter to everybody who contacted us about it. It takes about 48 hours for the legislative assistant to draft email text and get it approved. It passes through three rounds of edits, and doesnt receive approval for two to three days after the vote. And thats just the beginning. It takes the ofce another 48 hours to print all 1,200 letters, stuff the envelopes, and post it, which means the constituents do not receive that mail until a week-and-a-half after the vote. By then it is old news. People are already talking about the next big thing. However, using a constituent management system and emails, members theoretically can re-
Which is more effective: receiving an email that says, I just got off the oor 15 minutes ago and wanted you to be the rst to know, or eventually receiving a piece of mail a week-and-a-half after the fact?
Simple relationship management steps like these represent just two of the many possibilities that elected ofcials can employ to build support amongst their base while in ofce and gain loyalty before the election season commences.
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Best Practices for Using CRM in Elected Ofce

1. Paperless workow and assignment roles. One of the promises of the 21st century has been the paperless ofce. This vision of a completely electronic infrastructure has perhaps been forgotten, but it is a feature of a CRM platform that can greatly increase the efciency of a members constituent mail and casework program. Specically, a CRM platform provides a workow for all tasks and staffers then have their various roles. CRM can provide automation in this workow with assignment rules, for instance, that allow a letter to be drafted, approved, printed and sent by different staffers without needing any paper printouts. Automation Extending on this principle, all kinds of automation can be provided by a CRM program. For instance, a CRM program can provide greater functionality to process inbound emails quickly and efciently. It can also recognize the bulk receipt of emails through a messaging platform and automatically batch the responses and recommend a form letter reply. Furthermore, rules based on keywords or phrases can be used to lter inbounds or automatically reply to a known message appropriately without any burden on staffers to process and identify the incoming form. This level of automation also allows ofces to provide additional communications that they would not otherwise be bothered. For instance, a rule can be created to automatically send a follow-up to every legislative correspondence. This follow-up form would be schedule to send 2 weeks after the closed response and include additional information related to their issue of concern. Likewise, rules can be created that monitor legislative action to automatically provide a brief update to a constituent on any actions taken on bills they have previously expressed interest in. Read all the channels. Another best practice that can be adopted through a CRM platforms exibility is going further than just processing mail and casework in building out your constituents proles. The Internet provides a multitude of avenues of communication and opinion making. A comprehensive view of a constituent would not only include the communications with a members ofce, but also any public comment or discussion on the Internet. This holistic approach only further enhances CRMs prowess in a proactive messaging role.
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CHAPTER 23
The basic personality of the Internet is interactive.

What is an interactive relationship? It is basically a two-way relationship and a give and take of information and content. The sender or elected ofcial must have the ability to receive information, and interactions from the receiver or constituent. And the receiver must be able to send back some form of action through the platform in use. For this relationship to be effective, the constituent must be recognized in the members delivery system and database as a person with a validated name and email address. For most elected ofcials, the primary basis of identity and validation is that the constituent is a registered voter. The prevailing attitude today is that only registered voters count because only they can make the difference in elections. However, there are a few congressional members who believe that all constituents are equally important regardless of whether or not they vote, and accordingly, those members will attempt to communicate with as many constituents as possible regardless of whether they vote or not. Email e-newsletters have been the key to the breakthroughs in this new and dynamic stage of active interaction. Every email e-newsletter that is mailed out through an enterprise-based software system, such as iConstituents Gateway, will carry a tag such as an XML code that allows everyone receiving the enewsletter to have a separate and identiable uniqueness within the database of the software system for each e-newsletter. This enables the software to keep track of every interaction with that particular recipient of the e-newsletter. As a result, any click-throughs or surveys are easily tabulated and recorded. Although some skeptics are worried about privacy, there is strong evidence that constituents are profoundly supportive and want their elected ofcials to know them and to know how they feel about the issues. Surveys are the Killer App of e-newsletter communication, and dynamic Internet-based surveys are the foundation of Interactive Democracy. The excitement about surveys is based on the incredibly high survey response rates and the speed with which they can be delivered. iConstituent generates between 25% 60% survey response rates (these are percentage-based on open rates or the views of the e-newsletters.). One congressman emailed a welcome letter to launch his service with numerous surveys to 40,000 constituents. Within three hours of mailing, more than 4,000 constituents lled out the surveys, followed by a continuing response for the next few days until the total was almost 60% or 6000 of those constituents who opened the e-newsletter. Sixteen percent of the
Interactive Democracy
STUART S. SHAPIRO
ICONSTITUENT
The Internet has forever changed the paradigm of representative government. For more than 200 years, the citizens of America have focused on election cycles to produce their representative governments. Now with the advancement of technology, the universal acceptance of email as a primary means of communication and the penetration of high speed Internet access, the advent of interactive constituent communication with our elected ofcials will usher in a new form of democracy: Interactive Democracy.
iConstituent provides ecommunications technology for State and Federal ofce holders. For more information, visit www.iconstituent.com.
The basic personality of the Internet is interactive. The Internet was built for people to communicate with each other in real time. A broadcaster or mailer of content has only to wait for their recipient to click on a link or an image and interactive networking begins. In the old days of legacy communication methods, a constituent could only call, write, or visit the ofce of the member. Then, the constituent would most likely receive a response by letter from the member within a month or longer. Although most congressional ofces still mail out Franking approved postal letters, printed yers, and newsletters a few times a year to the registered voters in their districts, this format and practice is on the wane. And yes, there have been town hall meetings forever and constituents can always visit a regional or Washington, DC ofce. But, before Web 2.0, our elected ofcials had no opportunity to create active, two way dynamic relationships with constituents without direct personal contact.
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deliverable addresses or almost 11,000 constituents opened the e-newsletter. Surveys consistently exceed the click through rates of other web based information. It is important that these surveys are in real-time and that the speed of response is so fast that an elected ofcial can send out an email with a survey to nd out how constituents feel about an issue and have the answers within minutes. In addition, these surveys are from voters and are more scientic because members know who is lling out each response and where they are located in the district. The average U.S. House of Representatives district contains about 600,000- 700,000 constituents of whom, approximately half or 350,000 are registered voters. The average primary registers about 55,000 voters and only 50% of the registered voters show up to vote in a general election.
Did you know?

The average U.S. House of Representatives district contains about 600,000- 700,000 constituents of whom, approximately half or 350,000 are registered voters. The average mailing of congressional members e-newsletter is sent to about 40,000 50,000 constituents, and of those, about 5,000 7,500 opt in to continue to receive communications regularly. Currently, some ofces have between 10,000 15,000 opted-in constituents and the goal of many ofces for 2007 is to build their opt-in lists to 20,000 constituents. While average open rates of a mass email e-newsletter are 7% 15%, the average open rates of an email e-newsletter mailed only to an all opt-in list are 25% 50%, and the average survey response rates are 25% of opens. These statistics are based on a single mailing. Over four or more mailings, the total number of constituents who are being contacted and are responding tends to be double that of a single mailing.
generate response rates in the 50,000 100,000 range. Compare these numbers to how many constituents vote: 52,000 in congressional district primary, 150,000-200,000 or approximately 50% of the registered voters in general elections. This is when it starts to get really exciting! What happens when more people ll out a realtime survey than actually vote in a general election? What happens when a majority of congressional members constituency supports an issue that the member does not agree with? What happens is that Interactive Democracy might control the vote and the elected ofcial might represent his or her constituency according to its survey will. At that point the electronic representative power of government through interactive real time technology will come of age! Remember, it is the legislation and laws that pass through our representative branches that are the primary governing and inuencing factors in our life. Yes, we elect our government every couple of years. But it is the legislation and laws that are passed that affect our lives. It is inevitable that new forms of voting using the Internet will emerge in the next decade as the time and access to voting is expanded. However, it is the communication bond between the politicians once elected and their individual constituents that will be the foundation of real-time Interactive Democracy.
The communication bond between the politicians once elected and their individual constituents that will be the foundation of real-time Interactive Democracy.
In the new web world, an individual citizens right to voice an opinion will carry a new ability to directly inuence the outcome of legislation and then, hopefully, citizens and registered voters will become increasingly better informed on policy issues facing them. In addition to e-newsletters and their embedded surveys, there are now many emerging platforms and tools that are expanding the universe of Interactive Democracy in Congress. iTown Hall Telephone Meetings have recently shown excellent results by connecting with hundreds of constituents through a live hour long teleconference with a congressional member. During these interactive conferences, constituents can ask the host questions directly and participate in live interactive
The average open rates of an email e-newsletter mailed only to an all opt-in list are 25% 50%, and the average survey response rates are 25% It is important to remember that these gures represent only the early years of this technological communication revolution. Within six years it is plausible that the average congressional e-newsletter will successfully reach a view rate of 150,000 constituents, have more than 50,000 opted-in constituents, and surveys will consistently
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surveys. The conferences can also be recorded and posted on the website for future listening. These interactive Telephone Town Hall Meetings or iTown Halls are like radio call-in shows, when constituents also get to speak directly to the member, ask questions and have real time dialogue. In the current 110th Congress, because of the extended work schedule, telephone conferencing with constituents back home will be increasingly more popular and effective in outreach. Again, technology has enabled Interactive Democracy. SMS, or mobile phone short text messages, can reach new constituencies and are an excellent means of instant alerts when a member is on TV or holding a conference. Perhaps the most important use of SMS is the ability to opt-in constituents on impulse using their mobile phones instead of a computer. In the near future, ofces will post the short code and keywords (Members name) in all printed material and in district ofces. Podcasting is just starting to take off and will soon develop embedded surveys and various new forms for interactivity. Podcasts are like a personal Internet digital recorder and playback application and aggregator of content. You can download your audio/video content and listen to or view it wherever you want. Ipods will become so connected and powerful that we will just carry them around with us to time shift what we want to watch and play on our High Denition computer/TV at screens. This election cycle will be the breakthrough of podcasting for distributing political commercials. RSS feeds, which are integrated into podcasting and numerous other forms of content, are another excellent example of connected interactivity, allowing the user to choose and control what media to watch and listen to as soon as it gets published. Soon podcasts, web videos, RSS feeds will all have responsive surveys embedded in the content so that the constituents can communicate their values and impressions in a dynamic real-time environment, further building the new foundations of Interactive Democracy. Blogs are another excellent example of interactive media and publishing. However, most elected ofcials are afraid to participate actively in the commenting and interactive forum aspect of blogs, and choose to mostly post and publish without commenting in real time. Blogs can add a more personal touch to communication with a constituency and hopefully will become more widely used once members get more comfortable with the process. The opt-in process is fundamental to enacting a real time interactive bond. The receiver or constituent must take the afrmative action by saying: yes, I want to receive these email newsletters. Once this bonded relationship is started, then the vested interactive process starts to ourish for both parties. Both
sides take each other more seriously and the rewards are obvious in numerous ways. The open rates grow substantially, the trust between both parties ourishes, and the understanding of issues and positions reects an honest relationship which will ultimately lead to greater success for the elected ofcial at the polls thereby producing long term incumbency protection.
The opt-in process is fundamental to enacting a real time interactive bond. The receiver or constituent must take the afrmative action by saying: yes, I want to receive these email newsletters.
Good government crosses party lines and closes the differences between issues. These new forms of communication technologies enable this unique relationship to grow like never before in the history of democracy. In the House of Representatives, the opted-in constituent takes on uniquely important role. In 2003, Congress ruled that as long as a constituent has opted-in to receiving electronic or other forms of communication using the proper language and forms, then the member has the right to communicate with that constituent without any blackout before an election. Note that 90 days prior to an election or primary, a member of Congress may not use taxpayers dollars to send out mail or contact them unless they have chosen to opt into correspondence by requesting to be signed up to a e-newsletter or other forms of constituent communication. These guidelines are generally controlled through the Franking Commission, which regulates congressional constituent contact. When the House allowed opted-in email to continue through this otherwise prohibited period, they ushered in the new electronic and Internet era of Congress and its constituencies. This was the beginning stages of Interactive Democracy. In the not too distant future, a congressional opted-in list will exceed 150,000 constituents. At that point the democratic process integrated into the congressional constituent contact systems will generate a representative and responsive form of government that will resonate one man, one woman, one vote in real-time and all the time. At that tipping point, a congressional members survey might generate 100,000 responses on an issue in less than two hours. Whether Democratic or
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Republican or pro or con an issue, if 100,000 constituents tell their member of Congress: Vote yes on Bill 101, that would be the tipping point of representative real time Interactive Democracy! Its not far away. It will take on many forms of communication systems, many different platforms, and new tools and tags every year. However, the dening foundation will be real-time interactive dynamic Democracy: a bonded relationship between elected ofcial and constituent. At that moment in time, democracy will take on a new form power in the hand of the constituent, and democracy will empower the constituent base of our great United States in a way that our founding fathers envisioned would be the representative republican democratic democracy in a pure form, empowered through the riches of technology.
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CHAPTER 24
3.
Finding the Ideal CRM Program for Members of Congress

KEN WARD AND NICK SCHAPER
ADFERO GROUP
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On Capitol Hill, ofces have always placed a strong emphasis on the services they provide to their constituents. It is constituents, after all, who turn out on Election Day to re-elect them. Efciently handling legislative mail and casework requests is the foundation of the services that congressional ofces provide. Good services equal job security. Ofces all have varying procedures and goals for the response and turn around time for these communications and to assist in organization, most utilize a software tool referred to as Correspondence Management Software (CMS). Unfortunately, the process oftentimes is insulated and far removed from the daily legislative business. Constituent Relationship Management (CRM) promises to streamline the process if you know how to use it. A good CRM program for congressional ofces should accomplish each of the tasks outlined in this chapter. Answering Inbound Communications Inbound communications all the letters and email that accumulate daily and that require a lot of staff time to answer exist at the heart of every congressional ofce. An ideal CRM programs rst role is to make answering those communications easier and less time-consuming. Keep the following principles in mind when developing a CRM program for your ofce: 1. Derive as much information from your inbound communication as possible. All inbound communication needs to be tagged and categorize. For more information on tagging, see chapter 21. Make it easy. Most CMS programs on the Hill are too cumbersome. Sure, they can sort inbound email, but they are neither easy-touse nor fast. Sometimes they can even be ineffective. You need to log inbound com-
munications quickly so that you can answer them quickly. Send individualized responses. Ofces need to send an initial, automatically-generated response by email or snail mail to each piece of correspondence they receive. Those responses should be individualized something that a CRM program can help you manage without creating extra work. Manage the process. Most responses to inbound communications are form letters. Your CRM program needs to make it easy for you to match up your response to the person and topic. Respond often with follow-ups. Dont miss the opportunity to communicate with your constituents. Send follow-up correspondence about the issues they care about.
For example, last week your congressional member made a speech on immigration related to an upcoming vote on the oor. Your ofce was ooded with phone calls, email and letters from people who care deeply about immigration. An ideal CRM program will help your ofce identify form emails, log them, and assign them to receive a form letter. Once the bulk of form emails removed out of the inbox, you can focus on individual constituent responses and tag them appropriately. Which organizations are lobbying on the issue? Are those organizations pro or con immigration? Derive more information about each constituent. Is he pro amnesty, anti amnesty, pro more money for border security, or pro building a big fence along the border? Before the day is out, all of the email is sorted and all have received a response. And you directed people back to your site for more information. Case Work and Constituent Services Handling case work and constituent services well is a good way to build support in your district. 1. Use pre-approved templates for everything. Congressional ofces receive many different requests: question about a federal agency, tours of the Capitol, ag requests, service academy nominations, etc. Each stage of these tasks should be scripted and should follow a similar formula. Automate responses. A good CRM program can prompt the right staffers to take the right actions when handling a case. For example, after 10 or 12 weeks, the program prompts your staffer to call the constituent and let her know that you ofce has not heard back from the agency.
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Follow-up. Let your constituents know that youre still working on their request.
For example, Janet Trilby is a senior who resides in your district. She is having trouble with her social security check. Her monthly check decreased by $200, and shes not sure why. She thinks there is a mistake. Janet tried calling the Social Security ofce, but she still hasnt heard back from them. As a last resort, Janet walks into your district ofce on Wednesday afternoon with her recent check stub and tax documents from the past two years. This is an opportunity for your district ofce to shine and be helpful. The staff assistant greets Janet, assesses the problem, and arranges a meeting that day with the case worker in your ofce, Bill. Janet and Bill have a long talk, and Bill enters all the information he needs about Janets case in your CRM program. Bill can start processing the request on the spot. After Janet leaves, Bill logs a social security agency request in to the database. This automatically prompts two letters: one for the staff assistant to print out and mail to Janet and the other to the agency. Bill lls in the blanks email with Janets information and immediately sends it. Three days later, the CRM program prompts your ofce to send another letter to Janet to tell her that the Congressional ofce submitted her appeal to the social security administration. The letter tells Janet to expect news in four to six weeks. A month later, when Bill hears that Janets check reduction was in error and that the full amount would be restored and reimbursed, he calls Janet and tells her the good news. The case worker closes the case with a favorable outcome. This triggers a message two weeks later thanking Janet for coming to your ofce and expressing how glad you are that her request was successfully fullled. Media and Press Sure, CRM can manage constituent communications, but did you know that it can also help your media outreach? Before you buy a system, however, you may need to change the way you look at managing your press contacts. Keep the following principles in mind. 1. Allow the press contacts to determine their preferred method of delivery. Do they prefer to subscribe to your media releases by RSS feed, fax, or daily email? Categorize members of your press list by their beat. Do they cover national news, district news, television, or print? Generate reports. Reports will help you determine successful and unsuccessful pitches.
For example, your congressional member is about to hold a press conference about campaign nance. Who do you contact rst? A CRM program will help you generate a list that includes the right mix of media everyone from the reporter who covers the government reform beat at the Washington Post to the reporter who proles mavericks on the Hill to bloggers who write about campaign nance issues. Your CRM program can also help you generate a secondary list of third party surrogates: associations and advocacy groups, like Common Cause, that have a hat in the ring. You want to keep them informed about what you are doing and develop relationships with them. You probably want to generate two different emails to both of these groups. Members of your press list can receive a simple announcement. However, you might consider sending talking points to the members of your third party list. Proactive Communication This chapter isnt just about using CRM to answer and send email. CRM isnt just a quick x: its also an effectively tool to help you develop long-term communications strategy. 1. Plan your communications program for the week ahead or the month. or even the entire Congressional session. This includes: a. Identifying targets (based on district, what your boss wants to communicate, what the party is trying to do, things you are identifying among your constituents). b. Drafting messages that can be used down the road. Make your communications concise. The shorter your emails, the better. Your constituents probably do not have a lot of time to scroll through an entire issue paper. Use your online communications to introduce an issue, and then send people back to your website for more information. Or inform them about a bill they care about and ask them to take a survey about the issue on your website.
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At your weekly staff meeting, you determine that the big bill for the week is about transportation authorization. You talk about potential targets, and you decide that since the transportation bill deals with highway funding, airports, and Homeland Security, you want to target people who care about roads and safety, commuters, people who are frustrated with airline delays, and people who care about security. You probably also want to target the members of your
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constituency who work transportation. You ask your legislative assistant to draft three brief emails that cater to each of those audiences. Each of those emails will link to the oor schedule for this week, the members most recent press release, an issue paper, and a survey. Your ofce sends an initial email, letting your constituents know about the upcoming vote. At the end of the week, your ofce sends a follow-up email, telling them how the vote went.
Additional Data Collection Before congressional ofces can begin to develop more effective constituent communications strategies, however, they must tackle one obstacle which will grow rapidly in importance over the course of the next few years: the list. How do ofces know who to email, who to snail mail, and which topics to discuss? 1. Ask questions. Today, websites have become one of the large frames through which people interact with their elected of-
The 90-Day Plan for Your Congressional CRM Program

Weeks 1 4: Evaluate Evaluate your current CMS strengths and weaknesses. Determine the total number of constituents, email addresses and opt-in subscribers in your database. Examine your budget. Integrating multiple platforms may require extra funds. Educate both DC and district staff regarding the CRM philosophy. List the activities you currently track in your CMS. Aggregate a report of your previous unsolicited activities. Review your websites trafc (visits and pageloads). Examine your current IT infrastructure. Evaluate current organizational hierarchy and needs for staffers. Weeks 5 8: Plan Identify targets for communications and construct outreach strategy. Discuss new media strategies like blogging to engage your constituents. Identify the top four priorities/issues for the ofce to coordinate on this year. Discuss any ofine activities (like town halls) that you want to track. Restructure your staff workow for mail, casework and outbound messaging. Clean up your current database and afliations. Plan out what metrics you want to monitor.
Weeks 9 12: Implement Map out activity templates for casework and district ofces. Implement new approval workows. Set reasonable goals for the turnaround of mail AND the growth of your opt-in list. Engage constituents with a wide range of issue surveys. Set up procedures for regular reporting on your metric with an eye towards modifying tactics to achieve your goals. Begin targeted emails engaging constituents on weekly topics.
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cials. Go where the people are. Ask your visitors what they think on your website. Send newsletters. Want to generate more list signups? Give people something in return updates about the issues they care about. Find an integrated system. An integrated system automatically updates your website after people ll out a form or take a survey on your website. This lets you know whos responding in real time. The same is true with newsletters. When someone signs up to receive a newsletter, his or her information is automatically updated in your database, which instantly generates an email back to the constituent thanking him or her for signing up and encouraging him or her to click on a link to ll out a more-detailed survey that collects additional information on the issues they care about.
Both of the above examples seem to suggest that CRM is just for email and newsletters. Actually, email and online communications are just one set of tools that ofces can use to meet a larger goal: building relationships with constituents. An effective CRM tool will also allow staffers to generate an email three days after someone signs up for the enewsletter list that says, I just wanted to follow up with you in case you have not visited my website. I wanted you to know about all the services my ofce can provide for you. Click here and learn more about how we can y ags over the Capitol, or how you can contact my constituent services ofce in the district if you have any trouble. A week later, the system can generate another email that says, In case you or your family member or somebody in your neighborhood is having trouble with any agencies in the federal government, click here to learn who the staff person is that you can call to help facilitate the process of getting something done.
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APPENDIX I
Author Biographies
Jocelyn Bowman
CMDI In 2004, Jocelyn Bowman joined CMDIs team of dedicated professionals who support political and nonprot fundraising campaigns with data management systems and data processing services. With a background in corporate strategy, Jocelyn works closely with her clients to understand their overall goals, and she partners with them to ensure that their messages reach the intended audience.
in the US-Japan Leadership program and done economic development work in West Africa. Mr. Burton has testied several times before Congress and has lectured widely in the US, Europe, Asia and Latin America. He holds an MA in political economy from Columbia University, a BA from the University of Pennsylvania and a Diplome de Langue et Civilisation Francasies from the Sorbonne. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Mr. Burton has edited three books, including Vision for the 1990s: US Strategy and the Global Economy, and written numerous articles on technology policy and competitiveness, which have appeared in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The New York Times, The Washington Quarterly, Scientic American and Issues in Science and Technology.
Bobby Clark
Deputy Director, ProgressNow Action Bobby Clark currently serves as Deputy Director of ProgressNow Action, a rst-of-its-kind state-based advocacy network. ProgressNow has played a major role in changing the political landscape in Colorado and has created a national model for grassroots network development and alternative media strategies. As one of the earliest staff members of Howard Deans presidential campaign, Bobby helped pioneer the campaigns groundbreaking Internet outreach and fundraising programs that raised a record $25 Million online in fourteen months. Prior to joining Dean for America, Bobby worked as a marketing executive, helping to start Internet companies in Colorado and California. He moved to the political arena in the 2002 election cycle, serving as Deputy Campaign Manager for Colorados Election-Day Voter Registration Initiative. Bobby has consulted with political campaigns and nonprots across the country, helping them utilize the Internet more effectively to build their base of supporters and engage those supporters more effectively for outreach and fundraising.
Daniel Bennett
Practitioner-in-Residence, Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet Daniel Bennett founded DotGov Communications, the rst private webhosters for Members of Congress. He set up the rst federal legislative branch RSS feed. He previously was president of the House Systems Administrators Association, co-chair of the Legislative Documents Technical Committee of OASIS/LegalXML and winner of the Federal Computer Weeks Fed 100 Winner in 2000. Daniel was Technology Liaison for Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, representative from Californias Silicon Valley. He is a writer on technology and politics, including co-writer of The Net Effect: How Cyberadvocacy is Changing the Political Landscape and was a columnist for The Cloakroom, a web site for the National Journal. Daniel Bennett received a BA degree from Hampshire College, Amherst, MA.
Daniel F. Burton, Jr.

Senior Vice President of Global Public Policy, SalesForce.com Mr. Burton has played a leadership role in the development of US technology policy for over twenty years. Prior to joining salesforce.com in January 2006, he was Vice President of Government Affairs for Entrust (2000-2005) and Vice President for Government Relations for Novell (1995-2000), where he handled such issues as Internet security, online privacy, intellectual property, appropriations, education and R&D. Previously, he was President of the Council on Competitiveness where he was a pioneer in the effort to establish appropriate government technology policies for the US high-tech industry. Before joining the Council, Mr. Burton was the Executive Director of the Economic Policy Council of the United Nations Association-USA. He has also served as a Fellow
Peter Churchill
Associate Director of CRM and Outreach Technology, Center for American Progress Peter Churchill is the Associate Director of CRM and Outreach Technology at the Center for American Progress. Prior to joining the Center, Peter spent three months as a database analyst at the Webb for Senate Campaign in Virginia, having graduated this summer with a Masters Degree in Political Management from GWs Graduate School of Political Management. While studying, Peter also worked at the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet, where he successfully managed the 2006 Politics Online Conference. Peter originally hails from the UK,
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where he spent nearly ten years working in Europe and the USA designing and building contact management solutions for the corporate sector.
Kendra Ann Crowley

Kendra Ann Crowley began her political work experience as an undergraduate student at the George Washington University. In September of 2000 she began interning at The National Network for Youth, a national non-prot and non-partisan advocacy group located in Washington DC. She then served as an intern from January to August of 2001 in the legislation department at Common Cause, a membership organization that works towards a more open and accountable government and was part of a successful effort to pass the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002. In September of 2001 she was hired as a member of the full-time Common Cause staff and worked as the program operations assistant until January of 2002. Following her tenure at Common Cause she continued her work on Campaign Finance Reform on Capitol Hill in the ofce of Representative Christopher Shays (R-4th/CT), a co-sponsor of the BCRA legislation. Upon graduation from the George Washington University, Kendra moved to Lewiston Maine to serve on the eld team of Chellie Pingrees campaign for the Senate in 2002. Kendra was the volunteer coordinator and get out the vote coordinator for the 13 precincts in the towns of Lewiston and Auburn Maine. Upon returning to DC she began work at the Alliance for Better Campaigns, a public interest group working on various media reform issues. Kendra was the Program Assistant at the Alliance for Better Campaigns until she returned to the George Washington University to pursue a Master of Arts in the Graduate School of Political Management. She is expected to graduate in July of 2007. She also holds a Graduate Certicate in Public Health Policy from the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services.
Committee in 1988 and as Deputy Counsel to the Carter/Mondale Presidential Committee in 1980. She received an M.Litt in History from Christs College, Cambridge University, and a J.D. and a B.A. from the University of Memphis. She is a member of the Adjunct Faculty of The Graduate School of Political Management of the George Washington University.
Catherine Geanuracos
Data Analysis Consultant Catherine Geanuracos is a voter le data management and analysis consultant. During 2006, she worked to nd drop-off Democrats and supportive independents in more than 60 competitive Senate and House races for MoveOn.org Political Actions Call for Change campaign, helping to build a program that mobilized progressive volunteers to make more than 7 million phone calls. As part of Grassroots Campaigns, Inc., she also helped design and manage the eld programs for Call for Change and Operation Democracy. She began her work in progressive politics in 2004, when she took leave from a public health research position at the University of California, San Francisco to manage precinct and voter targeting for MoveOns 17-state Leave No Voter Behind program. Between elections she helped launch www.MomsRising.org and worked with Mainstreet Moms Leave My Child Alone. Shes worked with dotOrganize to help develop technical solutions that support social change, and her interests include GIS mapping and academic analysis of progressive political initiatives. Shes a graduate of Columbia College at Columbia University and the University of California, Berkeley and is currently based in Los Angeles.
David Geilhufe
Managing Partner, CivicSpace Born and raised in Silicon Valley, David Geilhufe has been in and out of nonprots, open source, technology and the private sector throughout his career. He has founded non prots and open source projects, developed venture-funded enterprise software systems, and mentored at-risk youth into high-tech employment.
Carol Darr
Director, Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet Carol Darr is the director of the Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet, whose mission of the Institute is to promote the development of U.S. online politics in a manner that upholds democratic values and increases citizen participation. Carol Darr has spent most of her career in national politics and government. During the ClintonGore Administration she served as the Acting General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Commerce. She served as the General Counsel to the Democratic National Committee in the 1992 election. She has worked in a number of presidential campaigns, including as Chief Counsel to the Dukakis/Bentsen
Julie Barko Germany

Deputy Director, Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet Julie Germany serves as the deputy director of the Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet at The George Washington Universitys Graduate School of Political Management. Julie is the principal author and editor of several publications, including Person-to-Person-to-Person: Harnessing the Political Power of Online Social Networks and User-Generated Content, as well as The
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Politics-to-Go-Handbook: A Guide to Using Mobile Technology in Politics and The Political Consultants Online Fundraising Primer. She co-authored Putting Online Inuentials to Work for Your Campaign. She has appeared in national and international newspapers, magazines, and media, including MSNBC, CSPAN, Fox, CBS, and NBC. Julie previously served as the assistant to the president of ROME Foundation International, a nonprot organization dedicated to providing health care in emerging countries. She worked as a writer, editor and program manager for international initiatives in Korea, Ukraine, Haiti and the United States. Julie is a founding board member of Young Champions, a non-prot that addresses youth health issues, and a co-founder of Mobile Monday DC, the local chapter of an international community of mobile technology experts and enthusiasts. As an undergraduate, she studied Literature, Philosophy and Classics at Messiah College. Julie also studied at Keble College, Oxford University, as well as in Edinburgh, Scotland. She was a Pew Younger Scholar of Literature at the University of Notre Dame. She received an M.A. from The George Washington University, where she was a University Fellow.
the integration of the two foremost eCRM software and services vendors within the nonprot sector. In addition, Sheeraz heads the Companys partner program. Under Sheerazs leadership, GetActive become a leading provider of relationship management software for membership organizations. His management of GetActive resulted in the attainment of over 800 clients. Sheeraz is an active member of the Board of Directors for Nonprot Technology Enterprise Network (N-TEN), the ePhilanthropy Foundation, and the Association of Fundraising Professionals - Washington, DC, Chapter. He is an expert presenter at multiple industry events sponsored by such organizations as Politics Online, NTEN, PBS, NPR, National Council for Nonprot Associations, and Association of Fundraising Professionals. Before GetActive, Sheeraz led a product management team at Digital Impact, a provider of online direct marketing solutions for enterprises. He has also worked as a strategy consultant for McKinsey & Company, where he served both nonprot and for-prot organizations. Sheeraz has a BS from Brown University and an MS from Stanford University.
Dave Greenberg
CiviCRM Dave Greenberg has 25 years of experience in the application software, electronic commerce and banking industries. Prior to co-founding CiviCRM, Mr. Greenberg was a senior consultant to Groundspring. org where he lead the product design effort for their online donation and email broadcast services, as well as the customer billing systems. Dave is a co-founder of two successful for-prot ventures. North Tower Technologies provides web application and eCommerce engineering services to a variety of industries. Past clients have included Intel, Hewlett Packard, International Asset Systems, and Redpoint Ventures. Prior to North Tower, Dave co-founded MAXXUS, Inc. in 1985 where he served as Vice President for Product Development (MAXXUS was acquired by Sterling Commerce in 1995). At MAXXUS, he directed the development and delivery of a suite of electronic commerce, EDI and cash management products that were licensed to 400+ banks nationwide for use by their commercial customers. Dave managed the product design, software engineering, quality assurance and professional consulting teams.
David Hannigan
Co-founder, DEMPAC Dave Hannigan served as Field Desk Co-Captain for the Webb campaign. In February 2007, he formed DEMPAC with Webb campaign grassroots leaders to develop an online tool connecting volunteers with local candidates.
Clay Johnson
Founding Partner, Blue State Digital Clay Johnson is a founding partner at Blue State Digital and is responsible for business development at Blue State Digital. He has many years of experience building online communities and has played an integral role at the forefront of Internet technology, including starting and directing three of his own companies. As a college student, Clay founded KnowPost. com, the rst Internet-based knowledge exchange, which connected people who had questions to people who had answers. Clays work at KnowPost included building a community of over 100,000 people who participated in this information exchange. Clays interest in knowledge management also led him to work at Ask Jeeves as their lead syndication engineer. Before starting Blue State Digital, Clay was the lead national software engineer behind the online grassroots organizing technology for Gov. Howard Deans presidential campaign. He built numerous
Sheeraz Haji
President, Convio, Inc. As President of Convio, Inc., former CEO and cofounder of GetActive Software Sheeraz Haji is leading
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software programs, including one that enabled over 300,000 people to write letters and make 50,000 phone calls to undecided voters. Clay has been featured in the New York Times Magazine, TIME, Entrepreneur, Chronicle for Higher Education and USA Today; he has also been interviewed on CNN. He is an advisor for the New Progressive Coalition and is a founder of Georgia for Democracy.
Ian Koski
Founder and Creative Director, On Deck Communications Studio LLC Ian Koski is the founder and creative director of On Deck Communication Studio LLC, a Washington-based political graphic design rm that works with Democratic candidates to create and deploy strong, clear and precise visual identities. As On Decks creative director, Ian builds strategic and creative Internet campaigns and designs highly effective direct mail pieces. Before founding On Deck in 2005, Ian was the director of public policy and communications at The Performance Institute, a nonpartisan think tank that promotes management reform in federal, state, and local government. Ian had previously been a reporter for several newspapers in New York and suburban Philadelphia, writing on a range of topics from politics to schools to crime. Ian holds a bachelors degree in communication from Villanova University and a masters degree in political management from the George Washington University.
Benjamin Katz
Founder/President, CompleteCampaigns.com Ben Katz began his career as a political operative in San Diego. He worked for a variety of campaigns ranging from city council through U.S. Senate. He later founded a political consulting rm offering services in data management, fundraising, compliance reporting and general consulting. He recognized a need for better software that could streamline a campaigns operations. In 2000, Katz started that project and founded CompleteCampaigns.com. Mr. Katz sought to provide tools that would make it easy for every campaign to effectively manage, share and transmit information between campaign staff. The company has grown to serve over 700 clients in nearly every state in the nation, and our services have expanded to include online donation processing, website content management, voter tracking, email hosting, and constituent management products for elected ofcials.
Dave Leichtman
Co-founder, DEMPAC Dave Leichtman is a specialist in online community development and helped manage the Webb campaigns CRM database and other web tools. In February 2007, he formed DEMPAC with Webb campaign grassroots leaders to develop an online tool connecting volunteers with local candidates.
Jonathan Karush
Founder/President, Liberty Concepts Jonathan Karush, Founder and President of Liberty Concepts, the nations leading provider of civic and campaign websites, consults to democratic campaigns and numerous high prole nonprots. Jonathan has consulted to over 75 federal campaigns for strategy and Internet development. As a former editor at the NetElection project, Jonathan has written extensively on the role of the Internet in American elections, and online voting. His article on the Internet and the Future of Democracy awarded him rst prize from Ohio State Universitys national public policy essay competition. Jonathan is a Sagner Fellow and a frequent speaker and correspondent on the Internet in civic life. In 2000, Jonathan co-founded letnaderdebate. org, one of the infamous nader-trader vote swapping websites. In 2003 he received the Golden Dot Award for best congressional campaign site, for Congressman Mike Michaud (ME-02). Jonathan has a B.A. cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania with distinction in political science and is completing his Masters degree at Harvard University.
Jeff Mascott
Managing Director, Adfero Group Jeff is Managing Director of Adfero Group. He specializes in strategy development, as well as the creation of integrated campaigns for clients, including associations, interest groups and Fortune 500 companies. Some of the clients Jeff works closely with include the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, AARP, Mazda, CTIA and NFIB. A frequent speaker and often interviewed expert on the intersection of public affairs and the Internet, Jeffs insights have been featured by the USA Today, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, CNN.com, National Public Radio, and other prominent media outlets. Prior to Adfero, Jeff served as the primary online communications consultant at the House Republican Conference under former Chairman U.S. Rep. J.C. Watts, Jr. He has the distinction of designing the original GOP.gov website praised by The Congressional Management Foundation as pushing the boundaries of what is possible for Congress on the web. Jeff also organized efforts to improve
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online communication between members of the House of Representatives and their constituents. A native of the Washington, D.C. area, Jeff is an alumnus of the University of Maryland. He and his wife, Jenn, reside in the Washington, D.C. area.
Nick holds a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Central Florida, where he also studied computer science and marketing. Nick is an avid angler and lives with his wife, Callie, on Capitol Hill. He is originally from Orlando, Florida.
Christopher Massicotte
Director of Sales and Marketing, NGP Software, Inc. Christopher has an extensive business and political background. He has a degree in Accounting from Villanova University and a Masters degree in Government Administration from the University of Pennsylvania. Christopher worked as an Information Systems auditor at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP where he was involved in the implementation of the ERP solution SAP at a Fortune 500 company. He then fullled the role of IT Auditor at the University of Pennsylvania where he concentrated on improving the protection of private information of patients at the Universitys ve hospitals and for the Universitys student body. Chris became more deeply involved in politics in 2002 serving as a campaign treasurer and fundraiser for a state representative, and as a volunteer eld director on Pennsylvania Governor Rendells 2002 campaign. Just prior to joining NGP Software as the Director of Sales and Marketing in 2005, Christopher served as Finance Director for Congressman Rush Holt (D-NJ).
Stuart Shapiro
President, iConstituent Stuart Shapiro is President of iConstituent, (iconstituent.com), the leading provider of e-communications technology to elected ofcials throughout the country, including members of Congress and state legislatures. The Company provides a comprehensive suite of solutions and software for mass email communications, websites, data, iTownHall telephone meetings, and SMS text messaging, for the House of Representatives, the Senate and numerous other state legislatures, elected ofcials and politicians. Mr. Shapiro is one of the pioneers of constituent ecommunications and one of the rst to use Email as a form of mass marketing constituent communication for elected ofcials. Mr. Shapiro is a founder of several Internet communication ventures, including, AskDrMao.com, Woodstock.com and Firstlook.com. In 2000, with cofounders Danny Goldberg and Todd Rundgren, Mr. Shapiro launched ArtistEnt and Patronet, one of the rst Internet artist music subscription services. Mr. Shapiro is credited with producing the 72 hour live Webcast of Woodstock99, at the time, the largest Internet live music event in history. Mr. Shapiros diverse background as an author, producer and director include the DVD and book titled, This is Today, a history of NBCs Today Show, and Flash Frames, a book and DVD-ROM featuring the best of Flash art from the Internet. Mr. Shapiro created, directed and produced the award winning series, Night Flight, which series ran for 8 years on the USA Network. He also produced numerous feature lms including, Mondo New York, Comedys Dirtiest Dozen which helped launch the careers of Tim Allen and Chris Rock, and Only The Strong, the soundtrack which contained the original now famous Mazda song, Zoom Zoom Zoom. Shapiro pioneered Music Video Magazines in 1989 and produced and distributed them through VPI/Harmony, a joint venture with BMG. These original series included MetalHead, Country Music, Dance International, Impact and Slammin Rap. Shapiro began his career as an independent concert promoter and manager. In 1974 he became president of International Harmony, a lm production and distribution company that released cult classics such as TunnelVision, Neil Youngs Rust Never Sleeps, Bob Marleys Reggae Sunsplash, Jimi Plays Berkley, Pink Floyds Live at Pompeii, and the Sex Pistols DOA, and J-Men Forever.
Laura S. Quinn
Founder, Idealware As Idealwares Founder and Director, Laura S. Quinn directs Idealwares research and writing to provide candid reports and articles about nonprot software. Prior to Idealware, Laura worked with Alder Consulting to help nonprots create Internet strategies, select appropriate software, and then build sophisticated websites on a limited budget. She has also created Internet strategies, selected software, designed interfaces and conducted user research for multi-million dollar software and Website implementations with such companies as Accenture and iXL. Laura is a frequent speaker and writer on nonprot technology topics.
Nick Shaper
Adfero Group At Adfero Group, Nick works with all congressional clients on projects ranging from website development to constituent relationship management. Prior to joining Adfero, Nick served as Legislative Assistant and Systems Administrator to Congressman Ric Keller of Florida. While there, Nick advised the Congressman on issues relating to appropriations, defense, foreign affairs, trade and transportation, as well as resolving all technical issues.
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Mr. Shapiro is a graduate of Union College, Institute American in France, and Worcester Academy.
Aaron Welch
Co-Founder, Advomatic Aarons background was originally in the live performance and arts arena, holding a BFA in Performance Production from Cornish College of the Arts, in Seattle, WA. He began his career working in live theatre in the Pacic Northwest as a sound designer and production engineer. There he started programming show control software for automation systems and custom hardware interfaces. After building websites for various theatres as side projects, he went on to develop web applications for a variety of institutions including the Museum of Glass: International Center for Contemporary Art and Dean for Americas Iowa Campaign. Shortly after his work on the Dean campaign ended, he went on to found Advomatic. Aaron was one of the rst contributing developers to the Open Source content management system (CMS), CivicSpace. Civicspace is a distribution of the powerful Drupal CMS and his work often involved parallel development for both systems. He has built a variety of integral modules for Drupal, as well as a few patches to the core system. Aarons specialty is integrating external applications with Drupal, having done so with many broadcast email and CRM systems for a wide variety of clients. At Advomatic, Aaron spends most of his time developing and running the business side of things. Always nding new ways to streamline development processes and infrastructure management tasks, he ensures that Advomatic can continue to grow at the astonishing rate it has in the past few years. Aaron also manages the specialized hosting platform Advomatic offers, which focuses on highly available, highly scalable clustered Drupal hosting. In his spare time he scuba dives and eats re.
Jon Thorsen
Vice President, Strategic Solutions, Kintera Inc. Jon Thorsen is vice president, strategic solutions for Kintera Inc., the leading provider of software as a service for the nonprot community. Prior to joining Kintera, Jon spent ve years at the national headquarters of the American Red Cross, where he created the development resources team, which brought together development research, information systems, donor relationship management, government and foundation grants, and donor recognition and stewardship. Prior to joining the Red Cross, Jon spent his career in higher education. Most recently, he served as director of development research at Princeton University during a comprehensive fundraising campaign that raised over one billion dollars. He earned his BA and MLIS degrees from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee and worked as a college librarian and instructor before joining the development profession in 1987. Jon is a former president of the Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement (APRA), and received the APRA Service Award in 1999. He is a frequent presenter at local and national conferences of APRA, CASE and AFP, and his articles on fundraising have appeared in such journals as CASE Currents, Corporate Giving Watch, Foundation Reporter, APRA Connections, and The Non-Prot Times.
Ken Ward
Vice President, Adfero Group Ken is Vice President of Adfero Group. He coordinates the planning, deployment and ongoing efforts of most Adfero accounts, including CTIA, NPRA, Koch Industries and Congressional accounts. Ken has spearheaded the development of Adferos Constituent Relationship Management tools for Congress. Ken has a unique blend of Capitol Hill insight and Internet knowledge, which gives him unparalleled insight into the needs of Adfero clients. Prior to working at Adfero, Ken worked as a Legislative Assistant and Deputy Press Secretary for Rep. Richard Pombo. He also worked in Government Relations with Copeland Lowery & Jacquez and on the Central Valley Republican Victory Campaign. Ken earned his B.S. in Computer Science, with a minor in Mathematics from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Outside of the ofce, Ken enjoys both golng and sailing. At Georgetown, Ken served as the captain of their National Championship winning sailing team. Originally from Newport Beach, California; he now lives in Arlington, Virginia and is engaged to his ance, Erin.
Jason Zanon
Direcotor of Outreach & Development, DemocracyInAction.org Jason Zanon is the Director of Outreach & Development for DemocracyInAction.org. He cut his nonprot teeth in the development ofce of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, where he eventually served as Interim Executive Director. He also created the Coalitions email newsletter and online advocacy programs, accidentally transitioning his career into nonprot technology and online communications. An inveterate traveler, Jason has dabbled in freelance journalism and nannying children. He holds a political science degree from Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Ore.
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The Institute for Politics Democracy & the Internet The Graduate School of Political Management The George Washington University 805 21st St., NW, Suite 401 Washington, DC 20052 202.994.1003 ipdi@ipdi.org
INSTITUTE FOR POLITICS DEMOCRACY & THE INTERNET
T H E G E O R G E WA S H I N G T O N U N I V E R S I T Y THE OF
WWW.IPDI.ORG
G R A D UAT E S C H O O L POLITICAL MANAGEMENT

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CONSTITUENT RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT:

LITTLE BLACK BOOK OF POLITICS

INSTITUTE FOR POLITICS, DEMOCRACY & THE INTERNET

CRM: THE NEW LITTLE BLACK BOOK OF POLITICS

INSTITUTE FOR POLITICS, DEMOCRACY & THE INTERNET

CRM: THE NEW LITTLE BLACK BOOK OF POLITICS

INSTITUTE FOR POLITICS, DEMOCRACY & THE INTERNET

INSTITUTE FOR POLITICS, DEMOCRACY & THE INTERNET

CRM: THE NEW LITTLE BLACK BOOK OF POLITICS

INSTITUTE FOR POLITICS, DEMOCRACY & THE INTERNET

CRM: THE NEW LITTLE BLACK BOOK OF POLITICS

INSTITUTE FOR POLITICS, DEMOCRACY & THE INTERNET

CRM: THE NEW LITTLE BLACK BOOK OF POLITICS

INSTITUTE FOR POLITICS, DEMOCRACY & THE INTERNET

CRM: THE NEW LITTLE BLACK BOOK OF POLITICS

INSTITUTE FOR POLITICS, DEMOCRACY & THE INTERNET

CRM: THE NEW LITTLE BLACK BOOK OF POLITICS

INSTITUTE FOR POLITICS, DEMOCRACY & THE INTERNET

An Introduction to Constituent Relationship Management

CRM: THE NEW LITTLE BLACK BOOK OF POLITICS

INSTITUTE FOR POLITICS, DEMOCRACY & THE INTERNET

Constituent Relationship Management: How Smart Business Equals Winning Politics

CRM: THE NEW LITTLE BLACK BOOK OF POLITICS

INSTITUTE FOR POLITICS, DEMOCRACY & THE INTERNET

Replace the word customer with the words voter or constituent.

CRM: THE NEW LITTLE BLACK BOOK OF POLITICS

INSTITUTE FOR POLITICS, DEMOCRACY & THE INTERNET

CRM: THE NEW LITTLE BLACK BOOK OF POLITICS

INSTITUTE FOR POLITICS, DEMOCRACY & THE INTERNET

12 Siebel, Virtual Selling, 237.

CRM: THE NEW LITTLE BLACK BOOK OF POLITICS

INSTITUTE FOR POLITICS, DEMOCRACY & THE INTERNET

Take-Away: What about Targeting?

CRM: THE NEW LITTLE BLACK BOOK OF POLITICS

INSTITUTE FOR POLITICS, DEMOCRACY & THE INTERNET

14 Brown, Customer Relationship Management, xii.

CRM: THE NEW LITTLE BLACK BOOK OF POLITICS

INSTITUTE FOR POLITICS, DEMOCRACY & THE INTERNET

JULIE BARKO GERMANY

CRM: THE NEW LITTLE BLACK BOOK OF POLITICS

INSTITUTE FOR POLITICS, DEMOCRACY & THE INTERNET

CRM: THE NEW LITTLE BLACK BOOK OF POLITICS

INSTITUTE FOR POLITICS, DEMOCRACY & THE INTERNET

CRM: THE NEW LITTLE BLACK BOOK OF POLITICS

INSTITUTE FOR POLITICS, DEMOCRACY & THE INTERNET

CRM: THE NEW LITTLE BLACK BOOK OF POLITICS

INSTITUTE FOR POLITICS, DEMOCRACY & THE INTERNET

CRM: THE NEW LITTLE BLACK BOOK OF POLITICS

INSTITUTE FOR POLITICS, DEMOCRACY & THE INTERNET

CRM: THE NEW LITTLE BLACK BOOK OF POLITICS

INSTITUTE FOR POLITICS, DEMOCRACY & THE INTERNET

CRM: THE NEW LITTLE BLACK BOOK OF POLITICS

INSTITUTE FOR POLITICS, DEMOCRACY & THE INTERNET

The Data-Powered Campaign

CRM: THE NEW LITTLE BLACK BOOK OF POLITICS

INSTITUTE FOR POLITICS, DEMOCRACY & THE INTERNET

Its the Data, Stupid!

What is the voter le?

16 Gentle, The CRM Project Management Handbook , 13. 17 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_dictionary