http://ran.org/get_involved/resources/activists/
INTRODUCTION
BUILDING YOUR ACTIVIST COMMUNITY
Reaching out to and empowering activists is the key to building a powerful movement for social change. Bringing new people into your group will help you grow, train more activists and win more change in the world. Each new person brings a new possibility and point of view to a group, and outreach is a continuous process. Just because you have 10 people in your group doesn’t mean should stop there!
Reach out to people in your community by finding the places where like-minded people gather, be friendly and find different roles within your group that make sense for different people, convey your passion for the issues, and follow up! It often takes some pleasant persistence to firmly establish new people in your group.
And guess what? You can’t do this by yourself.
How to Recruit Activists at an Event (Tabling)
TABLING GOAL:
Get folks involved in a growing activist network. Represent your organization—it’s a network and you’re part of it!
TIPS FOR SUCCESSFUL OUTREACH:
● Make eye contact and smile!
● Walk away from table!
● Keep it short and sweet
● Get their contact info, especially their email address
● Give them RAN goodies (brochures/buttons/stickers)
It’s ok not to know the answer to someone’s question (you can always direct people to a fellow tabler or take their contact info down and tell them someone will get back to them-–and make sure to follow up!).
TALKING TO POTENTIAL ACTIVISTS:
● Start with a simple introduction. Make it short but clear:
“We work to protect the environment and human rights through grassroots consumer pressure. We focus on transforming the global marketplace, so we campaign against multinational corporations, pressuring them to stop their destructive business practices.”
Make sure to take a look at one-liners sheet!
● Follow with an example of one of your campaigns: Pick a campaign you think would most appeal to them (for example, in urban setting where gas prices are a big issue you might want to talk about the Freedom From Oil campaign) and tell them about it briefly.
“As part of our Freedom From Oil Campaign, we’re pressuring the auto industry to start building more fuel-efficient cars by showing that there is consumer demand for them.”
● Be as specific and local as possible. If you’re targeting a particular auto dealer, tell them!
“We’re asking XX local auto dealer to step up and tell headquarters that customers want cleaner cars (in fact, we’re having a demonstration there this Saturday!”)
● Ask the person to sign the petition of the campaign you spoke of; at this point you can tell them about the other campaigns, too. If they don’t put down their email address, say,
“If you include your email, we’ll keep you updated as the campaign progresses.” Email is the easiest way we can build our activist community.
● Try to engage the person and get them interested:
“How are you?”
“Have you heard of us?”
“Have you done activism with us?”
“What kinds of activist work do you do or would you like to do?”
“You can get involved with us by doing…”
● Make sure to give the person a brochure plus any fun stuff you have to give away (posters, stickers, buttons etc).
● Standing in front of the table (instead of behind it) makes it easier to say hello and attract people to the table!
● Walk away from the table! Grab a clipboard and walk up to folks and ask if they’d like to sign a petition to protect old growth forests/get auto companies to build cleaner cars. LINES for food/bathroom/t-shirts are a GREAT place for this. Bring some brochures to pass out, too!
● If a person is not interested, move on to the next person. There are so many people that agree with us, it’s a better use of our time to find those folks and get them plugged in than to convince others to change their minds.
● If someone seems very excited about your organization and is impressed with the work you do, ask them to become a member.
● All it takes is a $20 donation for a year-long membership! And if they choose to become a member that day, they will get a free t-shirt included in the membership. If they decline, yet still seem interested, ask them if they would be willing to make a smaller donation for the day. Every little bit counts!
NUTS AND BOLTS:
● Hang a banner on the front of the table (and a second one behind you if you can).
● Lay out the materials in an attractive way-–you might need rocks as paper weights if you’re outdoors!
● Choose one petition to put out on the table (multiple copies).
● Make sure there is always someone at the table to greet visitors and take down names.
● If people become members, take good care to store cash/checks in the provided envelope.
● Take shifts-–talking to folks for more than 2 hours in a row can get tiring. But, please don’t leave until your replacement arrives!
● No smoking or drinking at the table!
● If people want a “Challenge Corporate Power” sticker, suggest a donation of $1-$5. Then send us the money (if you can write a check for the cash, that would be great) to the same address you send the petitions.
AFTER THE EVENT:
● Clean up the extra materials and store in intended location.
● Bring or send any donation slips and donations back to your organization.
● Bring or send petitions back to your organization.
MATERIALS TO SET OUT ON THE TABLE:
● Banner
● Campaign petitions on clipboards (choose one of the three for simplicity’s sake)
Don’t forget Pens!
● Brochures to hand out to each passerby
● Membership forms
● T-shirts (if provided)
● Campaign freebies (stickers, posters, buttons, magnets)
● Newsletters
HOW TO CROWD CANVASS (OR GET PETITION SIGNATURES IN A CROWD)
Going to heavily foot-trafficked areas can be an easy and effective way of getting petition signatures, finding new activists and raising money. All you need is a clipboard, a pen and some basic information!
Petitioning or “crowd canvassing” is easy, requires little set-up, and you can do it almost anywhere (although you should stay on public property). Crowd canvassing makes sense when no tabling is allowed or it’s too expensive, if you can only attend an event for a short while, or if you have enough volunteers at a table and additional volunteers are available.
Here are a few ideas for places to petition:
● crowded street corners
● in front of the bank you are targeting
● farmers market
● campus commons
● walks or runs
● your place of worship or cultural center
● community festivals, fairs and parades
● anywhere people are waiting in lines! (movies, concerts etc)
The skills for petitioning are very similar to tabling, but there are some slight differences.
CROWD CANVASSING:
Start with a friendly greeting and eye contact-–that’s the only way someone walking by will stop. Ask everyone!
Go straight to your pitch-–“Hi! Would you like to sign a petition to tell Ford to build cleaner cars?” (Tell them more about it if they ask, as well as the local angle). Try to think of some more catchy “zingers” to grab peoples’ attention.
Hand over the clipboard-–giving the clipboard to the potential activist empowers them to take action.
And of course, get their contact info, especially their email address, on that petition. And give them a goodie!
Approach big groups of people and bring extra pens and clipboards so many people can sign at once.
As when tabling, don’t spend time trying to convince people who disagree–-there are plenty of people out there that are happy to get involved! Also, if someone is very excited about the campaign, take down their contact info on a separate piece of paper and remember to contact them later to join your next event!
NUTS AND BOLTS:
● Wear your organization’s t-shirt-–it will give you street cred.
● Keep multiple copies of the petition on your clipboard(s).
● Keep a stack of brochures and/or campaign flyers in your pocket (or stickers or whatever else you are giving away).
● Take some donation forms for people that want to give money.
● If people donate money, take good care to store the cash in your pocket or bag.
● Look neat and professional-–you are representing your organization!
AFTER YOU’RE DONE:
● Bring or send any donation slips and donations back to your organization.
● Enter new activists into the Activist Data Template, and send the excel file to your organization. If you wish to, you can make a copy of the petitions to keep for your records, but your organization will definitely upload the names into our email system as soon as we get them. Please send the original petitions to your organization so that they can send them on to their corporate targets.
POSTERING, FLYERING and STICKERING
MAKE GREAT FLYERS AND POSTERS AND KNOW WHERE TO PUT THEM
Getting your group’s name out into the community will help you achieve your overall recruitment goals by making your group more visible, legitimate and exciting to be a part of. All this while advertising your meetings, events and campaigns!
Your organization will provide you with lots of great materials related to the campaigns they’re working on; however, you will also want to advertise for your local meetings and events. Here are some tips to creating and distributing flyers, posters and stickers.
Tips for creating flyers:
● Keep it simple and eye-catching: bold fonts, bullet points, pictures and short messages will draw the reader in much more than a text-heavy flyer with six different fonts.
● Know your audience, and tailor your message to it.
● Include the place, date and time of your event.
● Include your contact info, including email, and a website.
● Print it on brightly colored paper, ideally a quarter page sized.
Tips for creating posters:
● Stick to the rules of simplicity, but allow for more creative expression.
● You can fit more on a poster, but still keep your message focused.
● Make it beautiful, intriguing funny, interesting, eye-catching…
● Include the place, date and time of your event.
● Include your contact info, including email, and a website.
Tips for creating stickers:
● Sticker language should be short and sweet, yet still explain your point.
● Make sure to have your group’s logo and website on the sticker.
● Make it catchy and clever.
● Make the message enduring… stickers tend to stay around for a while. Stickers are better for advertising your group or campaign, as opposed to a specific event.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| outreach_an_introduction.pdf | 46.89 KB |
| how_to_get_stuff_donated.pdf | 108.48 KB |
| how_to_coordinate_a_raffle_or_silent_auction.pdf | 116.16 KB |
| how_to_petition_and_canvass.pdf | 77.62 KB |
| effective_postering_flyering_and_stickering.pdf | 76.32 KB |
