Nice emails – have we won yet?

So you’ve got an email list 200,000 names big and every time you send an email to your list you generate 25,000 emails to Members of Congress from across the country.  Over the year, you generate more than 1,000,000 emails and 10,000 calls to the Hill.

Is your advocacy program successful?

Well, your activity levels are certainly very high, but we don’t know if you’re successful until we can link activity to your mission – have all of those emails and calls to the Hill moved enough legislators to take action on your issue to make the change you’re looking for?  Or, if it’s too soon to have a bill fully passed through both Houses and signed into law (a process that generally takes years if the bill is trying to do anything interesting), are all of those calls and emails getting it intoduced in committee?  Passed through committee?  Are you seeing progress?

At the end of the day, emails generated, calls made, Hill visits coordinated only matter if they eventually make a demonstrable impact on moving your mission forward.

So, do set goals for list growth and activism activity, and measure those things too.  But remember that those activities are only a means to an end – all of the activity in the world is irrelevant if it doesn’t lead inexorably toward the change you’re fighting for.

-Shayna

PS:  We’ve put together a one-pager on Five Keys to Grassroots Advocacy Success that expands on these points – you can download the PDF here.