With the March release of NGP, we’ve added another tool to the NGP toolbox: new social media features that allow you to further integrate your organization’s social networking tools with NGP’s fundraising tools. Now, it’s easy to link your supporters’ Facebook and Twitter accounts to their NGP records. We’ve even added follower and friend counts to the search tools so you can target your most influential supporters.

Say you’re trying to throw a big campaign event, and you want to bring in as many people as possible. You could create an event page and hope for the best, OR you could look in your NGP database for the supporters with the most followers on Twitter and target them to get the word out and invite their networks. Now, you not only have more attendees for your event, you’re also building up a team of supporters and evangelizers that you and your campaign can call upon later.

To use this feature, please log into your NGP database and follow the instructions outlined in “What’s New” (located under the Help menu). As always, please contact our support team if you have any questions. We’re excited to do what we can to deploy the newest technology to boost your communications, fundraising, and digital operations. Keep up the great work out there.

Thank you,

John Brougher
Vice President of Marketing and Nonprofit Sales
NGP VAN

Over the last few years, you have all shown what’s possible with NationBuilder – and told us what would help make your experience even better. We’ve been listening. Today, we are proud to unveil our new look!

Most of the control panel functions the same way, but we’ve updated the design to make it easier to navigate and understand. For example, new searchable drop-down menus will help you navigate long lists of tags quickly.

One big change is in how adding and removing people to lists work. The shopping cart concept is completely gone (yay!) and now you select the list you are working on directly from the add & remove buttons. Much easier to understand. There are more details in this updated how-to guide.

Along with the new control panel, we’ve updated and restructured our support site.

1. All the how-to videos of the old control panel have been replaced with detailed how-to guides of the new control panel that are easier to skim and find what you are looking for.
2. The FAQ has been re-organized around topics and you can ask questions directly there now.
3. There are two new introductory videos on founding and building your nation. Definitely worth sending to your friends and colleagues who are just getting started with NationBuilder.

We know how hard you all work every day to make big things happen. We hope this makes it a little easier.

Thanks for being a part of NationBuilder.

Jim GilliamNationBuilder Founder and CEOhttp://nationbuilder.com/

After winning a successful legislative battle to approve the Maryland DREAM Act, Educating Maryland Kids, the coalition to defend the Maryland DREAM Act, faced the prospect of a repeal of the law by ballot referendum in the 2012 General Election. When the coalition needed a website to launch their campaign, they came to us.

Website

Working with campaign leadership we used topline messaging to complete a design survey and get a sense of the feeling that needed to be conveyed in a website. The DREAM Act says that if you graduate from a Maryland high school and your family pays taxes, then you should be allowed to pay in-state tuition. It was a simple but direct message. Using key phrases such as ‘graduate from a Maryland high school’, and ‘right and fair,’ we set out to design a website that emotes the same positive impression that DREAMers make offline.

Knowing that DREAMers were the best messengers for a lot of our target audience, we highlighted them prominently on the home page and on interior pages with individual profiles. As you navigated throughout the website there was a constant reminder of a Maryland DREAMer on the right side bar. The result was a website that told the personal story of real people who would have been positively impacted by the legislation.

CRM

The campaign also needed a method of collecting and managing supporter information through the website. Since they already had an NGP account to manage fundraising and reporting and didn’t want duplicate systems, we developed the website with email signup fields that dumped directly into NGP. We also used NGP’s volunteer forms to collect and tag supporters who signed-up to volunteer through the home page.

Since we knew the campaign wanted to run email acquisition ad campaigns so we designed a few landing page templates without navigation or a sidebar to maximize conversions. We coded data that was collected through each landing page so that we could easily segment each list and analyze page performance. We tested a variety of images, videos, and layouts in order to optimize performance. Our best performing form was a pledge to “Vote FOR Question 4! Defend the DREAM Act” that used a frame from one of the online ads.

Social

In addition to highlighting DREAMer profiles on the website, we wanted to highlight DREAMers on the Facebook page. We worked with DREAMers to identify photos of their life experiences since moving to the United States, specifically in Maryland. Using Facebook’s timeline feature we posted a series of them highlighting experiences such as science fairs, sporting events, and high school graduations. We even included many childhood moments like one of the DREAMers ”first snow falls”. While we saw an increase in engagement as a result of tagging the photos, the social campaign had the added benefit of allowing potential supporters to identify with the DREAMers’ experiences.

After months of messaging both online and offline the Maryland DREAM Act was affirmed on Election Day with fifty nine percent of the electorate voting ‘FOR’ the law. While we take great pride in every project we work on, this campaign was also personal for the Local Politechs team. While I was born in the United States, my father was an immigrant who relocated to Maryland. I had a chance to get to know many of the DREAMers throughout the campaign trail and I know that thanks to this legislation they will go on to do great things for their community. Knowing this made us feel honored to be part of the winning team.

Important update for Maryland filers

We’ve updated the NGP database in response to changes made to Maryland’s filing regulations. Beginning in October, Maryland will require unique IDs assigned by the state for each contributor, payee, and registered committee from which you have received contributions or to which you have disbursed funds.

Compliance with the new IDs can be done using a merging tool within the state’s CRIS system and also from within NGP using a new tool on the state report parameters page. The state’s merging tool will compare existing contacts in MD’s system and those being uploaded in order to determine if there may be a match. In working with the MD Board, they have asked that all committees log in and begin to use this merge tool as soon as possible in order to reduce potential duplicates in their system going forward. Committees may then use the tool as often as needed. We recommend merging before and after each filing.

The state has also notified us that contributor/payee IDs may or may not be included in each filing. If a filing committee using NGP VAN’s Campaign Office wishes to simply depend on the state’s tool alone and disregard populating NGP’s custom “State-Assigned ID” field on the main tab, they may do so. Filings generated this way using Campaign Office will not include assigned contributor/payee IDs. The filing entity will be required to use the state’s tool in order to merge all contributors/payees after submitting their report. (NOTE: CCFIDs for registered committees must always be included in filings. Transactions involving registered committees which have not been assigned an ID within Campaign Office will not be accepted by the state’s system.)

A committee wishing to upload and import assigned IDs into Campaign Office may do so using the import tool provided on the Maryland State Report parameters page. The state will provide each filing entity with two files (one with contributors/payee, the other with registered committee) in which they assign IDs that will be used for each subsequent filing. You can get these files by logging into CRIS and navigating to the transaction upload page. This should be done before each filing.

After you’ve downloaded the files from CRIS, log into your NGP database and go to your State Report Parameters page. At the bottom, you’ll notice a new section called “Populate State-Assigned IDs.” From the dropdown, choose the type of file you are uploading, browse for the file, and then click “Check for Matches.”

After the system finishes processing, you’ll be given a set of exact matches and a set of possible matches, with the option to assign IDs. You can think of these possible matches as similar to our Combine Duplicates tool. The state-assigned ID from the file will then go into a new custom field on a contact’s main page. Once they have their ID, it will stick with that contact for all future filings from your committee.

For more details on the process, see our online help documentation.

If you have questions, or would like us to walk you through this process when you’re trying it out for the first time, don’t hesitate to contact our support team.

Thanks,

Ben Rockey-Harris
Director of Client Services
NGP VAN

The New Virginia PAC is an independent expenditure PAC (commonly referred to as a “Super PAC”), that was created to help support the election of former Governor Tim Kaine to the United States Senate and combat the overwhelming funding from right-wing third-party groups that are attempting to overwhelm the state.  According to the Associated Press, outside groups have already bought more than $37 million in ads within Virginia.

NewVirginiaPAC.com will act as a counterbalance to these outside groups – promoting former Gov. Kaine’s record of economic progress and independence.

We are pleased to have collaborated with the team at Wild Bunch Media on the launch of NewVirginiaPAC.com.

A recent study led by researchers at the UC-San Diego shows why.  Their massive experiment, conducted during the 2010 midterms, demonstrated that the simple act of receiving a Facebook message made users more likely to cast their ballots.

In the study, more than 60 million people on Facebook saw a social, non-partisan “get out the vote” message at the top of their news feeds on Nov. 2, 2010.

The message featured a reminder that “Today is Election Day”; a clickable “I Voted” button; a link to local polling places; a counter displaying how many Facebook users had already reported voting; and up to six profile pictures of users’ own Facebook friends who had reported voting.

The researchers estimate that the generic Election Day message yielded an additional 60,000 votes, by itself.  The real payoff, however, didn’t come from the message itself, but from users who shared it with their personal networks.

But the effects of the social network – of social contagion among friends – they say, yielded another 280,000 more, for a total of 340,000. In other words, Fowler said, the social network yielded an additional four voters for every one voter that was directly mobilized.

On Facebook, just like in other forms of voter contact, personal contact matters most.  The best outreach has virality in mind and the end target for campaigns needs to be their supporters’ networks, not just their immediate followers.  The most effective campaigns don’t just remind their supporters to vote; they remind their supporters to vote and ask them to share, tweet and pass on that message to their personal contacts.

While online outreach can’t replace the 8-10% turnout boost generated by door-to-door canvassing, its affordability and ease of use make it a tactic every modern campaign ought to incorporate into its GOTV efforts

‘Remember Me’ lets users opt-in to have their information remembered when they fill out an online form at an NGP site – saving them time later on by automatically filling in their contact information the next time they’re asked to fill out a similar form.

“Remember My Contact Information for Online pages, which, when turned on, means any potential supporter who has submitted on any NGP VAN online page and has opted-in to this feature will not have to retype their contact info — making it easier for them to give after the first time.”

As technical barriers continue to drop and every candidate for any office can raise money online, the most effective campaigns must focus on improving the user experience of their potential supporters.  Remembering countless passwords, deciphering image captchas and reentering user data are usually some of the more painful parts of the process.  That’s why companies like Google are exploring ways to get rid of site logins entirely.

While we’re not completely there yet, NGP VAN’s ‘Remember Me’ feature is definitely a step in the right direction.  Enabling it on your NGP site should improve your campaign’s conversion rates, especially for users who access your site using the limited browsers of many smartphones and other mobile devices.

Right now, the feature is deactivated by default.  To enable it on your NGP site:

1. Log into your Online Contributions preferences.
2. From the General tab, scroll down to the “Enable Contact Information Cookie” section.
3. Check the box for “Enable across NGP VAN network.

Currently Salsa uses a database of contact information for state and national officials to allow organizations to reach out to government leaders through letter writing and petition campaigns. By upgrading to Salsa Local Advocacy, organizations can allow their supporters to also contact local officials in cities and towns of more than 10,000 people.

“The new product gives our clients additional resources for conducting advocacy campaigns,” said Charles Parsons, product manager, Salsa. “Now they can help supporters write letters and affect change at the local level too, not just with state and national officials.”

Currently, organizations can set up templates for supporters to complete a targeted email and send it to one of the thousands of state and national officials in the database. The supporter simply enters their zip code, and Salsa works behind the scenes to match them by geographic region to the correct official. Now, an additional 56,000 local leaders have been added. Salsa Local Advocacy is available for installation now for new and existing Salsa users.

Salsa Advocacy has already been paving the way for organizations to help create public pressure and manage their online grassroots efforts. In January 2012, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Entertainment Consumers Association, leading the SOPA/PIPA protest, used Salsa’s platform to gather approximately 400,000 names and distribute emails to appropriate legislators on their behalf, with only a few days lead time.

Here’s how it works: Supporters log into your website using their Facebook credentials. They are then asked to match their Facebook and other friends to the VAN and map important relationship data, such as “colleague” or “family member.” Supporters can then choose to complete tasks like running a virtual phone bank to contact friends the campaign has targeted as persuadable, or emailing friends that have profiles similar to donors as part of a grassroots fundraising effort. Through game dynamics like badges, points, and leaderboards, supporters are rewarded for their participation and encouraged to do more.

It is the only tool of its kind that is fully integrated with the VAN. As supporters map relationships and take action, all data are mapped back to the VAN. Combined with comprehensive reporting, field organizers can avoid knocking on a door today that a supporter converted last night.

And the video -

Will this make you more inclined to use NGP?

What data can you put on a map to drive home a point with constituent?