The G8 in grassroots campaigns

Goal: Just like USP is a basis for marketing campaigns, when it comes to mobilize grassroots we must take into consideration the concept UGP or Unique Goal Proposition. People will not join our campaign unless they understand clearly its purpose so we will have to describe this unique goal as simple, short and sweet as possible.

Vision: Strategy is always the spine of any campaign and to build this strategy we will need a visionary person able to keep the focus on our goal and advance potential difficulties.

Recruitment: A main part of grassroots campaigns is confined to recruit new supporters and that is why is so important to count on a down-to-earth group of people whose idea of a working day is not just some entertainment hours, but literally a day of hard, tough and comforting work.

Facilitation: Hundreds of supporters always mean hundreds of different opinions and to get along with all these points of view it is usually needed the contribution of a well organized and responsible person who lay down the decision process and move members to discuss and overcome their differences.

Coordination/Agitation: To understand the importance of coordination and agitation in grassroots campaigns, you should firstly take a peek at the video of this post. On the battlefield it is more important to have 300 soldiers than 3000 uncoordinated people.

Involvement: Even this is going to sound obvious, the key factor to make people get involved is to ask them for it. Today archers are being replaced with phone callers whose function is to inform people about a cause and open the door to jump in. This is involvement.

Representation: A group must have a representative and exercise this representation. This means representatives of the group are obliged to attend all the meetings and conferences related to the organization’s goal and thus make the organization visible.

Relationship-building: An unconnected group is as useful for grassroots campaigning as a bra to wrap up. Information doesn’t flow between unconnected nodes, therefore relationship-building must be taken into consideration in the group and between other organizations that share the same goal.