Edit detail for Impact of eCampaigning revision 2 of 1

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The Impact of eCampaigning
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The impact of e-campaigning is still questioned, despite have made significant contributions to the achievement of campaign objectives over the last 5-10 years.  So where has it made and impact and why?  What is its value as part of the larger campaigning mix? What are its strengths and weaknesses? How can we prove what its impact is?

This topic could be (depends on you) a sharing of examples, principles and practices that make a campaigning impact, where it doesn't and what it takes to be have an impact.

Are you interested in participating in this group?  Then add your name, comments and/or further edit the page with your thoughts, experience and questions to ensure it stays on the agenda.

Blogged at http://mrlloyd.livejournal.com/12869.html

Interested Participants
=======================
Format: name, organisation and why this topic?

Ben Beaumont, Oxfam

Branislava, CAFOD. I have few thoughts on this topic which I am greatly interested in...

1) I'd say that e-campaigning can be more easily evaluated than campaigning because there is always data to analyse from. So if everyone else could do as much analysis as we can - we'd be lucky. The problem is that most of the time there is very little data from other than online sources. 

2) As far as I understand from some discussions between campaigners I've been part of, people feel that it's very hard to measure the impact of campaigning overall, not just e-campaigning. So while we can focus on e-campaigning we shouldn't look at it in isolation. 

3) A challenge is to set appropriate outputs and indicators for the overall campaign and for the e- part of a campaign. People too often come up with indicators without actually thinking through how they will measure them and who will do the measuring. So if an output is something fluffy like "raise awareness", you immediately need to think through how will you measure this - by the increase in the number of new supporters?, increase in income?, increase in the number of subscribers to your e-list?...


Participant Input
=================
Add directly here or via the comments box below.

From IdaOlsen Fri Apr 13 10:41:07 -0500 2007
From: Ida Olsen
Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2007 10:41:07 -0500
Subject: Measuring impact
Message-ID: <20070413104107-0500@www.fairsay.com>

Ida Olsen, Global Campaigns Coordinator, Plan International 

What I consider to be the key challenges: 1) Developing meaningful advocacy/campaign indicators that truly measure impact; 2) Strengtening impact by mainstreaming e-campaigning. Well-timed and intensive bursts of e-activity seems to be most effective; e.g. getting lots of people to e-mail a particular Minister just before a key meeting - this requires people power and resources to enable rapid and extensive mobilisation. Keeping their attention, interest and willingness to act is then critical (e.g. through regular e-mail updates, particularly communicating success). Has anyone done this really well across a number of countries and in a number of languages simultaneously? If so, I'd love to hear from you! 

From myriam Fri Apr 20 08:56:28 -0500 2007
From: myriam
Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2007 08:56:28 -0500
Subject: Measuring impact: some good examples
Message-ID: <20070420085628-0500@www.fairsay.com>

There are quite a lot of examples, Ida, from Jubilee 2000 email upsurge before the G8 meetings in 2000 where Gordon Brown's email box was flooded (would never happen now, of course). Then again there was quite a lot of lateral thinking: weekly there were demonstrations to Japanese embassies around the world, something the Japanese culture is not used to, guaranteeing media coverage by Japanese media nearly week-in, week-out even with only 20 people there. There was the first online petition in Thailand a couple of years ago to drop charges against a Media Justice activist. The fact that it was the first ever online petition in the country boosted the story, but still you needed a lot of press conferences, support from the print media and support from people such as Chomsky  to get the message beyond the self censurship. I think Branislava has a point, yet I think the benchmarking will really depend on each campaign (short, targeted, focused such as getting someone out of jail versus long-term changes like trade justice). So it might be worth looking at a range of benchmarks and which can be allocated where, and which are the ones that can be applied to e-campaigning. Yet it needs to be within a broader spectrum of overall advocacy.

From PatrickOlszowski Tue Apr 24 05:25:52 -0500 2007
From: Patrick Olszowski
Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2007 05:25:52 -0500
Subject: Really interested in this
Message-ID: <20070424052552-0500@www.fairsay.com>

Patrick, Pr Manager, Action Medical Research

From Oistein Tue May 1 06:42:31 -0500 2007
From: Oistein
Date: Tue, 01 May 2007 06:42:31 -0500
Subject: This is very interesting
Message-ID: <20070501064231-0500@www.fairsay.com>

We need to make sure that we do e-campaigning because it works, not because we think it's easier, cheaper or cooler than other types of campaigning. So this session, I believe, is key. 

From Jean Tue May 1 05:49:30 -0500 2007
From: Jean
Date: Tue, 01 May 2007 05:49:30 -0500
Subject: Jean NUS
Message-ID: <20070501054930-0500@www.fairsay.com>

NUS have just switched to Impact reporting this session would provide a useful framework for this and our upcoming campaign planning season.


From AnneF Tue May 1 05:53:36 -0500 2007
From: AnneF
Date: Tue, 01 May 2007 05:53:36 -0500
Subject: Anne - Mencap
Message-ID: <20070501055336-0500@www.fairsay.com>

I'd be really interested to hear people's experiences of how they measure effectiveness! 

From Oistein Tue May 1 06:50:54 -0500 2007
From: Oistein
Date: Tue, 01 May 2007 06:50:54 -0500
Subject: agree
Message-ID: <20070501065054-0500@www.fairsay.com>

From jonathan Tue May 1 07:54:14 -0500 2007
From: jonathan
Date: Tue, 01 May 2007 07:54:14 -0500
Subject: I'm interested in this too
Message-ID: <20070501075414-0500@www.fairsay.com>

From tracyf Tue May 1 07:15:55 -0500 2007
From: tracyf
Date: Tue, 01 May 2007 07:15:55 -0500
Subject: measuring the impact
Message-ID: <20070501071555-0500@www.fairsay.com>

I agree that the real way forward is being able to set measurable objectives for e-campaigning work to demonstrate its affectiveness, manage expectations and ensure orgs invest the time and effort needed to make it work.

From MartinLloyd Tue May 1 08:52:29 -0500 2007
From: MartinLloyd
Date: Tue, 01 May 2007 08:52:29 -0500
Subject: Interested
Message-ID: <20070501085229-0500@www.fairsay.com>

Yup, I'm in for this. Would be keen to see examples of what people have been doing, how they measure things at present and get a feel for things like relative traffic levels...

From Mariona Wed May 2 03:19:26 -0500 2007
From: Mariona
Date: Wed, 02 May 2007 03:19:26 -0500
Subject: I agree with Oistein
Message-ID: <20070502031926-0500@www.fairsay.com>

I would really like to know that the e-campaigning we do, works.

From SusieWright Wed May 2 03:35:21 -0500 2007
From: Susie Wright
Date: Wed, 02 May 2007 03:35:21 -0500
Subject: Also very interested
Message-ID: <20070502033521-0500@www.fairsay.com>

... perhaps a crossover with the benchmarking discussion? could they be usefully combined? or is it better to keep them separate? what do people think?

From duane Wed May 2 11:28:40 -0500 2007
From: duane
Date: Wed, 02 May 2007 11:28:40 -0500
Subject: Glen Tarman will join this
Message-ID: <20070502112840-0500@www.fairsay.com>



From duane Wed May 2 11:32:43 -0500 2007
From: duane
Date: Wed, 02 May 2007 11:32:43 -0500
Subject: Sonia Fèvre will join this
Message-ID: <20070502113243-0500@www.fairsay.com>

From emmasavery Wed May 2 12:06:31 -0500 2007
From: emmasavery
Date: Wed, 02 May 2007 12:06:31 -0500
Subject: Emma Guild of Students
Message-ID: <20070502120631-0500@www.fairsay.com>

We need to find effective ways of doing this 

From emmasavery Wed May 2 12:12:01 -0500 2007
From: emmasavery
Date: Wed, 02 May 2007 12:12:01 -0500
Subject: Interested in this...
Message-ID: <20070502121201-0500@www.fairsay.com>

I think a corss over with the benchmarking session would be really good

From duane Wed May 2 13:06:54 -0500 2007
From: duane
Date: Wed, 02 May 2007 13:06:54 -0500
Subject: Echo Chow will join this
Message-ID: <20070502130654-0500@www.fairsay.com>



From duane Wed May 2 15:04:00 -0500 2007
From: duane
Date: Wed, 02 May 2007 15:04:00 -0500
Subject: Branislava Milosevic will attend this
Message-ID: <20070502150400-0500@www.fairsay.com>



From duane Wed May 2 16:12:26 -0500 2007
From: duane
Date: Wed, 02 May 2007 16:12:26 -0500
Subject: Anne Fox will join this
Message-ID: <20070502161226-0500@www.fairsay.com>



From Andrew Thu May 3 06:56:42 -0500 2007
From: Andrew
Date: Thu, 03 May 2007 06:56:42 -0500
Subject: Interested too...
Message-ID: <20070503065642-0500@www.fairsay.com>



From AndrewDavies Thu May 3 12:03:55 -0500 2007
From: AndrewDavies
Date: Thu, 03 May 2007 12:03:55 -0500
Subject: Dang there are two Andrews
Message-ID: <20070503120355-0500@www.fairsay.com>
In-Reply-To: <20070503065642-0500@www.fairsay.com>

I would like to here about good examples.  I suspect that as a group we're a tad biased in favor of eCampaigning :) But I suspect we'd agree it is not the best strategy for all goals/targets.  So what are the criteria we use to decide when ecampaigning should be the primary tool? 

From Brian Mon May 7 18:28:21 -0500 2007
From: Brian
Date: Mon, 07 May 2007 18:28:21 -0500
Subject: If you can't count it, it doesn't count
Message-ID: <20070507182821-0500@www.fairsay.com>

I'm sure every act of campaigning has some impact on the world, but in many cases, impacts are not easily measurable. Assuming the Internet is another communications channel, but one that provides new rules of interactivity and data collection, there are more clues about how people interact with Internet outreach than most other methods.  Beyond page views, I'd like to know how organizations use the available data as sampling frames, or as other statistical basses for measuring their outreach impacts.

From Brian Mon May 7 19:22:11 -0500 2007
From: Brian
Date: Mon, 07 May 2007 19:22:11 -0500
Subject: Behavioural impacts
Message-ID: <20070507192211-0500@www.fairsay.com>

I'm curious if anyone has measured behavioural impacts from online campaigns.  For example getting people to recycle or bike more.  

From PatrickOlszowski Tue May 8 03:20:16 -0500 2007
From: Patrick Olszowski
Date: Tue, 08 May 2007 03:20:16 -0500
Subject: Let's crossover benchmarking and impact
Message-ID: <20070508032016-0500@www.fairsay.com>

Feel that a crossover with the benchmarking session would be really useful

Patrick, Action. 

From bex_sumner Tue May 8 07:59:41 -0500 2007
From: bex_sumner
Date: Tue, 08 May 2007 07:59:41 -0500
Subject: Bex Sumner (Greenpeace UK) would like to join this session
Message-ID: <20070508075941-0500@www.fairsay.com>