Rad Campaign just posted interviews with leaders in the nonprofit/social networking space.

We particularly like this quote from Tara Hunt, founder of Citizen Agency:

Using Twitter and Facebook to merely disseminate information is akin to just constantly withdrawing, but never depositing into your bank account. The power of these networks is in the connections people are making, which is the building of social capital. You build social capital through positive interactions - listening as much as you are talking, and responding to people as they talk to you. The more two way conversations you have on Twitter and Facebook, the more support you will gain for those messages you send out.

Shannon Raybold is the Internet Director at the United Nations Foundation, where she oversees online organizing and fundraising for the Foundation and our campaigns. One of her recent campaigns is NothingButNets.net, which uses an online game to raise money for and build awareness about the Foundation’s anti-malaria program.

Shannon and I spoke by email about the campaign.

What did you create?

We created an interactive online game for our anti-malaria campaign, Nothing But Nets (www.NothingButNets.net). The game, Deliver the Net, shows supporters a glimpse of how their life-saving $10 donation of a bed net is distributed to those in Africa - it allows you to pick up the nets from a UN truck and jump over the hurdles to deliver the bed nets to awaiting villagers. And, each time someone plays the game and signs up, a generous donor will send a real bed net on their behalf. The game is educational and functional.

Why did you decide to use an online game?

We are constantly trying to reach out to new supporters as well as enable people to more fully understand the need and the steps that are taken to ensure the bed nets are delivered. Additionally, a generous (and anonymous) donor has committed to donating a real net for each new person who plays the game and signs up and we thought that such a generous offer should be accompanied with a new type of fun engagement.

How successful has it been?

It has been very successful, we’ve had over 10,000 people play the game, our traffic has more than doubled, and donations have also increased. After 20 days of gamming, we’ve been picked up by over 55 blogs.

What did you learn from doing it?

It was a longer, more complicated process to set it up than I thought it would be, but well worth the experiment! I also learned that what people want in terms of difficulty varies widely – I’ve gotten requests for much harder and others who find it difficult. I think we’ve reached a very different audience with this game and gotten them excited about how easy and cheap it is to prevent malaria which kills a child every 30 seconds in Africa.

The title stems from a publication by the e-voter institute, and of course, side view mirrors. The publication was detailing the results of their mid-June to late-July 2007 survey of “Political and Advocacy Communication Leaders.”

One of the first things that jumped out was the finding that “people who are online show a strong intent to vote and are very likely to seek political information online.” 74% of the respondents said they intend to vote in the 2008 primary election (page 25). Of those who said they intended to vote, 91% said they contribute to a candidate or cause online (page 26). Seems like a nice ROI to me.

Another finding is that political consultants find internet tools very effective for reaching liberal activists, while more conventional campaign methods are seen as the most effective for reaching social conservatives. 77% of political consultants see blogs and podcasts as effective for reaching liberals, and 76% say email is effective. In the top five effective methods for reaching liberals, only events with candidates (75%) comes from conventional campaign methods. For social conservatives, events with candidates ranks as the most effective at 77%. The most effective internet tool for reaching social conservatives, the candidate website, ranks 7th at 65% (page 10).

One last interesting finding in the study is that single women are seen as active users of online social media. If you are a lonely political junkie looking for a date on a Saturday night, hit the social networking sites; 51% of consultants said social networking sites were an effective way to reach and persuade single women. You still need to be able to hold a conversation on that date though; 70% of consultants said word of mouth is effective for reaching the single women, making it the most effective method (page 19).

Alexander and Caveh, two of the creators of www.Straight2theCandidates.com visited IPDI Labs this week. They have developed a platform that allows many-to-one communications. It is sort of an inverse blog. We all know that a blog works by one person, or group, posting on it, then many people can read it. Their system allows many people to post questions, then other people can vote those questions up or down so that the most popular questions make it to the top of list. Whose list you might wonder? They originally developed it for communications with politicians, but it has many applications. A company, a famous actor, or a musician could all use this system to communicate with the masses. One nice feature is that anyone who voted on a question that gets answered automatically receives the answer.

In case that’s hard to follow, here’s an example:
Let’s say that Senator John Doe is using their platform. I want to ask John a question about his position on stem cell research. I go to his straight2who site and look over the questions that other people asked. If no one has asked my question, I submit a new question. But, if my question already exists, I vote for that question. If enough people vote for the question, it moves up the list. If the question makes it into the top 3 or so questions, John Doe will answer it. His answers will appear on the site as well as get emailed around to those people who voted on the question.

Alex and I had time for a little Q&A:
IPDI: How did you come up with this idea?
Alexander: As students we had another idea, but couldn’t receive a government grant. We wrote to and emailed the Chancellor, but because the Chancellor receives so much communication, all we received were automatic responses. She later started to talk directly to the citizens using videopodcasts on her website. One of the episodes was about announcing grants for innovative technologies. Sitting in front of the laptop Caveh wanted to jump into the monitor to tell her we are there, but there was no way to do that. And because we already knew that sending email resulted in automatic answers we just decided to set up the back channel to her. The result of hard time, working and sleeping in the office: a brand new way for everyone to communicate faster with politicians.

IPDI: How willing have politicians been to cooperate?
Alexander: The site has just started so it’s difficult to say at this point.

They did show us a few sites that have been setup for German politicians, and they informed us that the Chancellor answers the top three questions on her site every week. She usually responds within three or four days which is apparently unheard of in Germany. They said that it normally takes a few weeks to receive responses.

IPDI: If you could interview one candidate for the site, any candidate, who would it be and why?
Alexander: I have to stay neutral.
Laughter
IPDI: There is no one candidate that you really want?
Caveh: The candidate who is the best for the United States and the world.

IPDI: Technologically, what was the hardest obstacle to overcome?
Alexander: We used Ruby on Rails, but not everyone knew the language. Having everyone learn and understand Ruby on Rails was one of the most difficult parts.

IPDI: What new technology on the horizon are you excited about?
Alexander: The spread of video and video applications on the Internet. It started with plain text, then color text, then sound, and now video technology is getting popular. Many people said there wouldn’t be enough bandwidth, but its spreading quickly.

The site was nice to see in action. It has some other nice features such as the ability to make a video questions (CNN/YouTube anyone?) or to embed video that is hosted somewhere else. People are allowed to comment on the questions so that discussion can be person-to-person as well as person-to-politician. Of course they have a group on Facebook, and they said their software would integrate with the Facebook platform. I hope their platform gains popularity here as well so we can see easier interaction between politicians and the masses.

CRM expert Paul Greenberg , author of CRM at the Speed of Light: Capturing and Keeping Customers in Real Internet Time, believes that constituents are customers, and that elected officials, advocacy groups, trade associations, and, yes, even political campaigns should focus a little more on building relationships with their “customers.”

Check out his new essay, CRM Politics: Do, and Lots of Don’t, for Legislators, Administrators & the Rest of the Tribe.

Greenberg writes that too many government and political institutions see interactions with constituents as a hindrance. When people feel that their government is non-responsive, cynicism sets in. And the people begin to distrust the government.

What’s a congressional office, political campaign, or advocacy group to do? Greenberg offers several best practices for building engagement into your constituent communications program. Read them here.

This is another in a series of interviews with industry professionals discussing the state of online politics. Here we talk with Charles Ellison, Chief Editor at blackpolicy.org. Charles discusses how blackpolicy.org is using the Internet to relay information about Black political candidates at all levels.

PART ONE:

PART TWO:

And thank you once again to Capitol Hill Broadcasting Network for hosting our videos!

This is our fifth in a series of interviews with industry professionals discussing the state of online politics. The Politics Online Conference is just around the corner; here we sit down with Milo Sybrant, Online Community Organizer for Amnesty International, to talk about how they have utilized technology in 2006 and how Amnesty International is using the Internet to empower activists.

Special thanks, once again, to Capitol Hill Broadcasting Network for hosting IPDI’s Vlog posts!

This is our third in a series of interviews with industry professionals discussing the state of online politics. We are little more than a month away from our 2007 Politics Online Conference; here we sit down with Cheryl Contee, Vice President of Issue Dynamics Inc., to talk about how Issue Dynamics utilized technology in 2006 and where she sees web 2.0 taking political activism in the years to come.

Special thanks, once again, to Capitol Hill Broadcasting Network for hosting IPDI’s Vlog posts!

The Institute for Politics, Democracy, & the Internet is very excited about our upcoming Politics Online Conference to be held March 15-16, 2007.

As part of the 14th annual conference, we will once again be giving out the Golden Dot Awards, presented annually for excellence in online campaigning. We ask that you consider nominating your own work or the work of someone you think is deserving of recognition. Past winners have come from diverse political perspectives, utilizing many different online tools. Please also consider posting a link to the Golden Dot Awards on your blog or website. Banners can be found here.

Visit our conference website and complete the nomination form by Tuesday, February 28, 2007.

Categories include:

People’s Choice Award for Technology Impact Moment
People’s Choice Award for Online Politician of the Year
Outstanding National Online Campaign
Outstanding State Online Campaign
Best Website - Federal Candidate
Best Website - Local Candidate
Best Website - Issue Advocacy Campaign
Best Blog - Local, State, or Federal Candidate
Best Blog - Local or State Politics
Best Blog - National Politics
Best Blog - Issues and Advocacy
Best Mobile/Text Message Campaign
Best Podcast Series
Best Networked Campaign
Best Vlog
Best Political Web Video
Best Animation or Mashup
Best Online Viral Campaign
Best Online Community Response Effort
Best Online Get-Out-The-Vote Campaign