Visiting with the ONE Campaign

by Patrick Ruffini :: July 18th, 2007 12:40 am

Along with Soren Dayton and Joe Carter, on Tuesday I had the opportunity to attend a blogger roundtable at the ONE Campaign’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. We got to hear from ONE CEO Susan McCue and her staff.

For those that have been hanging out in nuclear fallout shelters over the last couple years, ONE is the campaign to focus attention on global poverty, HIV/AIDS, and debt relief. It’s backed by, well, all of Hollywood, but also by some serious political players on both sides of the aisle.

McCue talked of ONE’s goal as “mak[ing] global poverty the next great social justice movement.” That’s sort of a liberal activist way of putting it, but the effort is bipartisan. A senior level official is dedicated to working the organization’s Republican track, and we were joined over the phone by Jack Oliver, who used to run the day-to-day at the RNC. And Sam Brownback is a fan.

This fall, ONE will unveil the ONE Pledge, with the goal of getting the Presidential candidates to commit to their agenda, likely to include increased foreign aid and debt cancellation. Right now, the organization, though its ONE Vote ‘08 campaign, is in the process of gathering commitments. After 2008, they’ll move into an “accountability phase.” It’ll be interesting to see how they handle it. Right now, the group has been lots of touchy-feely, avoiding any stench of partisanship or controversy like the plague. Let’s see what happens when they start going on record against named public officials.

ONE has purposely avoided the strategy of setting up large global concert events to drive their message, a la Live Earth. They want to build something sustainable, that won’t fizzle out after a giant media hit. The challenge with a Live Earth is that it’s lots of sizzle and little steak. McCue says the group relies on a little celebrity style to carry its message — okay, a lot, she admits. But they’d clearly prefer that be in the background. Boots on the ground matters more to them than the air war.

ONE Vote ‘08 has been doing launches in the four early primary states (though does Nevada matter as much as, say, Florida, on the Republican side?). Up in New Hampshire, one of the political reporters remarked that they seemed more organized than most of the Presidential campaigns. With 17,000 members in New Hampshire alone, you can see why. I asked how many of those were likely voters, as opposed to people who texted in their name at a U2 concert. McCue replied that 80% of ONE members are registered voters, and over 10% are super-activists who perform every action online (that would work out to about 250,000 people, based on the numbers provided by ONE.org).

The 80% figure is interesting — it implies an audience that’s not totally disengaged, but still relatively apolitical. What other high level advocacy group can you think of that attracts a 20% non-registered membership? If they have email (or have figured out a way to effectively drive it through SMS) on these people, that could make them a powerful force in voter registration this cycle.

Their counterpoint to the “young people don’t vote” mantra is that any movement depends on the creativity of young people. They view students and churches as the cornerstone of ONE. Lots of the volunteer energy, new ideas, and great stories get driven by the 18-29 demographic, even if the ultimate effect at the ballot box is more muted.

What I’m fascinated by this is new mode of movement building that ONE is pioneering. The old school groups were ideological, direct-mail driven, and special interest-focused. ONE holds itself to be post-partisan, net-centric, and they represent people who don’t have a stake in the American political system — Africans suffering from famine or dying of AIDS. That turns a lot of the political science assumptions about collective action on their heads.

I believe ONE is also a model for the advocacy group of the future. They have about 25 employees, and 9 of them (or nearly 40%) are working on the Internet full time. They built out their Internet operation first. Presidential candidates should take note.

Tagged: aids one online politics policy poverty

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