Visiting with the ONE Campaign
by Patrick Ruffini :: July 18th, 2007 12:40 amAlong 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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I find it most interesting that they’re pitching their campaign as non-partisan. No advocacy group is non-partisan. We may all dream every night about eradicating poverty and AIDS in Africa, but it’s how we get there that’s different. There IS a Republican and Democratic way to fix potholes. Forgiving the debt of racist African dictators (as opposed to the people those dictators oppress) is the Democrat/Bono way to fix the problem.
Anyhoo, I know your post was about the methodology and not the politics, but I had to get that off my chest.
There has been a lot of great work in the advocacy space in the past few years – pretty much all of it online and on the left. My last company was founded on its advocacy software (GetActive, recently purchased by Convio) and I learned advocacy from a lot of great big – technically non-partisan – non-profits (most eventually set-up a separate 501(c)(4) to do their dirty work, allowing the 501(c)(3) to continue to be non-partisan) such as CARE, Oxfam, Save the Children, NetAid – all of which are partners in the ONE campaign.
Advo doesn’t usually do anything to get a law changed in Congress because the member usually already made up his mind about the issue and doesn’t have to worry too much about those in his district with whom he disagrees because it’s so gerrymandered anyway, he’s virtually assured of re-election, or he has some kind of block in his “contact me” form that essentially stops any kind of mass communication that comes from someone who isn’t actually using his website at the time.
What advo is great at is getting attention, which in turn gets more participants, which in turn gives the non-profit lots more people to solicit for donations. So, it’s a Catch-22 for non-profit advocacy groups: success in their issue removes the need for them to exist and the call-to-action to acquire more donors. Can you image Planned Parenthood simply shutting down if abortions became 100% legal everywhere and the threat to stop them went away?
What is different here is that usually advo is done either with an already-elected official as the target or the CEO of a company, such as PhillipMorris to stop selling ciggys to kids, etc. This is the first big time I can think of where candidates are the target. The perceived threat of all these registered young voters might convince them to oil the squeaky wheel and agree to their positions when they normally wouldn’t, undoubtedly turning off their base – the likely majority of voters. The left is great at being loud and seeming to be the majority. I’m afraid that’s what’s going to happen here. How can you turn down that fetching white bracelet?
I also like their strategy of going after churches. I’ve long said that Dems could co-opt the evangelicals and other religious if they went after the compassionate and social justice side of things. Official religion isn’t just about being pro-life and many religious view helping the poor as equally important. Not all, but many. This could be the movement that pulls the evangelical rug out from under the GOP.
Still waiting for you to retract false statements and apologize to the McCain Camp.