In a world where advocacy often requires your team to respond to breaking news at a moment’s notice, you need processes that let everyone on the team move fast and get out of their own way. 

Instead of getting things done as efficiently as possible, some teams follow processes that are too convoluted and involve too many people. Purpose-built advocacy software designed to cut down on busywork helps with this.  

How an Advocacy Platform Saves Time

The most successful advocacy teams are often those that have processes so well-defined that they can jump into action the minute news occurs. There are a lot of components that make a team such a well-oiled machine — from clearly defined roles to team-wide trust — but the role of tech can’t be overstated.

Purpose-built advocacy software, specifically, means not having to deal with disorganized spreadsheets or confusing data silos when you need to find information. And it makes it easier to do a complete campaign setup faster by letting you do it all in one platform.

Of course, software isn’t going to be useful to anyone who doesn’t take the time to learn it. Some effort needs to be invested up front to reap the greatest time-saving benefits.

However, “Most companies, like VoterVoice, work with you,” says Kristin St. John, board member at the Advocacy Association. “They listen to what you need, and they figure out how they can best accommodate you.”

Once your team is comfortable with your solution of choice, you can start building processes that use it to its greatest advantage, helping your team move faster as a result.

Simplifying Supporter Data Management

There are rarely shortcuts in life, but when there are, smart advocacy groups take them. One essential shortcut to look for, especially for advocacy teams with minimal tech resources, removes the need to format data manually.

Typically, advocacy software stores supporter data according to rigid data templates, and advocacy groups have to spend hours reformatting their data to fit those templates. But VoterVoice removes that busywork by not using templates.

“Rather than having to spend hours working with your data, you can just put it in quickly,” says Adam Campbell, client success team lead at VoterVoice. “The platform doesn’t care what you call the fields or what order they’re in. You can just use your standard export and push it through.”

List segmentation is another task that typically creates time-wasting busywork for advocacy professionals. The hours it takes just to properly tag supporters could be a whole job, not to mention having to build email lists from permutations of those tags.

But VoterVoice automates this process by, for example, automatically assigning supporters tags based on their actions.

“We do automatic list segmentation by both topic and activity level. So, in VoterVoice, even if you’re not actively asking your members what they’re interested in, every campaign, every petition survey, every action, anything can get tagged with these topics,” Campbell explains.

You can then automate email list building by combining tagged groups with a few clicks. VoterVoice even lets you send emails according to the recipients’ representatives, which they’re automatically tagged with according to their home address.

“Having the database where you can filter [tags] and make new subgroups of folks … you can just go for what you need a lot quicker now,” St. John says.

Watch this video for an example of how quick it can be:

Knowing and Acting on New Information Instantly

The average advocacy team spends a lot of time doing research on bills, legislators, and the latest news. Any team serious about working smarter needs to find ways to spend less time researching while still getting all the facts they need.  

Here, too, advocacy software can be a great help. Advocacy software is often connected with legislation and policy tracking tools that can give your team alerts in near-real time — and even take simple actions based on those updates.

It helps you get information in front of supporters quickly. For example, VoterVoice lets you display the status of bills, legislators’ voting history, and other essential information right on your website with no extra coding.

“If you’re looking to do things like display bill information, you just have to tell us what bill, and we will automatically pull up this big hit card with all of the objective information,” Campbell explains. “Similarly, with creating legislative scorecards, we pull in all the votes. You don’t need to research them. We pull in sponsorship and co-sponsorship [information]. You don’t need to research that.”

Add Hours to Your Day with Advocacy Software

The key to helping your team move faster isn’t just better processes — it’s the right tools to support them. VoterVoice eliminates time-consuming tasks, streamlines your workflow, and helps your team focus on what really matters: making an impact.