Most days, advocacy moves at a slow, plodding pace. But some days it moves rapidly, and when it does, you have to be able to get your advocates to take immediate action.

How do you successfully spin up an advocacy campaign when you barely have any time to act?

That was the central question of the recent VoterVoice webinar, “How to Build an Advocacy Campaign in 1 Day (Yes, Really).” The webinar featured Maynard Friesz, vice president of policy and advocacy at Cure SMA; Jawanda Mast, grassroots advocacy manager at the National Down Syndrome Congress; and David Chase, vice president of policy and advocacy at Small Business Majority.

These three advocacy experts drew on their wealth of experience in rapid response advocacy to explain how teams can position themselves to act fast whenever it’s needed.

Start with Consistent Advocate Engagement

Throughout the webinar, one theme emerged repeatedly: preparation is the key to effective rapid response advocacy.

“Advocacy is a marathon, not a sprint,” Friesz said.

He explained that the real work of advocacy “doesn’t happen the minute you hit send on that action alert. It happens the weeks, the months, and the years in advance…It’s that communication throughout the year, educating [advocates], engaging them on issues that matter to them. That way, when something does happen…they’re already connected to our organization.”

Chase agreed and mentioned that his organization builds connections by providing concrete support to its community every day. “If we can provide practical resources to help them in addition to doing advocacy work, they say, ‘Okay, you understand me, you’re helping me.’ We’re trying not to make it so transactional, but to have a relationship.”

One of the ways Mast cultivates relationships with advocates is by helping them tell their own stories of living with Down syndrome. This prepares supporters to share these stories with lawmakers if the need arises.  

“We have all kinds of resources that are always ready” for educating and engaging supporters, Mast said. These resources “have [our advocates] ready when the time comes to start telling those powerful stories.”

Craft a Focused Message

So much of advocacy is about telling powerful stories that inspire action, and in rapid response advocacy, you have to get your story right the first time.

That being said, “In some ways, rapid response is easier” from a communications standpoint, according to Friesz. “If all of a sudden you’re hearing that something’s happening tomorrow and you need to weigh in today, there’s some urgency to that. We all want to act on something that’s exciting, and rapid response allows you to do that.”

Leaning into urgency in your communications might get more responses, but only if you focus on the issues that really matter to your advocates, Chase said. “We need to make sure that our message is speaking directly to their concern: how will this impact you? How will your life improve if we make the change that we want to see?”

Staying focused on your community’s concerns can also help you reach advocates of multiple political persuasions. “We stick to our message of giving non-biased information,” Mast said. “By doing that, and by pointing people to good analysis of policy, we bring them around.”

Have the Right Tools and Processes for Rapid Response Advocacy

The most persuasive messaging means little if you don’t have processes for sharing it. On this point, the panelists again stressed the need to be prepared ahead of time.

“We all need to make sure that our organizations have an infrastructure in place that’s already built when it comes time to launch the rapid response campaign,” Chase said.

Part of that infrastructure is “having a key understanding of the policy issues,” so you can quickly draw on that expertise, Chase continued. For example, “If you’re pushing back on Medicaid cuts, it’s important to have your Medicaid talking points and your Medicaid research ready to go.” Tools like PolicyNote can help you quickly understand the content of a bill with AI summarization and even draft talking points. 

It also means regularly checking in with your network about policy developments. “You can’t evaluate and respond to a bill until you’ve actually read the bill…but you can be prepared, and I’m guessing most people on this call have some inside people on the hill that help them know what may be coming,” Mast said. Tapping into those relationships gives you a chance to brainstorm your strategy and messaging ahead of time.

Once it’s time to disseminate that message, you need software that enables rapid outreach, including the quick creation of new emails and action centers. To that end, Mast said, “We love the VoterVoice system because it helps us be able to target [outreach], but also send widespread things very quickly.”

Friesz agreed, adding that VoterVoice makes it easy to create rapid response communications, “And I think it’s easy for the advocates to use as well.” Plus, VoterVoice has “a really great dashboard, so you can measure…how many people took action” for near-instant insights into how well a rapid response campaign is working.

Laying the Groundwork for Successful Rapid Response

Rapid response advocacy can be chaotic, but this webinar’s panelists made it clear that the chaos can be minimized if your day-to-day advocacy is in good shape. Many qualities that make for good advocacy in general, such as knowledge of the issues and regular engagement with followers, lay the groundwork for successful rapid response.

For more insight into how successful advocacy groups set themselves up for rapid response campaigns, watch the full webinar.