This week my new organization launched a online tool set that will be serious game changer for progressive organizing. Up until now, local organizers working in small groups, or small affiliates of large national networks, rarely would have access to powerful, full-featured online tools. And what light tools they would have access to would often swallow their data, not allowing them the fruits of their own organizing. That changes today with the launch of the Action Network.
The Action Network is a new easy to use, full-featured online tool set that is free to individuals and small groups. Organizers using the Action Network keep their own data and can use it or download it any time.
This tool set includes the following features:
- A mass mailer to keep in touch with activists
- A petition tool to create petition pages targeted at those in power
- An event tool to collect online RSVPs for on-the-ground actions
- Custom forms to collect flexible survey information from activists
- Public file storage for materials organizers need to distribute
- Groups that allow organizers to work together
- Campaign pages to collect different actions together into stunning action centers
- A distributed event tool to allow large groups to ask activists to host their own events
- Widgets to embed any action on any web page
One of the best innovations with the Action Network is the use of “widgetized” technology. The widgets allow any action to be embedded on any web site, breaking free of the technology silos of traditional organizing tool sets. This widgetized technology also makes it easier for groups to work together because all groups on a campaign can use their own branding and content around a joint action, and they can share data from that action.
Here's a screenshot of a petition embedded in campaign page to get an idea of how this works.
So we’re lowering the barriers to access to powerful organizing technology, and we’re making it easier for progressives to work together. This is a powerful reimagining of what’s possible for campaigns.
The Corporate Action Network, the affiliate group that I am a co-founder of, created the Action Network to provide a networked model to make progressive campaigns and campaigns against corporate abuse more effective. Corporate Action Network had a theory: by leveraging a networked infrastructure that allows groups and individuals to create more flexible ways of working together, organizers can build campaigns on a larger scale than possible with traditional coalitions. This networked approach will finally allow for truly long-lasting change, putting people on the same playing field as immense corporations.
We created the Action Network to help make this vision a reality, and we’re ready to help partners build innovative, powerful campaigns within this new model.
We already have a great testimonial from an amazing organizer, Silvia Fabela, at Making Change at Walmart: "We anticipate that the new Action Network tools will significantly enhance our ability to engage new supporters and grow our movement. After using Corporate Action Network Action Center tools to organize over 30,000 supporters across 1,200 Walmart stores for the first-ever strikes in the history of Walmart this past Black Friday in November 2012, we’ve helped to use what we learned from that, and subsequent events, to create the new Action Network tool set. Making Change at Walmart is excited to be part of this project that uses real organizer and activist experiences to build tools that work on the ground."
We can only continue to learn and improve these tools though if you join and add to the network. Start your campaign today at: ActionNetwork.org
Here's a little more on the Corporate Action Network and what we are all about: