[Note: This entry was originally posted on Politics Magazine.]

It goes without saying that America is currently experiencing a hyper-political moment. Every day, it seems, another veteran incumbent retires or faces a surprise intraparty challenge. 

This unforgiving and hostile environment means politicians will be even more sensitive to criticism, and more receptive to messages from constituents back home, than normal. 

For advocacy professionals, this is what’s called an opportunity.

As spring turns into summer and summer turns into fall, look for advocacy organizations of all shapes and sizes--corporations, trade associations, labor unions, left-leaning, right leaning--to work overtime to inject their priority issues into top-tier congressional races.

The psychology behind this strategy is simple: Just as auction participants can get caught up in trying to out-bid one another, desperate political candidates will attempt to “trump” one another by making increasingly bold promises or …

The Supreme Court's landmark decision in the Citizens United case (Citizens United v. FEC) has struck down key campaign finance laws and lifted certain restrictions on the types of expenditures and communications organizations can make related to elections.  There has been much debate over what the real impact of this decision will be in the 2010 elections and beyond, but what about the impact on advocacy?

Often, we think of advocacy on issues in the context of legislative action, but because issues are also central to elections, the campaigns are equally—if not more—important to issue outcomes.  One potential outcome of Citizens United is that organizations may be in a better position to mobilize constituents to hold candidates accountable on the issues that matter.  

For example, take GOTV efforts.  Traditionally, many organizations have stressed the importance of voting and communicated the fact that politics do impact the success of a …

DDC Advocacy recently launched a major upgrade to the communications capabilities of our Democracy Direct application.  This release incorporates a lot of new and enhanced features for better emails, action alerts, and communications tracking.

We’re always looking to improve our technology to make managing grassroots programs and campaigns easier and more effective.  As always, the input and feedback we got from our clients played a big role, and we’re happy to say that a number of the key upgrades were based on suggestions from users. 

Here is a quick snapshot of some of our new and improved features:

• Emails—easier email management and some powerful new tools for creating, targeting, and sending email blasts
• Action alerts—streamlined tools for creating and managing your alerts
• Letter management—a new, intuitive interface for managing your communications to legislators
• List building and targeting—expanded list-building functionality for precise legislative targeting
• Set up and configuration—more settings to …

Ahead of what is sure to be a busy 2010, now is an ideal time to start mapping out your online strategy.  Colin Delany at Politics Magazine published a useful article, “Ten Ways to Blow It Online,” covering a lot of common pitfalls of online campaigning, as well as some useful tips.

In particular, Delany hits on two themes that really ring true with our experience:  The first is the importance of starting early to build your online presence and recruit supporters.  The sooner you can launch your online effort and start attracting supporters, the better positioned you’ll be when it really counts.  Not only that, you’ll also have more time to foster real relationships with your advocates—and help them feel like they have a stake in your efforts—which is very important to the long-term success of your program.

The other key point is the value of an …

The Congressional Management Foundation (CMF) released a new study that caught our attention:  They looked at the use of online town-hall meetings by Members of Congress, and found overwhelmingly positive results in terms of constituents’ opinions of their Members, issue knowledge, and overall political participation.

Some of the study's key findings offer very encouraging news for organizations using or considering similar techniques for their advocacy efforts.  For example, the report finds that:

• “The town halls increased engagement in politics.”
• “The discussions in the town halls were of high quality.”
• “The sessions were extremely popular with constituents.”
• “The positive results were seen even in a larger session.”

Remember, these same constituents are also potential advocates on your issues.  Indeed, online town-hall meetings offer a wealth of possibilities for advocacy efforts.  For example, we’ve found them to be very useful for educating and energizing stakeholders, or for providing a …

We’re excited to announce that Mathew Newfield, a seasoned operations manager, has joined DDC Advocacy as Senior Vice President of Operations!

Mat’s got more than a decade of experience leading a variety of key services teams, and at DDC Advocacy, he’ll lead our professional services teams in support of clients’ advocacy and PAC programs.  He comes to us from RSA, where he was responsible for delivering and supporting mission-critical services to hundreds of Fortune 500 companies.  

To learn more, check out Mat’s bio, or read the news release.

Welcome to DDC Advocacy—and to The Active Voice, our new company blog.

As anyone involved in public affairs knows, changes in technology, the media, and lobbying have had a tremendous impact on American politics.  Amid all the change, one thing has become clear: the participation of informed constituents is playing an ever-increasing role in how issues are decided. 

No matter what you call it—advocacy, grassroots, net-roots—the role and practice of participatory democracy has evolved dramatically, even in the past few years, and it is arguably more important to the political process than ever before.

For 13 years, our company has been at the forefront of innovation in the practice of advocacy.  From the start, we have sought to create new, better ways to help constituents get …

The mission of The Active Voice is to offer ideas and insights from DDC Advocacy about the latest trends, topics, and best practices in issue advocacy, as well as relevant news and announcements.  We want the blog to be a forum for public affairs and advocacy professionals from across the political spectrum, and so we welcome and encourage comments from visitors.

Our comment policy is simple: Comments must be relevant to the topic of the blog and the post, and, as with any public forum, they must not be abusive, vulgar, or personal attacks.  DDC Advocacy reserves the right to remove any comment at our discretion at any time.

It’s important to note that the subject of this blog is the practice of advocacy, and not about the merits of any particular issue, party, or candidate.  You will not find …