Edgy Online Advocacy Campaign Clicks With Young Activists

A coalition of more than 80 environmental groups in British Columbia has been working

for six years to secure both national and provincial endangered-species legislation because, as the name of its Web site declares, extinction sucks.

The BC Endangered Species Coalition, which brought its fight to the Internet in April 2000, uses market research to shape its cheeky campaign, which combines both online and offline advocacy techniques. In the first 18 months that the site was online, more than 3,000 of the people who visited it contacted their provincial and federal representatives to express their support for endangered-species legislation.

This fall a billboard and transit advertising campaign, conducted by the Canadian Endangered Species Coalition, of which the British Columbia group is an active member, featured an orca landing on an airport runway strip. The ad skewers national legislation currently under consideration that would apply only to the 5 percent of land owned by the Canadian government, places like airports, national parks, and post offices.

That kind of edgy humor tests well with the campaigns’ target audiences of young people ages 18 to 24 and women who live in urban areas, says Kate Smallwood, who coordinates both coalitions’ campaigns. By asking activists who register with the sites some basic questions, such as their age, their sex, and how they heard about the Web site, the coalitions are able to confirm that they are reaching their intended targets.

“I don’t think enough groups do their demographic homework,” says Ms. Smallwood. “We’ve found that’s been invaluable to let us know which advertising worked better than others, because that means when we then go back to our next round of paid advertising or earned media or online work, we have a really good idea where to go.”

Pending Legislation

Earlier this year, lawmakers in Ottawa reintroduced endangered-species legislation that had died when the 2000 national election was called. The Canadian Endangered Species Coalition is opposed to the Species at Risk Act because coalition members believe the bill doesn’t provide adequate protection for the endangered animals’ habitat.

Following up on the BC Endangered Species Coalition’s success, the national coalition created a new site, GiveThemAHome.com, which went online in September, and focuses on the coalition’s efforts to strengthen the bill’s habitat protections.

As it designed the site, the national coalition turned to an online focus group for suggestions. For example, participants in the focus group said that they would want to know whether their activist work would make a difference and how long it would take to contact their elected officials. So, on the front page of the new site, which urges visitors to contact the prime minister, the coalition has laid out the different ways that activists can express their views and estimates how long each form of communication will take.

The coalition also used the new site as an opportunity to educate activists about the most effective ways to influence the prime minister. Over and over again in its research, the coalition was told that handwritten letters would carry more weight than either faxes or phone calls, which the organization explains on the site.

“As a test, we thought we would ask people for what we really wanted,” explains Ms. Smallwood, who says she hoped that 1 to 3 percent of the people taking action would send a personal letter. She has been delighted to find, though, that 10 percent of the 3,400 who have reported contacting the prime minister have written letters.

E-Mail Postcard

ONE/Northwest, a Seattle charity that provides technology assistance to environmental groups in the Pacific Northwest, has worked with the coalitions on their online efforts. With ONE/Northwest’s help, the national coalition designed an e-mail postcard to promote GiveThemAHome.com. In addition to sending it to people who had taken action at ExtinctionSucks.org, the coalition also uses the postcard to thank activists who take action at the new site, and visitors can use the site’s tell-a-friend feature to send it to friends and family members.

The coalition invites people who have taken action to sign up for an e-mail update list that provides information regularly about the progress of the campaign.

Says Ms. Smallwood, “It’s all about making sure that people who take action at your site are thanked, that they’re informed about the impact that their work has had, and they’re made to feel welcomed and informed about what their role is on the campaign.”