How to Get More Volunteers Involved in Your Next Advocacy Campaign

Mobilisation Lab, an organization that helps charities rally supporters to fight for causes, began in 2011 as an effort by the environmental group Greenpeace. At that time, Greenpeace wanted to give its supporters a bigger role in its advocacy campaigns.

MobLab’s work taught Greenpeace new ways of harnessing grass-roots advocates’ passion by teaching the group to collaborate and decentralize its decision making. The Lab’s leaders soon realized that many other groups could benefit from its approach.

To help other nonprofits create more inclusive campaigns, the Lab has identified six elements of “open,” or volunteer-focused, campaigns, along with six questions nonprofit organizers should ask themselves when shaping a new advocacy effort.

One goal is to help groups decide which activities warrant greater or lesser collaboration from supporters. Think of the elements and the corresponding volunteer involvement as levers organizers can pull depending on the campaign’s goals and needs. Some campaigns may blend organization-focused activities with grass-roots approaches.

“We see many campaigners and organization leaders who think that ‘open campaigns’ are a black-and-white thing: either from the bottom up or the top down,” says Michael Silberman, the Lab’s global director. “No. This is a checklist to guide discussion and find new ways to enable greater participation to scale your work.”

You can download the checklist below.