I attended a U2 concert a while back where Bono stopped playing for a moment and asked each audience member to open their phones (the modern day substitute for lighters). As the football stadium lit up with thousands of tiny lights, the rock star asked us to look around and imagine what kind of difference we could make if we all contributed a small amount. He then urged each one of us to text a simple message to a phone number which would send a small donation to the One Campaign. I'm sure he fundraised well over $50,000 in 30 seconds.

Nonprofits are now catching on to this technique as they search for innovative fundraising methods. Given the fact that of the 270 million mobile subscribers in the US, 59% regularly send text messages, nonpfrofits may be able to tap this quick and painless form of giving to reach a new, diversified base of financial (and constituent) support.

The NonProfit times explains how nonprofits can leverage the text message:

How does it work?

The most popular method of mobile fundraising is premium SMS, which stands for short message service. One example of such a campaign is Share Our Strength, the national organization focused on child hunger. It launched a text donation challenge a few months ago in partnership with AT&T. Donors made $5 contributions by texting "SHARE" to 20222, one of the special short codes used for fundraising. As an additional benefit, AT&T matched those $5 contributions up to $100,000.

While this new strategy has promise, there are a few concerns:

The current $5 donation cap per text message limits SMS fundraising. Nonprofits also fear that small donations can cannibalize donors who might give more online. There is some effort to increase the premium SMS limit from $5 to $10, and to allow for recurring monthly donations. Donors would still have to approve each monthly SMS donation with a reply confirmation, but at that $120 annual level, mobile giving via SMS starts to look like a more lucrative option.

So far, many nonprofit campaigns have struggled integrating mobile campaigns into an overall strategy. Organizations also need to think about how to convert their mobile donors into longer-term supporters. Finally, donor still need to be educated -- most people do not yet know they can give via text messages.

If nonprofits are able to identify the proper role and audience for mobile fundraising campaigns, it has potential to tap into many people who might not otherwise donate to a worthy cause.

Posted by Lisa Molinaro at 10:37 AM | Permalink

The New York Times reports that Obama's popularity is holding up abroad, even as he struggles to realize the level of bipartisan cooperation that he is trying to achieve within Congress. As you may recall, there was ongoing debate about how much Obama's popularity abroad as a presidential candidate would translate into his presidency.

Well, foreign policy experts like George Perkovich, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, say that so far Obama has had a marked effect on Pakistan and Afghanistan (whose foreign ministers were willing to meet under the auspices of the US government and discuss policy politely, a marked change from the last time the White House tried this), as well as on Egypt's recent decision to release political dissident Ayman Nour.

Of course, as is the case with all shifts in tone and leadership:

The question of how much of the early good will translates into real policy changes remains. Kenneth M. Pollack, a Middle East expert at the Brookings Institution, says the better atmospherics are great in the short term. But he cautions that, "as with all honeymoons, this says nothing about the long-term durability of the marriage."

That "long-term durability" will take smart, responsible, cooperative foreign policy decisions; there are no substitutes, nor easy answers.

Posted by Josh Weissburg at 5:14 PM | Permalink

The results aren't yet official, but, as reported in the NY Times on Tuesday, an inventive teacher at Marine Elementary School in Minnesota seems to have figured out how to get her students to stop fidgeting and listen by designing a way for them to stand during class.

When I read this, I first wondered how on earth the rest of us missed the blindingly obvious insight that perhaps children who aren't forced to sit still in a desk might actually find it easier to listen, concentrate and learn. Then I started thinking about how often teachers -- including those of us trying to educate the public -- insist on teaching in the manner and environment to which we've become accustomed.

Most advocates know by now not to sling reams of statistics at the audiences they hope to sway. But I wonder if creative advocates couldn't figure out ways to rearrange the places, times and environments in which they do their work to maximize the ability of a specific audience to really listen and absorb new ideas and arguments.

"At a stand-up desk," [teacher] Ms. Seekel said, "I've never seen students with their heads down, ever. It helps with being awake, if they can stand, it seems. And for me as a teacher, I can stand at their level to help them. I'm not bent over. I can't think of one reason why a classroom teacher wouldn't want these."

What furniture can advocates rearrange to better make eye contact with their audiences?

Posted by Josh Weissburg at 2:49 PM | Permalink

Last month our own David Devlin-Foltz posted his observations from a national convening on policy advocacy evaluation that took place in California. One of the highlights from that convening (featured in Innovation Network's recent newsletter) was a list of "Ten Considerations for Effective Advocacy Evaluation" from Ted Lempert, President of Children Now, a national research and advocacy organization based in Oakland, California.

Throughout CPSS's research and consulting work on advocacy evaluation, we have continually seen the importance of thinking through the evaluation process from both ends -- funder and grantee (who most of the time is the advocate) perspectives alike. (See our parallel funder and grantee Continuous Progress advocacy evaluation guides.)

Lempert's ten considerations are immensely useful because they help funders understand the realities of evaluation from the advocate's perspective, which should translate into clearer expectations and more realistic funding proposals. Following are Lempert's considerations. To read the detail under each one, click here: Lempert 10 Considerations.pdf.

1. Every advocacy campaign is unique and evaluation models must reflect this fact.
2. Trust between advocacy organizations and funders is essential to effective evaluation.
3. Evaluation models must be responsive to changes in the political landscape.
4. That which gets measured gets done.
5. Understand the assumptions embedded in the evaluation model.
6. Implementing supportive evaluation practices requires capacity building.
7. The advocacy campaign should ultimately be measured by its success.
8. There is a big difference between evaluating a campaign and evaluating a grant cycle.
9. Effective evaluation requires that advocates and evaluators partner to collectively create
10. and implement an evaluation plan.
11. Models must be able to effectively evaluate the contributions of coalition members.

We would welcome comments or additions to this list. What considerations would you add? Feel free to email us.

Posted by Josh Weissburg at 12:29 PM | Permalink

I'm not one to put great stock in the public advocacy potential of quick-and-easy "greenwashed" consumer products. I've seen too many frivolous attempts at "going green" -- and I'll bet most consumers are starting to think the same.

But every so often an industry will actually innovate around an issue, climate change or otherwise, and create a product designed from that new vantage point. Yesterday, Clive Thompson, a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and a columnist for Wired, wrote about a new Playstation 3 game called Flower:

[Flower] may be the first -- and only -- truly good game about climate change.

When I say that Flower is the first game about climate change, I don't mean that it's the first game to refer to climate change. Plenty of post-apocalyptic games have been set in a near-future world ravaged by global warming -- like last year's Fracture, where two warring tribes scrap amongst the ruins of the depleted planet, or the upcoming game Fuel, where Mad Max-style drivers race across a United States complete with global-warming-created tornadoes and floodplains.

But in these games, climate change is merely part of the background. You're not supposed to do anything about it; the damage has already been done. (Indeed, Fuel appears to regard the damage as totally awesome, because it has created such badass racing environments! Woo-hoo!)

What makes Flower different is that it is "about" changing or improving the situation -- and making you feel wonderful over how you've renewed life that was destroyed by industrialization.

Let me be clear: Flower will not help anyone grasp the substance of what's required to navigate climate change's tricky political and scientific tradeoffs; this isn't a SimCity experience by any means. But the power of an interactive, visual experience being what it is (compare this, for emotional reference, to a couple of pages of hard stats from, say, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), and you can imagine that Flower might instill its audience with a desire to take action to better the environment.

Posted by Josh Weissburg at 3:36 PM | Permalink

We were searching, a few years back, for an image that would vividly capture the need to plan for "the middle part" between what has to happen today in an advocacy organization, and what kind of long-term impact we hope to have. Filling in "the middle part" can be a challenge for any organization, be it for-profit, non-profit or government.

To illustrate the point, a few years ago we started using that wonderful South Park episode where these weird little gnomes would sneak into a little boy's room during the night and steal his underpants. Every night. The kids decide to find out why. So they follow the gnomes back to the huge hollow tree where they store their stolen goods. They ask the head gnome why they do this. He says that they have a multinational corporation! They persist. They ask how the corporation works. He explains - using a huge chart.

Those of us in the world of social change often fall into saying:

Step One: Have a staff meeting and talk about the impact we want to have.
Step Two: ??????
Step Three: IMPACT!!!

We wondered how well this illustration would translate across cultural lines -- whether organizational culture or, well, cultural culture. The early returns are in, and the evidence is: the gnomes travel well. A Silicon Valley venture capitalist pulled me aside after a presentation at last years' Global Philanthropy Forum and said: those underpants gnomes show up in a lot of seminars on preparing a good business plan. A group of Brazilian philanthropists laughed knowingly at the gnomes in Sao Paulo last November. And now this just in: the gnomes rocked in Russia.

Under the auspices of the Charities Aid Foundation's Global Trustees program, I spoke with ten representatives of Russian philanthropists in Moscow earlier this month. We knew going in that advocacy could be a sensitive topic in Russia, but the gnomes helped break the ice. And the group recognized that they already carry out many advocacy activities -- perhaps under a different name. Letting our participants name the work for themselves opened up the conversation and got us all working and learning together about what "the middle part" could look like.

I left Russia still knowing only "da," "nyet," and "vodka," but I left with a richer sense of possibilities for social change in difficult environments. And I left behind a deeper appreciation of "the middle part" and perhaps of those world-traveling underpants gnomes.

Posted by David Devlin-Foltz at 3:08 PM | Permalink

That, according to The Economist and The Washington Post, is what Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is trying to do on her first trip abroad to Asia. Writes Glenn Kessler in the Post:

Her pitch is that the problems of the world -- the financial crisis, climate change and extremism -- are so overwhelming that no country can handle them alone, certainly not the United States. Remember, she's saying, how the Bush administration went to war in Iraq virtually by itself (with Clinton's vote of approval)? That's in the past. We need help. And we want to listen.

"My trip here today is to hear your views, because I believe strongly that we learn from listening to one another," Clinton told students at Tokyo University on Tuesday. "And that is, for me, part of what this first trip of mine as secretary of state is about."

As many advocates for responsible, collaborative foreign policy have been saying during the past eight years, the role and resources given to the Under Secretary of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs are important, but there is no substitute for public diplomacy that tracks closely with U.S. policy goals, represented directly by the Secretary of State.

Posted by Josh Weissburg at 11:28 AM | Permalink

Longtime readers of this blog will remember that the Global Interdependence Initiative started out helping advocates, who often struggle with relaying complicated messages to the public, to a better job of telling their story. It's always difficult to convince Americans who are not part of your base to jump on board a new issue that is seemingly irrelevant to their lives. Since its inception as a messaging guide here at the GII, U.S. in the World has since become its own organization that continues to offer advocates free guides on messaging to help talk to "aunt sue" about complex issues like global warming, foreign assistance, international cooperation and so on. In particular, we at the GII continue to return to USITW's top twenty key recommendations on effective messaging.

Posted by Lisa Molinaro at 11:12 AM | Permalink

James Glassman, the outgoing Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs at the State Department, recently gave his "Exit Interview" to Public Diplomacy, a new publication of the University of Southern California.

It's a fascinating interview in which Glassman speaks frankly about the changes to PD structure after the close of the U.S. Information Agency, about problematic terminology that plagues PD (the "war of ideas," for example) and about where PD dollars go. Specifically, on the last point, Glassman notes:

I think it's really important for the public to understand, which they don't, that we spend most of our money on exchanges--educational and cultural exchanges. That's really where about two-thirds of the budget goes. We like exchanges, we know that they work, we do a lot of research evaluating them. The best thing we can do, I think, in PD, is to put an American face to face with someone from a foreign country. The problem with exchanges is that they're relatively expensive--though, compared to what the government spends in other areas maybe not so expensive. So we'd like to do more, and we have increased those exchanges dramatically. They're up 50 percent in the last three to four years. It's a pretty dramatic increase. And we know they work, and it does make sense to put resources into things we know work. Just to give you an idea, you know we do 7,000 Fulbrights a year; 4,000 Fulbright Scholars come to the United States, 3,000 Americans go abroad. The Fulbright program costs about $200 million, and our total budget is about $900 million, so that one program is about 20 percent of our budget.

Ok, so that's where most of the money goes. Then, almost all the rest of the money goes to international information programs; outreach, plus the salaries that we pay, that are part of our budget for PD officers.

The outreach is very high-tech. We think that's the most efficient way to get out to the rest of the world. It's certainly not all we do. We send 800 speakers abroad every year. We do a lot of video conferences. We have a website America.gov that is in seven languages.

Posted by Josh Weissburg at 11:12 AM | Permalink

Political Research Associates, a progressive think tank, shares its ideas on reshaping strategy in the context of the new administration. As the right wing shifts its political stance and presence, PRA takes its audience through an overview of how advocates for progressive policies could benefit from understanding their opponents in order to place their efforts most strategically.

Posted by Lisa Molinaro at 10:59 AM | Permalink

In line with gathering new and unlikely advocates, Bristol Palin spoke out this week as an advocate against teen pregnancy, stating that abstinence is unrealistic. To top it off, she appeared on none other than Fox News, an unlikely host for such an interview. I can only image that pro-choice groups will be knocking at the Palin's door inviting Bristol to share her message with teens around the United States. There is a chance she may have already begun influencing conservative policy makers (her mom, for instance, who claims on this interview that abstinence sounds naive).

Posted by Lisa Molinaro at 10:48 AM | Permalink

The Economist is hosting a ten day online debate, engaging experts to write about -- and readers to vote -- on whether "Brand America will regain its shine." What's really interesting about the format is the interplay between expert arguments and reader voting, which is totaled each day and in aggregate (currently, 68% say 'yes' Brand America will recover; 32% say 'no'). The numbers move as arguments are brought forward, rebutted and reformulated. Experts' arguments are placed alongside reader comments and all of these opinions are presided over by a moderator.

Lots of interesting material here, to be sure, but I am most intrigued by online debate format, which blurs the line between academic discourse, public education, public opinion polling and focus grouping. Rarely if ever have I seen so many stakeholders usefully engaged, providing such a comprehensive set of opinions on an issue. This is a format that public policy advocates should explore in their own work.

Posted by Josh Weissburg at 10:28 AM | Permalink

The UK offered another perspective on foreign aid at an event hosted by the SAIS Center for Transatlantic Relations. Speakers focused directly on ways the US could apply and learn from the UK's Department for International Development (DFID). Of course, some adjustments are necessary; Anne Richard and George Rupp of the International Rescue Committee spoke to the importance of understanding limitations when transferring aspects of a parliamentary model to a presidential system.

But after clearly establishing differences between the UK and U.S. models, the speakers were still able to offer nine relatively easy-to-digest options for improving U.S. foreign aid. Reducing tied aid, increasing funding cycles beyond 1 year grants, and pushing decision-making out to country programs are just a few of the options they offer. While only eight pages in length, the report taps into the current U.S. system's weaknesses and makes practical and concise suggestions for sustainable change.

More forward thinking from across the pond: DFID has even teamed up with Rough Guide travel books to create a manual on how the general public can improve the world starting right now, without having to wait for governments to slowly take steps in the right direction.

Posted by Lisa Molinaro at 12:22 PM | Permalink

My mind is always being stretched here at the Global Interdependence Initiative, not least because people (in this case, plaudits to Jonathon Price, Associate Director of the Aspen Strategy Group) send things my way to keep this blog up to date on the unexpected twists and turns of global interdependence.

Case in point: you may recall the furious pace of real estate acquisitions in the United States - golf courses, shopping malls, restaurants -- fueled by Japan's economic boom in the 1980s. Japan's buying frenzy proved short-lived (and, some would argue, short-sighted). MSNBC is reporting that nowadays it is the "Chinese finding U.S. real estate a bargain." Recession and a real estate bust make properties in choice U.S. cities good buys for China's growing upper class. And these investments may pay off better in the long run; many Chinese buyers are purchasing homes for their children to live in while they attend elite universities in cities like LA and New York.

Before anyone gets too concerned about a Chinese real estate takeover, consider this economic role reversal. China is renowned for selling things to the world. Now that success has enabled its people to buy U.S. assets for a change. Global interdependence continues its inexorable march.

Posted by Josh Weissburg at 10:58 AM | Permalink

Things are a little awkward in the environmental movement's newly-renovated big tent. The Wired crowd is trying to settle in with the Silent Spring crowd, and, while they can agree on some basic problems, it turns out they have pretty different ideas of what constitutes progress: are we really trying to slow the climb in atmospheric carbon's parts-per-million -- or are we trying to preserve natural habitats?

The Economist explores the rift in the green movement's effort to reach some consensus on solutions this week in an article titled "Tree-huggers v nerds." Using a proposed (mostly) renewable energy power line in California as a case study, the Economist observes a conflict in expectations:

To an extent this is a dispute between pragmatism and idealism. Politicians like Mr Schwarzenegger tend to believe that energy projects should be judged on whether they improve on current practice. Activists, by contrast, prefer to measure them against an environmental ideal. "A little bit better than the status quo isn't good enough," explains Bill Magavern, the Sierra Club's California director. He wants power to be generated close to those who will use it, and envisages a rash of solar roofs in San Diego.

Back in May, I blogged about Wired's controversially pragmatic (and nerdy) proposal to forget all the other environmental causes, since all of earth's habitats are at carbon's mercy anyway. It turns out that such a pragmatic argument isn't very practical after all in some ways. But neither will the Sierra Club, for all the clout its members might muster, advocate a "rash of solar roofs" into existence in San Diego.

The technocrats must acknowledge that individual environmental causes still have a place. Meanwhile, old-guard environmentalists must grow more comfortable being listened to as a legitimate voice in the public square -- and that means compromise. Hug it out, people.

Posted by Josh Weissburg at 9:56 AM | Permalink

A couple of interesting ruminations on foreign aid recently popped up. OneWorld US's Perspectives publication is inviting the public to Post Your Questions on Foreign Aid to its comment board by February 13. These submissions will be answered by Sheila Herrling and Paul O'Brien, longtime policy advisers who "understand the realities of providing foreign aid -- from the White House to the smallest villages and everywhere in between." From the looks of the comment board, Perspectives is getting some interesting questions from inside the Beltway and beyond, including from abroad.

The German Marshall Fund released a much more traditional approach to policy dialogue in the form of a report: Toward a Brighter World: A Transatlantic Call for Renewed Leadership and Partnerships in Global Development. The report is a systematic review of a set of "critical challenges"--namely development, democracy and security; climate change; food security; and support for development--within which development issues are embedded.

Both approaches can serve different audiences well. The challenge for advocates is to think through who needs to know what, when and in what format.

Posted by Josh Weissburg at 3:46 PM | Permalink

Mario Morino, writing for the Stanford Social Innovation Review, observes that, while not always intuitive, one of the most reliable ways to weather a difficult time is by "Combating Anxiety with Action."

President Obama has eloquently called us all to service. But let's face it--there are millions of Americans who are reeling and in no mood to add responsibilities on top of what is already on their backs. In the words of University of Chicago Professor Marvin Zonis, "It will be impossible to understand the world in 2009 without understanding three fundamental psychological processes now at work: Humiliation, Anxiety, and Mistrust."

I'm a former business leader, not a shrink, but it's clear even to me that one of the best medicines for these feelings is not to turn inward--but rather the opposite. At a time when so many things are beyond our control, it can be remarkably helpful to take actions that remind us that we have the ability to make a difference in our own lives and those of others.

Let me offer just a few, quiet decisions we can make that can add up to significant change when multiplied by 300 million citizens...

Morino's list is focused on the individual, but some of his recommendations recall recent suggestions that nonprofits leverage newly unemployed professionals as volunteers. ("If you can't give money, give something of yourself," writes Morino).

I do think Morino's overall idea is a key takeaway: nonprofits must brace for financial hardship, no question. But they shouldn't feel shy about urging supporters to contribute in some way -- doing so yields benefits to the contributor, too.

Posted by Josh Weissburg at 5:01 PM | Permalink

If fighting climate change seems like an impossible feat, here is a website that breaks it down into micro-challenges that any American can take on. Carbon Rally challenges users to compete with each other to go greener than the rest. What makes the challenge a bit more interesting is their use of an "impact map" that allows you to see others who live near you and are also taking on challenges. You may also compete in teams with your company or school. The best part about the website is its synthesis of all the challenges to show users how much change they are making:

This challenge (Kick the Catalogues) was originally published on Jan 4, 2008. Since then, about 900 people have accepted this year-long action, eliminated about 60,000 catalogs, and reduced CO2 by about 9 tons. Bravo!

Carbon Rally's motto: small action, big change breaks down the daunting climate change issue into manageable options. They have successfully influenced 14,905 Americans to reduce their CO2 emissions. Whether you decide to take the challenge yourself, share the challenge with a friend, or challenge someone else to go green, the really innovative thing about this advocacy tool is that it spans the gap between what "people" should do about the problem and what you and the people you know are actually doing.

Posted by Lisa Molinaro at 11:37 AM | Permalink

I love it when Steven Pearlstein gets sassy in one of our nation's primary papers of record. See today's "Wanted: Personal Economic Trainers. Apply at Capitol."

Posted by Josh Weissburg at 3:13 PM | Permalink

The Aspen Institute's own Walter Isaacson wrote a provocative cover story for Time this week, titled "How to Save Your Newspaper." Isaacson acknowledges that newspapers cannot hope to survive by relying on subscriptions and newstand revenues, but he also sees the degenerative effect that results from relying solely on advertisers. In fact, he argues, if anyone other than the reader pays journalism's bills, the content will inevitably become less democratic and suffer in quality. "So," writes Isaacson, "I am hoping that this year will see the dawn of a bold, old idea that will provide yet another option that some news organizations might choose: getting paid by users for the services they provide and the journalism they produce."

This is especially relevant to those who prize strong, nuanced reportage from abroad. In fact, Isaacson speaks directly to this point: "...those who believe that all content should be free should reflect on who will open bureaus in Baghdad or be able to fly off as freelancers to report in Rwanda under such a system."

New infrastructure that enables quick, easy micropayments would go a long way toward solving the revenue-without-subscribers riddle that plagues the journalism business now. Such a system, Isaacson says, would help young people who are used to paying 20 cents per text message -- but who think it's crazy to pay for news -- make that conceptual leap and in so doing shift the news business back toward serving the public.

Posted by Josh Weissburg at 1:49 PM | Permalink

This slideshow, The Girl Effect, a collaborative effort by the Nike, NoVo and several other foundations, is probably the most powerful piece of web advocacy messaging I have ever come across. And the best part is that once you finish with the crescendoing presentation, you the viewer are ushered into a collection of stories, "sticky" facts and visuals to back up what seem at first like outlandishly strong claims.

Of course the The Girl Effect, named for "the powerful social and economic change brought about when girls have the opportunity to participate in their society," can only deliver its message with such power because the messengers have such irrefutable and compelling facts to work with. Have you heard the one about how "A 10-Year-Old Divorcée Takes Paris?" It's a good one.

Posted by Josh Weissburg at 5:30 PM | Permalink

A new report was released today by the Brookings Institute which combines two pressing global challenges: climate change and poverty. With its fitting title: "Double Jeopardy: What the Climate Crisis Means for the Poor", the report explores the interrelated nature of these issues and identifies needed policy outcomes.

In trying to identify a framework in which to visualize tackling both climate change and poverty, the report offers a model of three spheres: mitigation, adaption, and poverty alleviation. Finding the intersection of the three is where much potential lies for successfully addressing both challenges in a collaborative effort.

For advocates, page 34 of the 37-page report holds the golden "take-away" messages from the recent Brookings Blum Roundtable on Poverty. The seven crucial elements for creating a global campaign to mobilize the public around climate change and development are as follows:

1. Define the problem in ways that ordinary people can understand.
2. Connect the problems of climate change and development to target audiences by localizing and personalizing the issues.
3. Maintain a sense of urgency but define a clear and feasible pathway to success.
4. Get the word out on a global scale through journalism and media outlets.
5. Create a broad political coalition for action to highlight the fact that this issue is not solely the responsibility of the elites such as the UN or USAID.
6. Cross over into the private sector and create opportunities for profit.
7. Overcome the North-South divide and look forward at climate change and development as one global goal and not two separate and competing issues.

The report frames the high stakes by presenting the world with three choices: mitigate, adapt, or suffer:

So far the global course of action has been shortsighted and self-defeating--neither mitigation nor adaption. The United States in particular has failed to show either national or global leadership. But that can change. This rport has sought to reveal just how much could be done to turn the challenge of climate change into opportunities for sustainable development. By promoting clean energy technologies and sound tropical forestry, we can involve the poor in an urgent global effort to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, and we can do so in ways that improve livelihoods while reducing climate vulnerability. We can weave climate change into the fabric of development to avoid maladaption and to enable the poor to become more resilient. With planning and forethought, we can minimize the impact of inevitable natural disasters.

The full report is available here.

We will have to wait some time before assessing whether or not this call to action will lead to real change.

Posted by Lisa Molinaro at 4:36 PM | Permalink

The thing about public advocacy -- and movement building in general -- is that very few people can maintain their enthusiasm and engagement on an issue without like-minded peers around. That presented 1Sky, an organization "created in 2007 to focus the power of millions of concerned Americans on a single goal: bold federal action by 2010 that can reverse global warming," with a challenge: how to keep all that energy focused?

By recruiting a Climate Precinct Captain in every voting precinct in the U.S., 1 Sky decided. Precinct captains organize local precinct through events and actions, working to turn their Members of Congress into "climate leaders." And they're all right there, on an interactive Google mashup map. It's like Facebook for climate advocates, with a carefully targeted agenda to boot. Pretty powerful.

Posted by Josh Weissburg at 4:14 PM | Permalink

We may be at a watershed moment for political and economic change in America, but not much has changed when it comes to the way the U.S. public views foreign assistance. The Glover Park Group, a strategic planning consulting firm, recently conducted a messaging assessment in collaboration with MFAN (Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network) to determine the state of public opinion on foreign assistance. To assist MFAN in reforming how they frame their cause, the Glover Park Group conducted public surveys and focus groups to examine why Americans are afraid of foreign assistance.

The study found that people are pessimistic about the direction of the country and hold unfavorable views of current foreign policy (65% of those interviewed held unfavorable views). As has been the case since we started this blog, the main perception that drives objections to foreign assistance is that money is being thrown away and not used as it was intended.

The majority of those surveyed had a complete misunderstanding of foreign assistance (how much is given, how it works, who it goes to, etc), which leads to decreased receptivity and trust. Misunderstanding of the issue also resulted in indifference towards the value of foreign assistance.

When asked about moving forward with foreign assistance, general sentiments were around the need for smart spending (ie improving programs that work, disposing of inefficient programs, ensuring that aid makes it to the people who really need it).

The news was good for MFAN: 76% of respondents support modernizing foreign assistance. Despite the economic crisis, the majority of those surveyed still felt the need to continue with foreign assistance programs in the new administration as long as it is reformed and reassessed. MFAN's newly formulated rhetoric addresses the public with this study in mind:

New Day, New Way

The U.S. faces a complex set of economic and foreign policy challenges today. One of the most important tasks of the next Presidential Administration will be making sure that every taxpayer dollar is spent smartly, transparently, and sustainably over the long-term. Global development assistance alleviates extreme poverty, creates opportunities for growth and secures human dignity in developing countries, and it is one of the best long-term investments in global stability we can make. That is why leaders from across the political spectrum have called it one of the most important tools for achieving success in U.S. foreign policy.

If we want these global investments to be cost-effective and sustainable in the current economic atmosphere, we must modernize the system for prioritizing and managing U.S. global development efforts. Today, that system is not organized to meet the challenges of the 21st century. MFAN's practical, bipartisan plan for modernizing U.S. foreign assistance, found below, will enhance and streamline that system so we can work towards a stable, prosperous and peaceful global future.

Posted by Lisa Molinaro at 4:05 PM | Permalink