100 Best Campaign Tools Whether you’re running for offi ce, trying to get a ballot measure approved or growing your nonprofi t, campaigns and issue advocacy work are complicated, multi-person endeavors with many moving parts. From fundraising efforts to social media posts, we know every campaign has a lot of tasks to complete on the way to victory. We’ve compiled a list of 100+ digital tools to streamline your efforts and help every campaign team collaborate better. Launching a petition? Want to send mass texts that will actually get read? Need a sleek website? We’ve vetted countless campaign and advocacy tools to fi nd options that solve all of these problems and many, many more. We look forward to hearing your feedback in the comments or by emailing us at: [email protected]. Action Network Amicus A fantastic petition tool for your site, with Amicus is a peer-to-peer calling and postcard a growing suite of other campaign tools tool to help get your membership more engaged (think mass emails and surveys) built for through personalized phone calls and direct progressive organizations and campaigns. mail. Great for collaborative, coalition-based efforts, Cost: Paid Action Network is also embeddable, so you can Type: Field keep your branding consistent. Cost: Freemium Asana Type: Petitions Asana is an easy-to-use campaign tool for teams to track work, plan ahead, and have fun ActionSprout along the way with gamifi cation. ActionSprout is a great tool that allows you to Cost: Paid host an action within your Facebook page. It Type: Organization also provides a great set of metrics to measure your post performance and lets you invite people to like your page when they have liked a ASMP post but not your page. Cost: Freemium Looking to hire a photographer in a new town or fi nd some custom stock photography? This Type: Petitions is a great site to fi nd quality photographers, wherever you need one. AddText Cost: Free Not the most complicated campaign tool, but Type: Photos sometimes simple is what you need. The title says it all: AddText allows you to quickly and easily add text to all of your photos. Cost: Freemium Type: Photos 1660 L Street, NW | Suite 506 | Washington, DC 20036 202-223-8884 | www.TheCampaignWorkshop.com 1 100 Best Campaign Tools Assistant.to CallFire This handy Gmail plugin eliminates the endless A rock-solid campaign tool that puts the power back-and-forth when scheduling meetings. of a call center in the hands of your volunteers Cost: Free (and their cell phones). Type: Organization Cost: Paid Type: Call/SMS Attentive.ly Call Hub Want to do a deep dive into who is on your list and what they care about? Look no further than Two birds with one stone, Call Hub allows Attentive.ly, which, through social listening and you to integrate CRM’s like Salesforce and search, will help you to make sure you get the Nationbuilder, with political and advocacy tools. right message to the right list segment. What’s Track and monitor every call and SMS you and more, Attentive.ly connects with most major your volunteers make during a campaign. Get CRMs. detailed reports and insights. Cost: Freemium Cost: Paid Type: Email Type: Call/SMS Blab Camtasia An interactive interview tool to create live video Looking to create video for your campaign or content and discussion. organization? Camtasia helps you create and Cost: Free edit professional videos. Type: Content Cost: Paid Type: Video Boomerang Emailing late at night, but Canva don’t want to ping people with a 3 a.m. Canva is a web-based platform that helps you message? This tool allows you to write create great custom graphics, even if you don’t whenever you’re free and then schedule have any design experience. Export the slides emails to go out when you actually want and use them in place of PowerPoint, or as people to see them. compelling images for social media updates. Cost: Freemium Cost: Freemium Type: Email Type: Content Brigade Care2.org Find family members, friends or folks in your area who agree on your issues. Plus, poll people The original petition site. Care2 offers free and to see why they agree (or don’t) with your sponsored petition options to help you infl uence views. decision makers and grow your list. Cost: Paid Cost: Freemium Type: Field Type: Petitions 1660 L Street, NW | Suite 506 | Washington, DC 20036 202-223-8884 | www.TheCampaignWorkshop.com 2 100 Best Campaign Tools Catalist Civis Media Optimizer Need to pull a data fi le for your targeted Fine-tuned targeting is an integral part of communications program? Through a paid any modern communications strategy, but subscription service, Catalist provides access TV buy targeting hasn’t kept pace. Using an to a wealth of voter and other data so that you anonymous, privacy-protected third party to can be sure your message is reaching identify the exact shows your target viewers the best possible audience. watch, Civis Media Optimizer matches your Cost: Paid target with what they’re watching, helping you to Type: Data optimize your media dollars. Cost: Paid Type: Media Change.org Change.org is a great place to launch a petition and grow your base. Direct your petition ClickToTweet at a politician, corporation, organization or Promote, share and track your content on person, and share it on social media and other Twitter to fi nd out what works and what doesn’t platforms to grow your list of supporters. Just on your social feed. as inspiring as seeing your signatures grow? Cost: Free Tuning in to Change.org’s list of victories, which Type: Social Media illustrate once again how powerful our voices can be when they come together. Cost: Freemium CMAG Type: Petitions Sadly, you can’t be everywhere at all times. CMAG will monitor media buys placed by independent expenditures and your opposition, Cision so you can learn where they’re airing their Want more earned media? Cision is a way to messages and what they’re saying. grow your press list by area or topic, so you can Cost: Paid get your message out to more media outlets. Type: Research Cost: Paid Type: Press Confluence Need help keeping your staff organized? Civis Data Platform Confl uence can help you create and discuss An analytics platform that will help you to better work with your team. organize and understand your organization’s Cost: Paid data and harness its power. Type: Organization Cost: Paid Type: Data 1660 L Street, NW | Suite 506 | Washington, DC 20036 202-223-8884 | www.TheCampaignWorkshop.com 3 100 Best Campaign Tools Contactually Democracy.com Quirky CRM that uses gamifi cation to sort your Get your voice heard on the web with this contacts by buckets, and provides tools to platform for creating websites for candidates ensure those buckets of past clients or potential and causes. leads don’t fall off your radar. Cost: Free Cost: Paid Type: Research Type: Organization Democracy Engine CoSchedule Democracy Engine provides you with the tools If you’re creating content, you need an editorial to fi nd, engage with, and donate to campaigns calendar to keep you and your team on track. and organizations. CoSchedule has a calendar tool, and also gives Cost: Paid you space to plot and organize your social Type: Fundraising media strategy. Cost: Paid Doodle Type: Content Yes, it’s possible to never say, “What day works for you?” again. Doodle makes schedule ping- Crowdpac pong a thing of the past, as each person who’s Kickstarter, but for politics. slated to attend a meeting can fi ll in what time Let your supporters know exactly works best. what you need to meet your goals. Cost: Free Cost: Paid Type: Organization Type: Fundraising Ecanvasser CrowdTangle Who covered their turf? Ecanvasser allows you Track and analyze social media engagement for to map territory, sync walk lists and more. your own organization or campaign... and track Cost: Paid your competitors while you’re at it. Type: Canvass Cost: Paid Type: Social Media EveryAction A site that organizes many aspects of nonprofi t Defonic management, including emails, web-based Need to block out noise to focus? Try this donations and donor management. ambient noise generator, with sounds from Cost: Paid nature or urban life. We’re fond of “Oceanica,” Type: Website though it occasionally makes us wish we were staring at the sea and not the screen. Cost: Free Type: Organization 1660 L Street, NW | Suite 506 | Washington, DC 20036 202-223-8884 | www.TheCampaignWorkshop.com 4 100 Best Campaign Tools Expensify Google Analytics When the end of the month rolls around, are you Want to see how your website is performing? scrambling to fi nd your receipts? This expense Use Google Analytic’ metrics to inform your tool will help make reporting what you spent strategic decisions about your web presence. (and where) less of a hassle. Cost: Free Cost: Paid Type: Website Type: Organization GoToMeeting feedly Whether your team is in multiple locations or Keep everything you love to read in one place. you have a vendor demo call, GoToMeeting is feedly is a versatile RSS feed that lets you one system we rely on for video conferencing. centralize all the publications in your life and Cost: Paid keep them up-to-date. Type: Organization Cost: Paid Type: Research Grammarly Freesound Better than spell-check, Grammarly helps sniff out typos, corrects your grammar, and Boom! Freesound is a collaborative database even suggests synonyms to make you sound of Creative Commons licensed sounds that you smarter.