"I’ve been a NationBuilder Community Strategist for the past 2 years, and over that time I’ve been able to work with amazing groups that are fighting for change in their communities. For this week’s Customer Spotlight, I talked to Terry Masters from the Joe Paul for Stratford campaign. During the primary for this campaign, Joe was an unendorsed banker running for mayor to empower his community. Without the endorsement of the local democratic party, he had to rely on his team of volunteers to identify and grow his list of supporters.
They were able to use voter data to see who had interacted with his campaign site to identify their probability score of (1) voting in this election and (2) voting for Joe this election. Working with Joe’s campaign was one of my favorite moments at NationBuilder. Here you had an underdog fight the establishment using grassroots organizing. The headline in the local paper said it best: ‘Paul wins in shocker.’ For Stratford emerged after the campaign to continue working on local issues."
Describe the mission behind your organization’s work.
We are special here in Stratford. Our mayor spent 14 years as a state legislator and as the state chair for the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). He’s now national chair of American City & County Exchange (ACCE or baby-ALEC). Our town has historically low voter turn-out that worsened with the abrupt closing of polling locations in minority districts.
So, we organized “For Stratford” as an independent expenditure group. Our mission statement is simple: We seek to improve the quality of life in Stratford by encouraging public awareness and political involvement.
Tell us about a success your organization has experienced in the past year?
Two issues catalyzed the town: eminent domain and the attempt to sell the sewer plant.
On January 6, 2015, the entire state was closed down by a blizzard. Except for Stratford’s Ordinance Committee meeting where they planned to vote on language that would allow Eminent Domain seizures for private profit.
Utilizing all channels – email, social media, phone – we broadcast the call to come out to Town Hall that night. And, in the middle of a statewide closure of highways and public offices, we filled our Town Hall chambers. The proposed change was “not considered.”
The sewer plant sale was in the works for years but only acknowledged publicly in March 2015. We organized tours of the plant, got people to crowd the few public meetings held, and generated so much energy that we have – at this writing – STOPPED THE SALE. Although the Town Council approved the sale, we organized a petition drive, gathering nearly 7,000 signatures in less than 3 weeks’ time to force a referendum that is on the November 3, 2015 ballot.*
How are you using NationBuilder to lead people to action?
We supplied walk lists for the referendum petition drive. We also validated the petition signatures against our database, allowing us to ID an additional 4,200 supporters.
We are now giving council and land-use board candidates the “Good Government Seal of Approval”. You can see the criteria here. We are urging our “Sealed” candidates to gather cell phone numbers. We plan to utilize the texting options as our data gets richer.
What exciting projects do you have coming up?
We are currently working with several candidates, providing the raw data. Updated worksheets are entered into NB. Our goal is to have rich data and precise targeting.
We’ve held 2 workshops on “How to Win a Municipal Election.” The first concentrated on data: defining universes, crunching numbers, and targeting voters. The second concentrated on best practices for messaging and state compliance issues.
* The organizing story behind this drive is more involved than can be described here.
