metrics
- 10M
- People reached
- 500K
- Supporters Recruited
- 10K
- Student voices amplified
National Union for Students in the United Kingdom (NUS) is a network of dedicated students, educators, activists, and advocates who feel driven to create a better future for students in higher and further education. Their mission is clear: to ensure that student voices are not just heard but actively reflected in government policies that affect their lives. From housing and voter accessibility to workers' rights and the cost of living, NUS fights for the issues that matter most to students across England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
With 4.3 million students across the United Kingdom (UK), students make up 10% of the voting population. There is an abundance of opportunity for students to see their voices reflected in policy and institutional decisions. NUS is leading the charge for change by leveraging a relational organizing software to collect student opinion, amplifying a collective student vision, and influencing lawmakers to change and write policy in alignment of what students say they need.
And here’s how: NUS made a goal of turning their efforts into a movement by reaching and recruiting 1 million students into their union. They want to support invested volunteers and distribute leadership to expand campaign efforts at scale. Their mission had already invited an impressive 250K supporters to get involved in advocacy for their futures. But with that large of a supporter base, the management of various tools for their digital efforts were becoming overwhelming and unsupportive of their team’s goals. This included different software for 5 individual websites for each country’s advocacy efforts, CRMs, and various outreach systems. Their data was in numerous locations and left their team feeling like their time was wasted on inefficient tasks and their operation’s growth was stagnate.
They wanted a system that could make all of their efforts work together, they could get back to supporters more efficiently, give advocates full access to campaign actions, and have a supporter engagement pyramid to keep people invested and engaged in ongoing advocacy. With the support of NationBuilder’s infrastructure, they were able to move all of their operations into one system that built a movement from 250K supporters to almost 500K supporters in no time.
“Some of the most valuable NationBuilder features are within the CRM. On the people database side: being able to see the number of people you have, the tagging system to manage the people, and what campaigns they were a part of. What locations the campaigns work in: There’s an amazing heat MAP where we can see where people are signing up and where campaigns are having the most traction. The volunteer management: We now know which supporters took an action and have the step for them to become a recruiter. It’s a really important relationship for us that we want to invest in, to give that person more tools. Being able to see all of that easily has been so helpful.”
- Corrine Heaney, Deputy Director NUS UK
From membership management to website engagement, NUS has seen tremendous growth in their team’s operations. They now have the ability to expand their initiatives across diverse campaigns to more of the UK. This includes leveraging their growing community to participate in the call for the 2024 UK General elections with a two strand campaign. They started with initiatives to give students the opportunity to register to vote that reached 10M people in the first 6 weeks. They partnered that initiative with accessible information on new voter ID requirements and access to a physical copy of an ID at a value of £18 for each student in partnership with CitizenCard. With 1.6 million students and young people registering to vote, NUS reached 40% of the student population in the 2024 UK General election. And with the overwhelming student support, NUS has committed to year-round access to voter information & registration across their digital efforts.
The second step to their campaign was a 6-week initiative to practice unbiased listening across student unions in the UK. They collected the diverse responses of what students and apprentices wanted to see from the next government to improve student life, education, and society as a whole. They leveraged that data to form the basis of What Students Think, a student-formed manifesto that uplifts over 10K student voices. The manifesto was widely shared to mobilize community support and engage political leaders in creating meaningful change for higher and further education students across the UK.
“We use quite a lot of the functionalities of NationBuilder. I’m really keen to maximize what we can do and how we utilize it. We’ve been in a learning phase and I’m really excited about our next phase of growth.”
- Corrine Heaney, Deputy Director NUS UK
The NUS team has experienced significant growth and tackled many complex initiatives since adopting NationBuilder two years ago. And recognizing their potential to scale even further, they are expanding to a network-style database. With this capability, they are equipping their most dedicated volunteers with the tools and permissions needed to lead campaigns in their local communities. As NUS looks to the future, they are positioned to effectively lead on future campaigns at scale, addressing critical issues like student welfare, educational reform, and equality in higher education. And as they continue to grow, they are better equipped than ever to lead 1 million students in advocating for the critical issues facing students today.
