Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida, November 6, 2000

Constituency Building

Spam is bad, permission is good

• Resource: Permission Marketing by Seth Godin (see article from Fast Company and online summary from CEOREVIEW.com. See another review and link to four downloadable chapters from Craver, Michaels, Smith. Finally, see Adam Corson-Finnerty's take on the subject in Cybergifts, Part III)

Use Internet strategies to support all levels of constituency building

• Let casual site visitors give you permission to send them e-mail
• Let folks on your e-mail list give you permission to send e-mail about advocacy or fund-raising
• Let folks in your e-mail list give you permission to move from a one-to-many communication mode to a one-to-one communications mode, or to use means other than e-mail
• Use your web site to increase constituent involvement in your cause

Some examples:

• Gathering e-mail addresses: the Penn Library alumni portal
  (http://www.library.upenn.edu/portal/)
• Fun stuff and free stuff from The Nature Conservancy
  http://www.tnc.org/frames/index.html?http://tncnt.tnc.org:70/birding/free/index.htm
• Gaining donors and volunteers: Save the Children/Save the Mothers Campaign
  http://www.savethechildren.org/forms/info-mothers1.html
• Asking for links: Save the Children
  http://www.savethechildren.org/linkto_scf.html
• Salvation Army online forum
  http://www.salvationarmy.org/sadiscuss.nsf/($All)?openview
• Online communities at Salvation Army eastern region
  http://www.SalvationArmy-USAEast.org/
• Bonus: "if you build it, they will come" -- folks are seeking out this site by "guess the URL" before we've got it online
  http://www.friendsjournal.org/