Expect the Unexpected and be ready for that moment. Here are tips on how to prepare and implement a rapid response campaign.
Introduction
There is a centuries-old metaphor people use to explain the dynamics of politics: politics like the theater. In this metaphor, politicians are the actors, policies are the script, and the public is the audience. Like in a play, political moments are characterized by drama, tension, and intrigue. There are protagonists and antagonists, plot twists, and high-stakes moments. In an old-school theatrical setting, when the protagonist is faced with a decision during a high-stakes moment, the audience would loudly express their opinion and what they think the next step should be.
We call these situations political moments. These ruptures in the normal operation of things bear significant opportunities for growth and social change for organizations that can leverage them. To do that, your organization has to have a specific mindset and organizational alertness to react as quickly as possible, or in other terms, to run rapid response campaigns.
By running rapid response campaigns during political moments—going back to the theater metaphor —your role as an organization is to mobilize and organize your audience’s distress so they not only shout loudly from their seats but also play a role in how the story moves forward.
Here are a couple of tips for how to run a rapid response campaign.
Tips
Why Rapid Response
Rapid growth will happen with rapid response campaigns:
- These moments are widely reported by the media, and they have received a lot of public attention. Rapid reaction to the issue will give you extra resources and attention without investing much time into building up the tension around the issue.
Set the agenda around the issue:
- The political discourse will be dominated by traditional political cleavages, but there is always room to change and set the agenda around the issue if you are fast enough and can be consistent in your messaging.
- At first glance, does the political moment have nothing to do with your organization? Use the moment to demonstrate and emphasize the real struggle behind the issue!
Your audience wants guidance and wants to act; be the one who creates the opportunity for them:
- Since big political moments affect most people, they will also affect your audience. These people want to act on their values, and your core supporters will want you to become an actor in this situation.
Implementation
Have a plan, but be confident to throw it in the bin:
- As the 2024 European Parliament election approaches, all the major political parties in Europe are drafting their campaign strategies. Defining core issues and messages based on your political community’s interests is extremely important, but you also need to prepare to expect the unexpected.
- Some political moments pass in a matter of days or hours. Utilizing them for your causes also means creating light decision-making processes for cases like this.
- You need to commit to the moment. Once you have started the campaign and many people are joining, you cannot just move on with your plan or move on to the next exciting thing for you. Feel the responsibility and take ownership of the issue.
Come up with a low-bar digital action to mobilize people:
- People will look for ways to engage with the moment and express and share their values related to the issue.
- Do not underestimate the power of petitions. They are an easily accessible way for people to experience political action in their everyday lives. We are all busy, but signing a petition takes a few seconds.
Invest in growth:
- The nature of political moments is that they pass. This is especially true if you leave the moment without adding any stakes by emphasizing the struggle behind it. Once you have taken the first step, you need to make the best of it. Setting up social media ads will help you reach people outside of your bubble and utilize the moment to not only mobilize your base but also grow it.
Produce and communicate results:
- People join your campaign not only for the instant experience of moral satisfaction but also because they want results, and you are the political agent who can deliver them. Communicate successes and challenges. Ask people to use the successes to grow the moment by inviting others, and use challenges to involve your supporters in finding a solution.
Start organizing and build an identity from the beginning:
- It is not only petition signatures you want; you are doing this to build people’s power. Do not miss a second to start organizing people engaged in a political community. Ask them to share their stories and contribute to the cause with just a couple of euros, or they can volunteer. Introduce your organization, grab new people, and hold them close by building on the common values you all fight for.
- Involve them in deciding what the next steps should be.
Be ready to escalate:
- If you are targeting an authority with your popular campaign, you can expect some reactions—a lack of reaction is also a reaction by the authority!
- Wait for reactions or use the lack of reactions of your campaign’s target and allow people to escalate the issue. People will be aware of the reaction, and these events themselves are small political moments within your campaign.
- Channel your supporters’ reactions into new forms of action. Try pushing people up the engagement ladder.
- Communicating and Leveraging Results
Be ready to close and move on:
- As an actor and facilitator of action, your organization is bound to deliver results to the public. Even though you are building on public support and involving masses of individuals, you will be the one who has to communicate and represent the people who joined your campaign.
- Rapid response campaigns can blow away rapidly: the issue has been solved, or the solution has been prolonged indefinitely. In the first case, communicate the collective success to everyone involved and move on by bringing newcomers with you and pulling them to other related issues and also non-related ones that are important for your theory of change. In the latter case, keep this topic at the center and try converting single-issue supporters into general supporters of your organization.
Expected outcomes:
- Generally, when we think of campaigns like this, we think in two categories: either we have won or lost. However, if you have started a rapid response campaign, managed to involve as many people as possible, grown your base, and given people meaningful opportunities to act upon their values, well, in this sense, you have already won!
Measuring the outcome:
- Growth in social media followers, email list subscribers, members of your organization, number and amount of donations, and general visibility of your organization.
- Social impact: You might achieve cultural change in the discourse around the topic, but bear in mind that lasting change also needs consistent communication and action around the topic after your rapid response!
- Policy change: In countries with a strong culture of civic action, policy change can be the primary goal of rapid response campaigns.
Explore Further
- Creating a Rapid Response System
- Don’t wait until a crisis hits: Get your Organization ready for a Rapid Response Campaign
- Rapid Response Worksheet: A framework for advancing narrative strategy in the face of a crisis or breaking news development
- Political Rapid Response Checklist, ngvpan
- Building a Resiliency Network: A Toolkit for Building Community Resilience during a Contentious Election Cycle