Using the Web Helps Take the Message to the Street

Whether or not your group's mission is political, grassroots organizing is an effective way to spread your message and enlist the involvement of like-minded individuals. Thanks to the Internet, grassroots organizations don't need megaphones and flyers to get their word out to the public.

One such organization, Indyvoter.org , provides simple Web-based tools to help individuals connect with other liberals and promote progressive issues. The League of Pissed Off Voters created the site with the ultimate goal of engaging disenfranchised 17-35 year olds while increasing their stake in social change.

"Social networking -- the intentional use of social networks in political activism -- is how real change has always come about," Adrienne Maree Brown, an organizer for the League of Pissed Off Voters, said. "We are returning to the roots of grassroots organizing by returning to models where communities connect for both pleasure and politics, survival and power."

The League started out small -- a group of activists who self-published a book, "How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office. " From there, they launched the Indyvoter Web site and encouraged their friends to get involved in politics. Their message struck a chord and the League now boasts 100 local chapters and more than 500 organizers.

"In this election cycle, it has been monumental to have social networks to spread the word under and around the spin cycles of mainstream media and campaign rhetoric," said Brown.

The online progressive network offers a Voter Organizing Toolkit with sample plans and surveys, instructions on hosting events and strategy sessions, and multiple ways to get those in your community to vote. Indyvoter's resources allow individuals to take action in a variety of easy but effective ways, like hosting a politics and pancakes brunch to talk about politics, volunteering for a political campaign, or producing local voter guides.

Such straightforward calls to action have been key in Indyvoter's success. And, nonprofits engaged in grassroots organizing should remember to keep it simple.

"We don't add to people's stress, we don't ask them to drastically change their lives or go 100 percent radical," Brown explained. "Indyvoter meets each person wherever they are and the goal -- the distance they will help move social justice forward, is relative to their interests, skills, motivation, time, resources -- rather than just what we at the national level want."

While the Internet may provide tools to help grassroots operate more effectively, the key to success is remembering the people who make it possible.

"Online organizing makes it a fluid and fast pace of organizing which is intoxicating, but our set-up is truly designed to facilitate flesh-based unions in the real world," Brown said.