Nearly every high-profile national organization uses new media to mobilize grassroots supporters and put pressure on lawmakers. But a new study showing that as many as half of congressional staffers believe online form messages to be fake has renewed the debate about the political efficacy of online advocacy. Do lawmakers really listen? There have been plenty of long, theoretical arguments on the subject (a few highlights are posted at the bottom of this post).  We thought it might be more useful to offer these five quick, concrete, actionable tips on how to maximize your online advocacy program’s...

Note: This is an archived publication! Visit www.e-benchmarksstudy.com for the most recent versions of all our Benchmarks studies and Benchmarks Extras. The 2010 Nonprofit Text Messaging Benchmarks report is the first of its kind. A joint venture between M+R and MobileActive.org, the aim of this study is to provide benchmarks and metrics by which nonprofit organizations can measure their success with text messaging, and to illustrate the various ways in which organizations are using text messaging. Download the report here...