NCSE webinar, Petitions and Organizing, Wednesday

By Matt Young

What we got from NCSE:

We’re gearing up for this month’s webinar, which will cover how to use online petitions as an organizing tactic, and how to make the most of them. We’ll demo some of the software people use, talk about how to write a great petition, and talk about how to use the resulting list of supporters to grow your groups and fight science denial. We’ll talk a bit about building and maintaining email lists, and converting those contacts into more active participants.

You can find more info and register here.

It’ll be Wednesday, at 2PM Eastern, 11 Pacific. I hope you can join, or watch online afterward. And please do share that information with your groups.

This is the 1st part of a trilogy of webinars I’m planning over the next few months. The next will focus on using social media to promote your efforts, such as using Facebook, Twitter, etc. to get more petition signatures, and how to use your petition signers to spread your message to their online networks. The following month, I’m planning a session on turning online enthusiasm into offline action, like rallies, testimony at public hearings, etc. I’d encourage you to participate in all three, though they should each stand on their own.

All of these are aimed at addressing one of the most consistent themes a lot of you mentioned a year ago when I asked you what sorts of trainings would be most useful. A lot of you asked for more information on the best ways to recruit more members and to move people into positions of leadership. I also had that topic in mind in putting together last month’s session. The main theme was how to reach out to student groups, but I think a lot of the techniques and principles we covered would work equally well for any other group. If you couldn’t make it last month, I’d urge you all to watch it online.

And of course, please let me know if there are other topics you’d like to see covered, or topics you might like to cover yourselves.

Thank you and best wishes, Josh [Rosenau, rosenau@ncse.com]