Grassroots Case Studies

Identifying, Motivating and Mobilizing Allies

Local politicians wanted to hear from the community on the potential closing of a power plant. Aristotle ran focus groups to learn what would swing people into action to save the plant. We began outreach and provided communications technologies including websites, databases, and tools to reach legislators and for recruitment. The campaign was a great success.

Reinforcing the Message, Maximizing Participation

Our client supported passage of legislation so it could do business in China, but needed their employees’ support. Aristotle contacted each of the employees to discuss the issue and whether they felt comfortable calling their Member of Congress. If they did, Aristotle setup another call and connected them directly to the congressman’s office. Participation by employees exceeded 70%, and the bill passed.

Share of Mind Versus Share of Market

New legislation allowed liquor-filled candy to be sold next to our client’s product for about the same price. Our client feared a backlash against all candy if children purchased the new product and got sick. Our client wanted the legislation amended, so Aristotle created a national committee of prominent people and a committee within each of the 23 affected states. We identified potential supporters and recruited volunteers. Our client was successful in 21 of the states.

Overcoming Local Opposition

A hospital wanted to build a facility in a specific location which the local City Council opposed. The client asked for our assistance to turnaround public opinion.. Key messages were developed to address the misinformation of the opposition. We utilized door-to-door petition collection, telephone banks, direct mail and media campaigns. Personal briefings were prepared for members of the city council.

In the end the facility was built, and it is now a valued part of the community.

Letter-Writing to Defeat a Bill Around an Anti-Grassroots Legislator

The legislation was dreadful and constituents would need to contact their state legislator. However, one of the principal legislators despised grassroots activism, so over 115,000 letters were generated to supporters of the client in every district except the one that the lobbyist identified. The bill was defeated.

Employee Training To Influence Financial Services Report Bill

In 2010 we assisted a leading financial services company engage employees and customers on the 2010 financial services reform bill. We provided training, talking points, a campaign theme, social media opportunities and video to the client. Plus, we booked many national radio interviews with leading financial services experts so the client’s message could be heard. In the end, the damaging language for our client was removed from the final bill.

Over One Million Personalized Letters to Capitol Hill

In 2009, several Members of Congress introduced legislation that would establish a cap of 36% on the APR charged for installment loans. If passed, this legislation would have had a dramatic negative impact on the installment loan industry. We developed a comprehensive strategy to engage storeowners, employees, and customers by creating effective messaging, an interactive website, posters and push cards for each branch, phone recruitment, and an offline communications packet and advocacy training sessions.

At the end of the eight-month campaign, the client had over 200,000 visitors and allowed the members to send over 34,000 emails to Congress on this issue. Additionally, more than 1 million personalized letters were generated and sent to district offices around the country. Finally, our phone recruitment program recruited more than 100 personal stories each month from past customers, which were also sent to Capitol Hill and district offices.

Physicians Influence Health Care

In the spring of 2009, we worked with a prominent Florida physician to build an organization for specialty physicians to fight against legislation promoting government run health care. We were given a six-month timeframe to create a coalition and provide a strategy, identify specialty physicians and recruit them to join and donate, and implement the advocacy program.

We achieved their goal and exceeded expectations. Through message development, website creation, social media, national polling, earned media, and personalized letters to legislators, we recruited thousands of specialty physicians and raised the association’s visibility through op-eds written and placed in the Las Vegas Review, Washington Times, Fox News, Tallahassee Tribune, and Becker’s Orthopedics and Spinal Review. Additionally, we secured appearances for the client on Fox News and Telemundo.

Building Synergy Between a Pharmaceutical PAC and Grassroots Program

Recently, we helped a large pharmaceutical company build synergy between their PAC and grassroots programs. We educated several employees, provided text for the website, created a survey for all employees, and started a “Friends and Family” program. The results from our efforts have yielded a consistent 30 percent participation rate for the last four action alerts. Building on the success of the grassroots program, we were also able to increase the client’s PAC receipts by over 200% and doubled membership within one month of starting the campaign.