Keeping In Touch With Activists
There are many ways of keeping people informed of your activities.
Outlined here are the basics for:
- Telephone Trees
- Websites
- Newsletters
Telephone Trees
Telephone trees are great for reminding people about meetings and getting people along to important events. When you only have a small budget, they're a cost-effective way of reaching everyone on your contact list.
The phone tree relies on the commitment of each group member to make a few calls each. For an effective phone tree, a few key people need up-to-date phone lists. The way it works is one person calls three people, then those three people call three people each and so on and so on. This can be adapted and extended for your needs (it doesn't have to be three calls each).
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Get The Message Right
Make sure the message is short and simple and all the necessary information is there - you don't want the message to get jumbled like in a game of Chinese whispers. If you're doing a big ring around, it's worth writing the information down for the callers so they get it right.
It's also important to keep an up-to-date phone list so your callers don't waste phone calls on old numbers and people who thought they'd been taken off the list.
OK, so it might sound obvious, but don't forget that lots of people have access to email at work, school and uni these days. Emailing them weekly or fortnightly updates and meeting minutes is a good way to keep your members informed about the group's activities and to get them motivated to do things for your campaign.
Websites
Websites are a useful way to keep your members up-to-date with your activities. They're also a good way to attract new supporters (see starting a website).
Starting A Newsletter
Things to consider when starting a newsletter:
- How big will it need to be?
- What is your printing budget? Or do you plan to photocopy it?
- Will you be mailing it out, giving it out or trying to sell it?
- How much time and energy can you put into each issue?
- How often will it come out? Monthly, quarterly, weekly?
- Where are you going to get content from?
When starting out it's best to think small rather than big. Try one or two double-sided A4 sheets. You can always expand your newsletter as it grows, but it won't look so great if it suddenly shrinks!
Finance And Distribution
The main methods for covering newsletter production costs are:
- Charging a subscription fee.
- Incorporating costs into your group membership fee.
- Charging for advertising.
- Obtaining sponsorship.
A newsletter could be a good thing to get a grant for.
You have a lot of options when it comes to distributing the newsletter. You can hand it out at meetings, ask shops or like-minded organisations to put it on their counter, mail it out to your members, have it inserted in other people's mail-outs, or deliver it to people's letter-boxes.
Content
Content depends on what you want your newsletter to achieve. Consider the following:
- Reporting on recent activities.
- Recent policy decisions.
- A calendar of upcoming events.
- Calls to action.
- Membership renewal reminders.
- Acknowledgement of work by the organisation and its members.
- Promoting fundraising events.
- Letters to the editor.
Legal Considerations
Defamation is the publication of material that is likely to injure the reputation of a person, or to cause ordinary people to think less of that person.
Contempt of Court may occur if you publish material commenting on a matter before a court, or if you show disregard for the authority of a court judge.
Copyright protects your or other people's work from being used without authorisation. You should not publish material in your newsletter that you have taken from other sources without first obtaining permission from the author/photographer/artist who holds the copyright.Design And Layout
In this day and age of multimedia, design and layout shouldn't pose too much of a problem. You'll probably be able to enlist a volunteer who is a graphic designer, or design student to help you out. It's good to decide the image of your publication up front. Your newsletter designer should be able to provide you with a template for future newsletters (that you can work on directly). Being original will probably be the biggest challenge - but you don't have to be original - you want people to read the content, not judge your paper by its cover. Most importantly, you want it to be easy to read.
Leave design to the expert and don't waste precious writing and researching time on lay-out.
However if you do decide to go it alone - remember to keep to the same font throughout - and choose an easy to read font. Keep the design simple. Take hints from your favourite magazines and newsletters.
Active - Stuff For Social Change
http://www.active.org.au
An online interactive forum for information and inspiration about social change. Advertise your event and check out other upcoming events.
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http://www.cat.org.au
An activist information network.
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