Advocacy Software

Advocacy in a nonprofit is a long-term process to engage representatives, policymakers, the community, influencers and stakeholders. These tasks aren't easy to manage, but with the help of the right tools, your nonprofit can run successful advocacy campaigns. One such tool is advocacy software.

Advocacy software allows nonprofits to organize their advocacy initiatives, measure the results of their efforts and take adequate steps to improve the efforts. It helps them sustain the organization and expand it with features such as automated emails, click-to-call capability and advocacy communities.

The software allows nonprofits to inform advocates/supporters about a cause, mobilize their volunteer base to take action and recruit new supporters. This guide will help you select the right advocacy software for your nonprofit.

In this guide, we'll cover:

What Is Advocacy Software?
Common Features of Advocacy Software
What Type of Buyer Are You?
Benefits and Potential Issues
Key Considerations

What Is Advocacy Software?

Advocacy software helps nonprofit organizations use social media, email and online campaigns to create awareness about a particular cause or mission and inspire change.

Typically, nonprofits can do the following tasks using advocacy software:

• Automate their outreach efforts on social media and emails.
• Manage fundraising campaigns.
• Set action alerts to keep the supporters updated.
• Create advocacy events to generate more support.
• Build referral and recommendation programs.

We've explained the features in detail in the next section.

Targeted communication in Salsalabs (Source)

Common Features of Advocacy Software

The first step to selecting the right advocacy software is to understand all the software features. Based on the needs of your nonprofit, you should select a vendor that offers all the features you need. Here's a list of some important advocacy software features that you must check out:

Automated outreach	Allows you to send targeted communication through automated emails, e-newsletters, social media, etc., about your various causes, programs, policies, events and advocate contributions.
Petition management	Manages the sending of online petitions, pledges or emails. Track respondent's actions and collect insights about their responses.
Social advocacy tools	Lets advocates share on social media. You can sync the social profiles of your advocates using the software, and have them schedule and publish content on social media from the software dashboard.
Click-to-call	Allows volunteers/advocates to call legislators over the internet with a simple click. Supporters get a script for conversations and a custom voice greeting them with further instructions. Advocacy calls are tracked and archived with the advocate's name, the legislators contacted and the duration of the call.
Campaign activity analytics	Helps you monitor and score advocates based on the actions taken during a campaign. You can export campaign data into a Microsoft Excel sheet and share the insights with the team as well.
Campaign management	Helps you plan, execute and implement the online advocacy campaigns, whether customized or using prebuilt campaign templates. You can add gamification elements for the supporters to foster interest and boost campaign performance.
Action alerts and notifications	Lets you build and broadcast an action alert to motivate your advocates into action.
Advocacy events	Manages event registration, collects guest data and facilitates communication with attendees. Create a custom event registration page and add surveys to gather data from the users.

What Type of Buyer Are You?

The next step in selecting advocacy software for your nonprofit is to know which buyer category you identify with the most. Based on this categorization, you can shortlist the software that will suit your nonprofit.

We've classified buyers of advocacy software into two types:

• Charitable organizations: You could be generating charity for causes such as religion, education, public safety or infrastructure. Advocacy software can help you create awareness and organize fundraising events using its digital advocacy tools and events registration functionality.

• For-profit organizations: If your organization is into educating and instructing about the conditions and efficiency of work, you require an advocacy solution that offers you the ability to lobby and outreach using automated emails, social media and web.

Benefits and Potential Issues

Advocacy software offers certain benefits for nonprofits. Let's look at some key ones:

• Increased productivity: Advocacy software improves your advocates' productivity, as they are able to reach out to more people and generate a higher return on investment with targeted communication across channels. They save time by automating instructive and informative emails for stakeholders and dedicating more time for ideation and innovation.

• Higher retention of advocates: The software helps you build a referral and rewards program for your advocates. Offer them perks and rewards for their contribution, based on their handling of advocacy calls, which will help you ensure that they feel appreciated. This would help you retain them as well.

However, despite these advantages, advocacy software could have certain issues such as:

• Software downtime: Using software may make you dependent on the internet and, as a result, impede your advocacy process if the software or internet is down. To avoid exceeding your budgets and estimates every time, plan for delays in the overall campaign estimation.

• Data breaches: Your advocacy data could contain a lot of confidential information. To avoid the risk of unauthorized access, invest in a vendor who offers necessary security protocols such as HIPAA and 56-bit DES encryption.

Key Considerations

After understanding the required features and benefits of advocacy software for nonprofits, you will feel better equipped to make an informed purchase. However, there are certain factors that you should keep in mind before you make the final purchase:

• Opt for integrations, not complex solutions: In the future, you may have to scale-up your operations, for which you need additional features. But for now, purchase only the essential features for your organization. Don't go for solutions that have way too many features, as it'll be a waste of money. However, do ensure that the final solution offers add-on features and integrations for scaling up.

• Beware of additional, hidden costs: You should thoroughly understand the investment needed to upgrade a solution and train your staff. It's helpful if the vendor provides training and support. Some offer onsite training during implementation. However, ensure that your budget has the scope of additional costs for live customer support, training manuals or customer support forums.

• Trust user reviews of software: When you finally strike a balance between the cost and features, don't forget to check user sentiment about the shortlisted vendor/software. Check out online forums and communities for reviews on the strengths and weaknesses of the software and services offered by vendors.