Loud and Clear in an Election Year

by Millie Buchanan, Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation

Election years pose opportunities and challenges to nonprofit and community groups as they struggle to advance their issues in a crowded news environment, and amplify the voices of their constituents, without jeopardizing their tax-exempt status. Good news: a valuable new resource is available for funders and grantees alike. The SPIN Project has created a user-friendly guide, Loud and Clear in an Election Year, to help organizations understand what communications tools they can and cannot use to educate voters.

The 175-page book answers legal questions and provides tips and tactics for groups who want to ensure their voices are heard this election year. It presents concise, practical strategies for communicating powerful messages that stay within the legal limits. Loud and Clear includes checklists of permissible election-year activities, details frames and messages for progressive issues, explains the ins and outs of media events, candidate forums, and bird-dogging, and offers experienced advice on reaching core voting constituencies such as Latinos, African-Americans, youth, gays and lesbians.

We have provided copies of the book to our 135 grantees because we feel that it provides a clear roadmap to effective election––related work for the organizations we support.

The SPIN Project––a long time grantee of the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation––provides communications capacity-building and technical assistance to public interest organizations seeking to influence debate, shape public opinion and garner positive media attention. "This book is a synthesis of the SPIN Project's work to echo the voices of community advocates and broadcast their values and ideas to a wider audience. During an election year, this is all the more important, and we hope this book will help more organizations speak with greater conviction this election season," says SPIN Project director Holly Minch.

You can contact Holly Minch at the SPIN Project, 415-284-1420 x307, hminch@spinproject.org or visit www.spinproject.org/loudandclear/pr.html