Components aimed at spread the word

My last post for today is about a small module that will help users spread the word about the network. My focus is to create a platform for volunteers to assist in promoting a political party and growing its support base. We are building the following tools to aid the volunteer growth:

• Recruit a friend (includes an address book importer)
• Tell the press / Spread the word – simple form allowing emails to be sent by volunteer under their name to the newspapers
  • Clicking on “spread the word” must bring up the “Send to the Press Form”
  • Form should be populated with the user’s email address.
  • Clicking on the newspaper must populate the “To:” field with the newspaper’s relevant email address.
  • Once the letter is written, the user clicks “send”, and the letter is sent to the newspaper from the user’s personal email address.
• Go-door-to-door – a type of event that calls on fellow volunteers in your area to join and walk around neighbourhood going door to door to discuss and promote the party

Drive community outreach to government and local municipalities

Our aim is to use our volunteers to work for or against parliament and constitutional issues, by helping them generate letters and phone calls to members of parliament, ministers, municipal officials, or other target groups. The tools should let users choose eligible voters and voter groups, identify and prioritize targets, suggest letter text and phone call scripts, deliver letter content by email or fax, and track and monitor the results. We would like promote the outreach campaigns with integrated custom Web pages, outbound email, and more.

Use petitions to identify your most fervent supporters — and to spread the word virally

Create and manage petition campaigns that help you identify your most committed activists, channel their energy, and lead to viral activity and more signups. Petition content and look and feel are fully controllable, and signups are archived and tagged in your customer database so you can quickly build a supporter file around a particular issue of concern. And with “tell-a-friend” functionality, word of your petition campaign can spread around the world at Internet speed.

Speak out to newspapers, opinion leaders, and the public

The “Spread the Word” tool for BuddyPress aims to get thoughts to news editors and opinion leaders, in the real voices of volunteers and supporters. We would pre-populate the system with talking points and sample text, to help make sure that volunteer messages are targeted and focused. The system will keep track of communications so we can follow up where appropriate.

In closing

We need to put the power into the volunteer’s hands and allow them to spread the word for us. As always your feedback is most welcome!