Announcing Ragtag’s New Persuasion Project
Case studies are fun to write after a project’s over. What the problem was, what obstacles the team overcame, and how awesome the result is. With screenshots. But today, we’re really excited about a project that’s just beginning — in fact too excited to shut up about it.
It all started with Matt. Matt noticed that big national campaigns spend a lot of time and money figuring out how to make their messaging effective. In particular, they know how to test messages with target voters to hone in on the most persuasive version. Matt wanted to bring that same knowledge to smaller campaigns. So he founded Grow Progress, worked closely with experts in behavioral psychology and sociology, and figured out which off-the-shelf tools could be used to create and test messaging. Over time he amassed a huge amount of knowledge, from the theoretical to the very very practical, and along the way, campaigns that used his advice saw great results.
In Nebraska, for instance, they tested out this new approach with the help of experts at the Analyst Institute. Advocates for paid family leave tested two rough prototype ads: one based on the message that’s traditionally used to support their issue, and another based on messaging that was strengthened by the social science of persuasion. The results were exciting: this evidence-based message increased the margin of support for paid leave by 10 points more than the traditional message. And when Grow Progress replicated their test on another platform, the results showed a similar 9 point increase.
That wasn’t enough, though. It still took a fair bit of Matt’s time for each campaign, so there was a limit to how many Grow Progress could help. He knew that technical solutions could make Grow Progress more scalable, so that he could help campaigns focus on the hard part of messaging — writing compelling messages — and less on the nuts and bolts of testing. Matt’s not an engineer, so what to do?
Enter Ragtag. Matt heard from friends that Ragtag is a bunch of technologists using their powers for social good. This was pretty much exactly what Matt needed. He met Jill, who got really excited about helping Grow Progress create a Minimum Viable Product (aka an MVP) to test out what would be easy to scale. (OK, so we haven’t actually met in the sense of ever having been in the same room. For all either of us knows, the other is a giant sentient lizard). Our idea is to start small, automating where possible, and iterating while continuing to help as many progressive campaigns as possible.
The partnership is still early — in fact, if you want to help spread Grow Progress’s knowledge even further and wider, please contact one of us (http://www.growprogress.org/contact or http://ragtag.org/join). If you’re not ready to donate your time, you can always support us in other ways.
We’re both really excited to see where the partnership goes.
— Jill Huchital, Head of Product at Ragtag, and Matt Martin, founder of Grow Progress
