How to repurpose apps for community and campaign organizing

Use business apps for community & campaign organizing. Ragtag will show you how, starting with Slack.

Apps on apps on apps

There are basically three bajillion apps out there that can help you be more productive at work. A whole industry with billions of dollars working day and night to make humans more efficient at working for the next billion dollars.

Work in digital marketing or sales? There are hundreds of apps designed to make your life easier, and a whole slew of sites and publications designed to help you find just the right tool for you. Not going to list them here, because, chances are, you do not work in marketing or sales. Nope. You work in a non-profit, with an activist org, or at a campaign. You’re not interested in cold-calling sales prospects and talking about your product. I mean, it’s not like you are spending your days identifying people who might be interested in your product, talking to them about your product, tracking conversations, and driving them towards real-world action.

Hold up. Yes you do.

Ok. Pretend instead of “product” I’d said issue, or candidate. Pretend instead of “prospect” I’d said voter or potential volunteer. If you’re organizing people to take action, you’re doing sales and marketing. I mean, clearly there’s a ton of differences — motivations, resources, people — but there’s a huge amount in common. You’re convincing people to take action. Sometimes with their wallets, sometimes with their time, and sometimes with their most precious resource — their vote.

So, if you’re doing essentially the same process as fancy-pants marketing and sales people why are you using duct tape and bailing twine to get your work done, while they’ve got the venture-capital-backed, fully supported, user-tested, corporate-approved pantheon of products at their disposal?

O hang on, I know.

Even if there are tools available that would perfectly fit with your work style and objectives, it’s hard to find that particular tool in the sea of apps. Where should you even start? Which apps can you trust? What will be around in a year from now? How long will it take you to get the hang of it?

And even when you do find a tool you think will work for you, how do you translate the workflow from sales and marketing (or general business) to your context of organizing? You can take the time to make a mental map of customers to voters, or managers to field organizers, but that takes time, and more than a little mental gymnastics. You’re far too busy for that!

But what if someone else did that for you? What if a team of tech industry folks looked at the tools that the tech industry actually uses for collaboration, communication, customer record keeping, and yes, sales and marketing — and then laid out how they could be useful in the context of organizing? What if they walked you through the setup process, and gave examples for how tools could be used in your daily work?

Seriously. What if.

I’d like to announce a new series of articles: Ragtag Tech Guides. Ragtag is a team of tech volunteers using their skills, knowledge, and experience to help progressive groups be more efficient in what they’re doing already: organizing.

The Guides are designed to help organizers, activists, and campaigns get the same productivity boost from using the right tech as for-profit businesses do. The Ragtag team will do the work of digging into the world of business tech, and bringing the best tools for campaign and community organizing to the surface. Volunteers from the team have already written a couple of articles you should check out. Laura Ellena wrote this great piece on Finding and Organizing Volunteers on the Internet. We’ve also got 5 quick tips that literally everyone considering running for office should read ASAP.

Next up is Slack.

You’ve probably heard of Slack, the tech world’s darling. Well, surprise! It’s a great organizing tool, too! The team at Ragtag dove deep into Slack and have come up with a series of articles about how to use this powerful tool in the context of organizing. We’ll walk you through how to set up Slack; how to use it with volunteers; how to make sure you’ve got the right security setup; and finally, we’ve got a guide for your team members to help them make the most of the communication hub. We’re going to be publishing the guides over the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned!

1. What is Slack, and Should We Use It?
2. 5 Steps to Setting Up Your Slack for Organizing.
3. 6 Steps to Better Digital Security with Slack.
4. Pro Tips — 3 Ways to Make the Most of Your Team’s Slack.
5. BONUS: Tips for Volunteers and Team Members.

That’s just to start.

That’s just the beginning. What kinds of tools do you want more info on? Let us know!