M+R overhauled HRC’s old strategy with a six-week integrated membership drive that targeted all of HRC’s supporters with tailored messaging, from prospects to lapsed members to current members up for renewal. The campaign set a goal: 2,008 new members and 2,008 renewed members by January 28, 2008. After surpassing this goal, HRC increased it and then sailed through the new goal as well!

We tested a number of new elements to increase response rates and drive results, including a premium, a “lightbox” splash page, cultivation emails, and an online holiday card and video. We also integrated direct mail and telemarketing solutions to reinforce the “Year to Win” theme. HRC’s blog, e-Newsletter, home page, and text messages ensured supporters were seeing promotions everywhere.

The end result? With M+R’s help, HRC more than doubled the amount of online contributions raised through its end-of-year campaign to more than $500,000!

For an example of another online campaign we’ve launched with HRC, check out our case study on End the Lies!

Lori Fresina is one of M+R’s lead trainers, helping organizations build their capacity to execute successful campaigns that reach short- and long-term goals.  Lori is an expert in community mobilization, regional collaboration, grassroots development and public health communication for a political audience.  Her training clients at M+R have included the College Board, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, Habitat for Humanity International, the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Advocacy Alliance, and Sociedad Latina.

C.B. Pearson has been a public interest advocate for more than 30 years and specializes in advocacy and civic skills training.  He has developed and directed trainings for such diverse groups as the college campus-based BACCHUS Network, Trout Unlimited, and the Robert Wood Johnson SmokeLess States Initiative.  C.B.’s trainings are praised for their healthy mix of group exercises and practical, hands-on exercises tailored to the challenges faced by participants.

Tom Novick, Executive Vice President, is a strategist, trainer and consultant with 30 years of experience on issue and electoral campaigns.  Tom helps nonprofits, foundations and individual philanthropists evaluate issues and campaigns, providing in-depth political assessment, strategy and training to clients including the League of Conservation Voters, America Votes, the Beldon Fund, and many others.

Diane Pickles has nearly 20 years of experience in public health policy and advocacy, including 10 years working on tobacco control and smoke-free policies.  Diane is an experienced trainer, empowering the staff and advocates of M+R clients like the College Board, Massachusetts Health Council and Healthcare for All with the tools and know-how to run effective campaigns.  Diane has also conducted trainings at both national and local conferences, including the National Tobacco Control Conference.

Leslie Kerns is an expert on strategic messaging and communications, with a stellar reputation for helping nonprofits and other mission-focused organizations connect with key audiences.  At M+R, Leslie has led media trainings for clients including Habitat for Humanity International and Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

Darcy Scott Martin is a former grassroots advocate, lobbyist and Capitol Hill denizen who has provided common sense advice and training to first-time Hill visitors and long-time Lobby Day participants for organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union and the Women Legislators’ Lobby.  At M+R, Darcy provides Lobby Day management and training to clients like American Diabetes Association, the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Advocacy Alliance and Habitat for Humanity International.

• Refine campaign messaging and recruit and train union members to serve as campaign messengers;
• Develop a campaign website to mobilize NWC members through videos, updates on campaign rallies and contract negotiations, and more; and
• Create a cutting-edge text messaging program to send up-to-the-minute campaign information to field volunteers and NWC members in five states.

With M+R’s help, NWC was able to:

• Grow NWC’s e-activist list tenfold;
• Generate significant local media coverage in the Daily Journal of Commerce, the Puget Sound Business Journal, the Central Kitsap Reporter, and The Seattle Post-Intelligencer;
• Mobilize more than 5,000 carpenters to attend a “contract rally” in Portland, Oregon and nearly 10,000 more to gather for a rally in the Tacoma Dome in Washington; and
• Bolster solidarity and member involvement in NWC long after the rallies!

For more information, please contact Bill Wasserman at bwasserman@mrss.com.

M+R launched a 3-month campaign to reframe the smoke-free debate as a workers’ rights issue, educate the public about the health risks of secondhand smoke, and ensure that decision-makers saw strong public support for smoke-free air. We organized more than 120 educational and field events across the city, mobilized workers and activists to testify at City Council hearings, and generated media coverage in every major outlet, as well as in community and ethnic outlets including The Bayside Times, The Canarsie Courier, El Diario, and Sing Tao Daily.

Three months later, Mayor Bloomberg signed a law protecting workers from secondhand smoke in all workplaces, including restaurants and bars!

For more information, please contact Michael O’Loughlin at moloughlin@mrss.com or (917) 438-4609.

For over a decade, M+R has helped TFK advocate to protect children against Big Tobacco by urging policymakers to pass comprehensive federal legislation that grants the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) control over the production and marketing of tobacco products. In a recent landmark victory, the Senate passed the Family Smoking and Tobacco Control Act, which does just that. President Obama praised the bill’s passage and swiftly signed it into law!

To help win this success, M+R worked with TFK to identify and target the states and districts that were needed to elevate the bill’s standing on a crowded list of Congressional priorities. Field operatives on the ground around the country held events, organized coalition meetings, met with Members of Congress and their staffs, and engaged the media on the issue by holding editorial board meetings and placing op-eds and letters-to-the-editor. M+R helped build and manage TFK’s national field structure, coordinating ongoing strategy, goals and next steps in every state along the way.

All the hard work has finally paid off! We hope that countless children will lead healthier, longer lives free of addiction as a result. Visit www.tobaccofreekids.org to read the latest.

M+R helped plan and promote a national “Day of Action to Restore Law and Justice” to raise awareness of the situation within the Democratic Congress and pressure them to act. We coordinated the event from top to bottom, recruiting a line-up of influential speakers, coordinating buses to transport activists to D.C., promoting the campaign online, working with the ACLU to secure a media presence at the event, and more!

With M+R’s help, the ACLU’s “Day of Action” brought more than 4,000 activists from around the country to D.C. to call on Congress to reinstate habeas corpus, fix the Military Commissions Act, and restore our Constitutional rights. The event garnered national media coverage, enlisted new Congressional sponsors to multiple bills to “restore habeas corpus,” and increased activism for the ACLU and its partners!

M+R has helped build strength locally and statewide to influence federal environmental policy, including:

• Field organizing, coalition-building and media strategies to promote and defend Montana’s last roadless lands, generating thousands of communications to Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer on the issue.
• Engaging Montana’s faith community to pressure the state’s Congressional Delegation to support global warming legislation. Over 100 pastors signed a letter and later met with Senator Max Baucus to ask for his support for mandatory global warming reduction policies.
• Promoting a report on global warming’s inequitable impacts on the Western U.S. by recruiting distinguished politicians and experts to lend their voices. The conference received press from all Montana TV news stations, Montana NPR, and the Missoulian.
• Launching a contest to “rename” Glacier National Park in order to draw attention to the park’s accelerated loss of its namesake due to global warming. Over 500 people submitted entries and USA Today, dailykos.com and many Montana papers featured stories about the campaign.

For more information, please contact C.B. Pearson at cbpearson@mrss.com.

In three months, hundreds of concerned citizens and community organizations answered the call, urging the FCC to strengthen regulations for media consolidation. The campaign earned newspaper, TV and radio coverage at the state and local levels and, with M+R’s help, the Coalition gained new fervent support in both states.