The Reed Awards & Conference is the agenda-setting event for those in the business of political campaigns. The Reed Awards embody excellence in political campaigning, campaign management, political consulting and political design.
The panel of judges have reviewed the candidacy called 'How to stop Brexit: grassroots, data, and technology' which explains the ambitious project undertaken by the European Movement UK (EMUK) in May 2017, where it decided to implement leading political campaign software that allows for distributed leadership, i.e. it gives the European Movement's branches the digital tools and the data they need to run campaigns in their local areas, whilst allowing the team at HQ to synchronize all the data and manage the nation-wide campaign.
Thanks to the close collaboration between the European Movement UK staff and Rollout Democracy, a consulting company, we successfully rolled out the new campaign tech infrastructure.
In short, the results included:
- More than half of EMUK's branches were onboarded onto the new platform, which consisted of: each branch appointing its own local Digital Officer who completed both online and offline training; and a customized website to appeal to local residents. The local campaign team then started to communicate with local supporters, launch fundraising campaigns, and organize street events.
- The HQ database was able to synchronize the data at a local level and, therefore, start building an enriched profile of their supporters across the country.
- Given the momentum the campaign achieved, various prominent organizations were persuaded to be onboarded onto the campaign network and started to share data e.g. Scientists for EU and Healthier IN the EU.
In less than 6 months, the new campaign infrastructure has allowed EMUK to:
- Raise 73% of what they planned to raise during the whole year.
- Sign up new members, 52% of the annual target so far.
- Launch dozens of grassroots campaigns across the country, with street stalls where enthusiastic volunteers deliver leaflets and convince residents of the benefits of EU membership. The most important of this series of events were the rallies, marches and other activities held during the Party Conferences of Liberal Democrats, Labour, and the Conservatives - as part of the "Autumn of Action". All the events that took place can be found here: http://www.europeanmovement.co.uk/news. An example of an event at local level can be found here: http://www.stalbans4europe.co.uk/pro_europeans_in_st_albans_join_a_nationwide_action_day
- Launch successful digital campaigns. One recent campaign, "Release the Brexit studies" received more than 23,000 signatures and helped force the UK government to respond. See: http://www.europeanmovement.co.uk/release_the_studies
- Succeed in our ‘20/20 strategy’ during the 2017 General Election in the UK, which was aimed at unseating 20 pro-Brexit MPs and retaining another 20 pro-EU ones. See: http://www.europeanmovement.co.uk/election_result