Beyond Rallies: Five Grassroots Activities That Probably Are Easier (And More Effective)

Beyond Rallies: Five Grassroots Activities That Probably Are Easier (And Just As Effective)

By Jennifer Wagner

Everyone loves the idea of a rally to support their cause: thousands of people with clever homemade signs and catchy chants filling a public space. Television cameras everywhere! Public officials listening to meaty speeches layered with compelling personal stories. It sounds amazing, right?

Thing is, rallies are hard. Even if you can pull off the scene described above, you’ll probably get a little bit of glow in exchange for a whole lot of sweat. So unless you have 100,000 parents ready to fill the streets and advocate for school choice, which would be fantastic, we’re pleased to present five outreach alternatives to spread the word and nab attention.

Petition Delivery

Convening thousands of people at the Statehouse depends on so many factors, including weather, the most unpredictable ally in many states. Getting those people to sign a petition that gets delivered to the Statehouse by a smaller group allows for the same show of force without all the variables.

You can print out the signatures and make a cool photo opportunity; I’m not all that artistically inclined, but my personal fave is a little red wagon filled to the brim with petition sheets individually tied with brightly colored ribbons. Alert the media that you’ll be delivering X number of signatures at a given time to the person or people you’re seeking to influence, and boom, you’ve got yourself some potential coverage.

Even better: Take your own video and photos of the delivery so you can create your own story to share on social media in case reporters can’t make it.

Press Conference

Don’t have time to gather human beings at an event or signatures for delivery, but you’ve still got something important to say? Hold a press conference. Now, we can’t guarantee that putting together 10–15 minutes of content and sending out a media advisory will actually lead to reporters showing up, but a press conference is pretty easy to plan.

Here’s the thing, though: You can’t hold a press conference every day or even every week (that’s what statements and press releases are for), so make sure you’ve got something that’s actually newsworthy to announce. Again, even if no one shows, you can still record the event and disseminate it later — and practice always makes better.

Statehouse Action Day

Closely related to the traditional rally, a Statehouse Action Day may be equally difficult to pull off but is almost certainly going to be more effective. Yes, you have to get lots of people to one central place at a given time, but instead of chanting and marching, you’ll be asking them to (and helping them) set up one-on-one meetings with their elected officials so they can share their personal stories.