Since 2003, ProgressNow has been developing our network of state partner organizations to fill a unique and critical role in the progressive infrastructure of key states.
ProgressNow State Partners serve as non-stop, multi-issue advocacy organizations. Year-round, we promote progressive ideas and causes with creative earned media strategies, targeted email campaigns, and cutting-edge new media. Working with our allies, we have significantly improved the communications effort of the entire progressive community in our states.
Today, we’ve built an online audience that exceeds 5 million people. We’ve generated thousands of news stories in local, state, and national press. And we’ve pushed the use of social technologies and new media, not only through our own organizations but in partnership with our allies.
ProgressNow is a year-round, never-ending progressive campaign. Political campaigns are relatively short-lived; they come and they go, leaving little behind of lasting value. ProgressNow’s presence in our states never ends. There are hundreds of local and state issues that we can organize and communicate effectively literally year-round. Day in and day out, we’re working in our states to counter the right-wing and create a perpetual issue advocacy culture.
We’ve developed a niche by focusing on earned media, online communications, and organizing. Many state-based traditional, single-issue advocacy groups lack the internal capacity to execute communications effectively – ProgressNow State Partners excel in this area. Each ProgressNow State Partner organization has full-time staff who are experts in media communications, online campaigns, earned media and new media. We mobilize citizens through our extensive email lists, media events, and through social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. We quickly produce and publish hot topic videos on YouTube. We even developed new social networking and organizing tools that have been used successfully not only by our State Partner organizations but by other progressive organizations.
We’re unique in our focus on state and local issues.
Simply put, ProgressNow state partners are the only multi-issue, perpetual advocacy organizations in the states. It’s been said that “all politics is local”, and our experience is that lasting change must be rooted in our communities. By focusing our civic engagement and communications work at the state and local level, we are uniquely situated to play an important role in creating true, lasting change in our states.
As a progressive rather than a partisan organization, our work is always important and reaches a broad audience. Because we work to promote a “progressive” agenda, not a partisan one, our work continues regardless of which party controls the levers of power at the federal, state and local level. Whether we’re fighting against conservative policies or promoting progressive ones, we can be effective. And because we are nonpartisan, we can be effective vehicles to reach citizens across the political spectrum, and not simply preach to the choir. The composition of our email lists, which include a broad range of political affiliations, demonstrates this.
