For over a year, grassroots solutions has assisted the Sunflower Foundation as they built and launched a smoke-free policy campaign in Kansas. The campaign, Clean Air Kansas, was created to persuade the state legislature to pass a comprehensive clean indoor air policy for the state.
The first six months of grassroots solutions’ work with the Sunflower Foundation concentrated on campaign strategy planning. grassroots solutions worked with The Sunflower Foundation and its organizational partners to develop a cohesive coalition framework and policy platform. Based on the renewed coalition commitments, grassroots solutions created a comprehensive plan that integrated direct lobbying, communications, and grassroots activities, and identified and hired staff to run the campaign.
Determined to enter the 2010 legislative session with sound grassroots and legislative support, the Sunflower Foundation asked grassroots solutions to help its talented new campaign team fast-track grassroots pressure on decision-makers in key legislative districts. A tight timeline, combined with the sheer geography of a large and sparsely populated state, made one-on-one contact with people on a mass scale very tough.
Clean Air Kansas needed to find a way to rapidly identify and recruit supporters who would be willing to contact their elected officials and express their support for a statewide clean indoor air policy. grassroots solutions recommended a robust phone outreach program as the most effective way to reach supporters. grassroots solutions worked with the campaign and a seasoned phone vendor, Stones’ Phones, to put together a paid phone program that met three key objectives:
- Rapidly identify supporters in key legislative districts;
- Identify “influentials,” or people who are most likely to get involved in issues they care about, who would be the first “go to” list for future mobilizing; and
- Capture messages from everyday citizens as to why clean indoor air is crucial to workers and patrons.
The paid phones program successfully identified over 11,000 supporters of a statewide clean indoor air policy, all individuals that Clean Air Kansas will be able to tap into for future mobilization efforts around this issue. Additionally, close to 3,000 useable constituent messages were recorded, burned onto CD’s, and sent to their corresponding elected officials. The CD’s allowed elected officials to directly hear from smoke-free supporters living in their districts, and also gave them an important perspective on the scope and depth of support for a comprehensive smoke-free policy that exists in their state. From the constituents’ perspective, the CD’s provided an easy outlet for communicating their thoughts and opinions on this issue without having to make an additional phone call to their elected officials.
On January 25, 2010, Clean Air Kansas assembled and repackaged the voices of these Kansans in yet another way, making them available to a wider audience with the launch of www.cleanairkansas.org/voices/. Site visitors can listen to the voices of Clean Air Kansas, share their stories on Facebook, and record their own story to add to the mix.
The Sunflower Foundation recently reported that their targets have started to weaken significantly in their opposition, and a few who were previously opposed have even expressed support. Many targets referenced the Sunflower Foundation’s grassroots efforts as the factor that changed their mind. Clean Air Kansas is better positioned now to pass a comprehensive, statewide clean indoor air policy than ever before, due in large part to the diverse grassroots network they were able to build through the paid phones program.
