The counting continues in Carver County. At the moment, there are 17 challenged ballots, all challenged by Emmer’s challengers. We understand that at the end of the day, the Carver County Auditor will review the challenged ballots with both the Emmer and the Dayton challengers, so the total number of challenged ballots may change.

Nine precincts, or 25% of Carver County’s precincts, have not been counted.

New Report - Empowering Alumni and Friends to Carry Your Message to Elected Officials

Convio, Inc. and Tipping Point Strategies today announced the availability of a guide that will help educational institutions to launch effective grassroots advocacy campaigns. The guide provides practical advice on balancing direct lobbying, media relations and grassroots efforts, as well as tips on how to mobilize your community to support your institution. It is available to download at: http://www.convio.com/empower-alumni.

Topics covered include:

• Deciding on an infrastructure
• Staffing your program
• Creating campus leadership buy-in
• Identifying key stakeholders
• Choosing an online software tool
• Creating and launching a grassroots advocacy plan
• Developing key messages

For educational institutions that have a grassroots advocacy program in place already, the guide provides a series of expansion strategies.

The guide also includes case studies which feature leading universities and their success at increasing advocacy with alumni and friends.

Alumni as Advocates - Presentation

Check out the presentation that I delivered this weekend at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities Government Relations conference.

Alumni As Advocates

View more presentations from mpdean1.

Higher Education Has a Role in Politics

Historically, higher education has avoided getting too involved in politics. Some argue that politics is "too dirty" and academia is "bigger than that." But, there is also a fear that if higher education, especially public colleges and universities, gets too involved in politics there will be negative consequences - mostly in the form of withdrawal of public funding for those institutions.

John D. Wiley, outgoing Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, disagrees and he's making sure he's heard loud and clear before he leaves his post.

In an article published in Madison Magazine, Wiley calls on the public to challenge the "hyper-partisan political environment at the state capitol" and decry the influence of political campaign contributions to elected officials, which have led to policies that weaken support for education and threaten the future of our communities.

While his article has gotten mixed reactions, if higher education really is to be a leader in advancing and strengthening the economy and our nation's democracy, colleges and universities need to examine how to take on a stronger role in the political process. Higher education can't continue to avoid politics; rather, it must challenge historical beliefs about the role of colleges in politics by utilizing their stakeholders—students, faculty, staff, and alumni—to engage in the political process through grassroots advocacy efforts.

2003 Madison Magazine story by Chancellor Wiley - http://www.madisonmagazine.com/article.php?section_id=918&xstate=view_story&story_id=155312

Presentation - Using Web 2.0 to Build Stronger Government Relations and Advocacy Programs

Using Web 2.0 to Build Stronger Government Relations and Advocacy Programs

view presentation (tags: higher education)

Lessons Learned from Obama’s Online Strategy

Obama has done a great job with using the web to advance his campaign, and his campaigned has successfully embraced a number of best practices. For example, earlier this week there was an instructive article in the New York Times that talked about how one of the founders of Facebook is helping the Obama campaign.   

The article outlines four strategies that have helped them be successful. These strategies are useful lessons for not only campaigns, but also for nonprofits that are trying to mimic the success of Obama online efforts.

• Keep it local
  Tip O'Neil said that all politics is local. That same idea works for internet strategies. Many national groups fail to put their online campaigns in a context that people can understand. If you can show a local angle it will help make it real for individuals.
• Chop the list up into manageable chunks and organize them
  The idea of segmenting outreach and then targeting communication to those different audiences is a tactic that marketing agencies have embraced, much to their clients' success. Unfortunately, many groups think that this is only a necessary action for national nonprofit organizations. That is not the case. Even small local nonprofits should think about how they can do this.
• Give supporters the tools to organize themselves – "In some primary and caucus states, volunteers used the Internet to start organizing themselves months before the campaign staff arrived."
  • "Obama's campaign began carefully opening up its files of voters to online supporters, making it easier to find out which Democratic-leaning neighbors to call and which registered-independent doors to knock on."
  • One goal is to drive online energy into in-person support.
• "You can have the best technology in the world," Mr. Hughes said, "but if you don't have a community who wants to use it and who are excited about it, then it has no purpose."

  This makes the point that starting slow and then building in more complex activities is the most appropriate strategy. Too often group say we need our supporters/members to do X, without realizing that their supporters are not ready to do X and that they need to get to that activity through baby steps and educating the community.

 

These are some great practical strategies that nonprofits and campaigns can employ to develop a more effective online strategy.

Online Users are Politically Active

On Monday, Nielsen-Online released a study that found that 89 percent of web users over 18 are registered to vote. "The fact that so many Web users are registered to vote suggests that online campaign efforts will drive results at the polls," said Jon Gibs, vice president, media analytics, Nielsen Online. "Campaigns are no longer dabbling online – we expect a candidate's Web presence to be an integral part of both campaigns," he added.

This study should hopefully wake up all those campaigns out there that don't believe that the web is an important medium to engage voters. The challenge for many campaigns is to figure out how to best engage supporters and voters in this arena.

With the economy heading south…

A growing chorus of economists are predicting that the U.S. is headed toward a recession. That chorus reached a crescendo during the recent market selloff. What will a recession mean for higher education institutions around the country?

A December 2007 report by the National Governors Association predicted that state budget revenue would decline in 2008. Unfortunately, that report may no longer reflect the current realities of the national economy. With state budgets tightening, higher education will most likely face additional pressure to trim legislative requests.

It appears that we are already seeing this happen in California, where Governor Schwarzenegger's cut both higher education systems by ten percent in his proposed budget. These cuts are happening at an inopportune time for California and other states around this country.

The Mercury News editorial board said it best - "California needs the steady flow of an educated workforce to thrive. Cutting money for two- and four-year colleges next year would be a step backward that would affect more than just the entering freshman class. Legislators must do whatever it takes - making hard choices, eliminating tax loopholes or increasing some taxes - to reverse it."

But the only way to really change course is for institutions to more effectively engage their alumni, staff, students and community supporters to help deliver that key message to state legislators around the country. These groups all have a huge incentive to get involved because they are the ones that will feel the greatest impact of the cuts: Students through increased tuition, staff through layoffs, community members through decreased community services and alumni through a more aggressive request for donations. Only when this larger coalition speaks with a united voice at the legislature will higher education institutions be able to effectively make its case for adequate state funding.

 

 

State budgets getting tighter in 2008

A survey released by the National Governors Association found that states are facing much tighter budgets in the coming year than they did during 2007. This could make it more difficult for higher education institutions around the country to request increased state investment in their budgets. It is more likely that, rather than negotiating increases, institutions will have to fight back budget cuts at many state capitols to simply maintain the status quo. This problem will be compounded by the rising costs of Medicaid and health-care costs facing state legislatures in 2008.

Already, the State of Wisconsin cut its higher education line item to address a $116.5 million dollar deficit facing the state in FY2008. The legislators ended up cutting the University of Wisconsin by $12.5 million alone.

The survey also said that in 2007 states spent 10.4 percent of their budget on higher education on average. But it looks like 2008 will see a decline in state support for higher education.

Is Higher Education a Partisan Issue?

There are many in the higher education community who have long felt that the funding of higher education is not a political issue. Traditionally, both liberals and conservatives recognized the importance of a strong investment in the public funding of higher education. However, that common ground has been evaporating in recent years as more and more institutions have seen their priorities on the chopping blocks because of increased pressure on state budgets. The legislative assault on higher education, which is largely the product of the conservative movement, has created a charged political environment around the issue of higher education funding.

Both the Spellings Commission and a recent report from the Center for College Affordability and Productivity highlight this changed environment. The Center for College Affordability and Productivity report claims that "the more states spend on higher education, the lower the growth in personal income per capita in future time periods." The author of the study, Dr. Richard Vedder, is a visiting scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, the same conservative group that is credited with developing President Bush's foreign policy agenda. This group also has long challenged the prevailing scientific view on global climate change.

This recent report has ruffled a few feathers in the higher education community, as evidenced by a discussion on the Chronicle of Higher Education's web site. But, rather than simply generating charged rhetoric, this needs to spur institutions to become more aggressive in defending themselves and developing a grassroots base that will support stronger investments in higher education. For example, the environmental movement was eventually able to turn the tide on AEI's tactics by creating a strong base that loudly supported their efforts. The time of bipartisan agreement on the funding of higher education has passed, and institutions must start leveraging their supporters to make sure their priorities are being funded.