logo
    • Magazine
    • Membership
    • Donate
  • Racial Justice
  • Economic Justice
    • Collections
  • Climate Justice
  • Health Justice
  • Leadership
  • CONTENT TYPES
  • Subscribe
  • Webinars
    • Upcoming Webinars
    • Complimentary Webinars
    • Premium On-Demand Webinars
  • Membership
  • Submissions

Nonprofit Turns Facebook Conversations into Political Input

Erin Rubin
April 12, 2017
Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print
Pixabay. Public Domain. [CC 0]

April 10, 2017; New Hampshire Public Radio

A number of experiments have been run on the use of digital communication to affect political processes. We are not sure that this one works as-is, but it is worth a further look. Citizens Count NH/Live Free or Die Alliance (LFDA) runs a campaign called “Citizen Voices” that collects comments from N.H. residents via Facebook, then summarizes them and delivers reports to state lawmakers. Sometimes, they’ll present the findings in a hearing or deliver the report to pertinent special interest groups or departments. They don’t take sides on any issues and they don’t support or denounce candidates; their goal is to bring the voices of the people to the government without the complications inspired by lobbyist groups or campaign supporters.

LFDA also provides information about candidates in state and national races, which they glean from news articles, books and other published material, and direct interviews with the candidates. Anna Brown, a staff member at LFDA, said that the organization has good relationships with legislators, who will occasionally ask the organization to help them gather feedback about a proposal.

Anyone can start a discussion or ask a question on LFDA’s platform; sometimes the organization posts a question or a proposal, and sometimes members of the discussion group will do so. Anyone is free to comment on these posts, and the results are filtered for New Hampshire residency before being collected for analysis.

Sign up for our free newsletters

Subscribe to NPQ's newsletters to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

And that’s really it. LFDA is nonpartisan, nonprofit, and unaffiliated with other political advocacy groups. They have three full-time staff members and part-time and volunteer help. They collect comments from Facebook and deliver them without commentary to the state house in Concord twice a week, and in doing so, they help bring people & politics closer together.

According to the United States Election Project, New Hampshire has one of the highest rates of voter turnout in the nation; 31.1 percent of residents voted in the 2012 presidential primary elections, which is when Brown says that LFDA really took off. In the 2016 primary, 52.4 percent of residents voted in New Hampshire, out of over a million eligible citizens. That’s a lot of voters in need of information.

In the weeks since President Trump’s inauguration, a soaring number of Americans have contacted their elected officials about pending legislation. Congressional representatives reported being flooded by thousands of phone calls about the American Health Care Act in the short span between the bill’s release and its withdrawal. Wired magazine explained that since Congressional representatives are only permitted to hire 18 staffers each, “the flood of voices so overwhelms the bureaucratic machine that any one citizen becomes hard to hear.” When taking calls on crucial issues, some representatives have asked constituents to keep their feedback to a simple “yes” or “no,” substituting volume for nuance to help more voices be heard. Is the kind of summation LFDA provides to lawmakers of conversations on a neutral platform a step forward, or just another incremental point of information in how to help digitally facilitate civic engagement? Only time will tell.—Erin Rubin

Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print
About the author
Erin Rubin

Erin Rubin was an assistant editor at the Nonprofit Quarterly, where she was in charge of online editorial coordination and community building. Before joining NPQ, in 2016, Erin worked as an administrator at Harvard Business School and as an editorial project manager at Pearson Education, where she helped develop a digital resource library for remedial learners. Erin has also worked with David R. Godine, Publishers, and the Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers. As a creative lead with the TEDxBeaconStreet organizing team, she worked to help innovators and changemakers share their groundbreaking ideas and turn them into action.

More about: nonprofit advocacyNonprofit NewsPolicySocial Media

Become a member

Support independent journalism and knowledge creation for civil society. Become a member of Nonprofit Quarterly.

Members receive unlimited access to our archived and upcoming digital content. NPQ is the leading journal in the nonprofit sector written by social change experts. Gain access to our exclusive library of online courses led by thought leaders and educators providing contextualized information to help nonprofit practitioners make sense of changing conditions and improve infra-structure in their organizations.

Join Today
logo logo logo logo logo
See comments

Spring-2023-sidebar-subscribe
You might also like
Cancelling Student Debt Is Necessary for Racial Justice
Kitana Ananda
To Save Legal Aid, Expand Public Service Loan Forgiveness
Zoë Polk
No Justice, No Peace of Mind and Body: The Health Impacts of Housing Insecurity for Black Women
Jhumpa Bhattacharya, Maile Chand and Andrea Flynn
The Human Impact of the Global Refugee Crisis Must Be Understood—And Acted Upon
Anmol Irfan
Black Americans Need Reparations: The Fight for the CTC Highlights the Roadblocks
Jhumpa Bhattacharya and Trevor Smith
Edgar Cahn’s Second Act: Time Banking and the Return of Mutual Aid
Steve Dubb

NPQ Webinars

April 27th, 2 pm ET

Liberatory Decision-Making

How to Facilitate and Engage in Healthy Decision-making Processes

Register Now
You might also like
Cancelling Student Debt Is Necessary for Racial Justice
Kitana Ananda
To Save Legal Aid, Expand Public Service Loan Forgiveness
Zoë Polk
No Justice, No Peace of Mind and Body: The Health Impacts of...
Jhumpa Bhattacharya, Maile Chand and Andrea Flynn

Like what you see?

Subscribe to the NPQ newsletter to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

See our newsletters

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

NPQ-Spring-2023-cover

Independent & in your mailbox.

Subscribe today and get a full year of NPQ for just $59.

subscribe
  • About
  • Contact
  • Advertise
  • Copyright
  • Careers

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

 

Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.