Solutions

Hurricane Katrina Response

Plus Three was called in to develop a communications plan and fundraising strategy in support of the NAACP's Hurricane Katrina Relief efforts. The NAACP started without a foundation for online fundraising and within the first 72 hours was able to raise $700,000 online from 5,000 first time donors and over $2.6 Million dollars total—10% of its total income for 2005.

Through its rapid response efforts, the NAACP was able to organize over 500,000 online activists in support of its many programs. In six short months, the NAACP moved comfortably into one of the top three spots for civil liberties organizations online along with the ACLU and People For the American Way.

Historic DNC Fundraising Victory

During the 2004 election cycle, the Democratic National Committee out-raised its Republican counterpart for the first time ever thanks to Plus Three technology.

In 2001, Plus Three built Demzilla, the first nationwide voter and donor database in the history of the Democratic Party. At the time, the Republican Party had had such a system up and running for some time—while the DNC had a donor e-mail list of just 70,000 people in a decrepit internal database running off a green-screen terminal interface.

Using Demzilla—essentially a gigantic phonebook containing key information about of all the country's 166 million registered voters—the DNC was able to send precisely targeted email messages that would entice voters to the booths to vote Democrat, and entice those already converted to become donors or volunteers. By Election Day 2004, the DNC was running a much less expensive prospecting system and boasted a donor list of well over 1 million people.

The strategy and technology behind Demzilla formed the basis for building ARCOS, which brings powerful online marketing tools to other organizations who may not have the same financial resources as the DNC.

Fighting Climate Change

When the Sierra Club launched a pilot campaign in New Hampshire this year to fight global warming, they looked to Plus Three to help them make the connection between online and offline activism.

We gave the Sierra Club all the tools they were looking for in order to make their community organizing a success. Local activists enjoy robust blogging, social networking, and media sharing tools. They can also sign up to be team captains and organize events to help spread the word about climate change.

To offer extra incentive for the community to do environmental good deeds, the Sierra Club uses Civitas' point system to let members track their actions. Members get points for online actions like succesfully recruiting a friend and updating their profile picture, and for offline actions like hanging clothes out to dry and replacing regular light bulbs with compact fluorescents.