How to Influence Politicians and Win Elections for Libraries

How to win elections and

influence politiciansPatrick “PC” Sweeney

@pcsweeneywww.pcsweeney.com

Libraryland Ecosystem

Building voter support for libraries

EveryLibrary’s Successes

Building voter support for libraries

Why Talk in Terms of Voters

First the Good News

Building voter support for libraries

The Numbers Are Great!

Building voter support for libraries

Civic Attitudes

● 94% of Parents say libraries are important for their children. 79% say “very important”. 2

● 58% of Americans have a library card. 3

● 62% of card holders have visited the library in the last year at least once.4

2. Pew, May 2013

3 and 4. Harris Interactive | ALA, January 2011

Building voter support for libraries

Voter Attitudes

Nationwide, of all voters:

37% will Definitely vote yes for the library37% will Probably vote yes for the library

26% will Probably or Definitely vote no or may vote either way.

Building voter support for libraries

Party Affiliation Doesn’t Matter

Building voter support for libraries

Library Card Stats Don’t Matter

Building voter support for libraries

Library Use Doesn’t Matter

Building voter support for libraries

What Does Matter

Building voter support for libraries

What do politicians respond to?

Building voter support for libraries

What can we get?

Building voter support for libraries

DATA!!Building voter support for libraries

Building voter support for libraries

Good Data

Building voter support for libraries

How to get the data

Building your army of ravenous supporters

Building voter support for libraries

Surfacing

Building voter support for libraries

What will you be messaging

Building voter support for libraries

Use that data to build your messageWhat we say

about ourselves

What they say about

themselves

What we say about them

What they say about us

Building voter support for libraries

Targeting your message

Building voter support for libraries

Align your message with users and

non-users

Building voter support for libraries

Align your message with the goals of the local politicians

Align your message with the goals of the influencers

Give them a place on the field

Building voter support for libraries

It’s a numbers game

Facebook

Building voter support for libraries

Building voter support for libraries

Face-To-Face

Building voter support for libraries

What doesn’t work

Building voter support for libraries

What can you start doing now?

Building voter support for libraries

After your message is out

BONUS SLIDE

How to win elections and

influence politicians

Patrick “PC” [email protected]