Phonebank.org helps individuals and organizers engage supporters through Congressional calling campaigns.
Most Americans have never made a call to their member of congress. In fact, most probably wouldn’t even know how to get started.
Enter Phonebank.org, an activism-focused startup that helps individuals and smaller non-profit groups launch governmental calling campaigns. And as of earlier this month, the company’s new Digital Switchboard feature allows individuals to pick up their phone and connect with their elected official simply by inputting their zip code.
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While other activistism-based platforms like Change.org allow users to quickly sign online petitions, co-founders Zach Edwards (right) and Virginia Davies were drawn to the niche political market of calling campaigns.
“If that phone is just constantly ringing all day, it’s terribly disruptive to the work the legislator is doing,” said Edwards, who also serves as the company’s CEO. “Most petitions just kind of go into an inbox and it’s not going to be hurting their day.”
Though it may seem like a large commitment for many organizations to ask for, the pair is aware they will only be targeting the top five percent of supporters, the group Edwards refers to as the “super volunteers.”
“We’re not trying to bring you all of these new supporters, we’re helping to empower your current supporters,” he said.
The company, which launched in December of 2012, became a resident at StartupCity Des Moines in February and has since registered more than 1,000 users. Edwards notes though that the site has logged several thousand calls from unregistered users, as the platform allows for anonymous calling.
One of the site’s most successful campaigns comes from the group behind the documentary “The Invisible War,” a look at sexual assault in the military. While the organization collected more than 40,000 signatures on its online petition, the Phonebank campaign logged more than 1,900 calls to Congress in support of the Military Justice Improvement Act.
“We’re not going to be the lynchpin of your organization, but we’re the additional oomph, the additional thing you can add to engage supporters,” Edwards said.
Phonebank, which has been completely bootstrapped by Edwards and Davies thus far, remains a non-partisan and bipartisan platform. While competing platforms like Salsa and Kansas City-based Phone2Action offer similar features, Edwards believes that Phonebank’s offerings work more effectively with smaller organizations and adapt to fit their needs.
“It really helps organizations see who their top 200 volunteers are, who they can always rely upon from their email list of thousands,” he said of the product.
Learn more about how to use Phonebank.org through the company’s introductory video.
Credits: Photo from Phonebank.org. Edwards photo courtesy of Edwards.
