Debt Justice: gathering supporter input

After over twenty years as the Jubilee Debt Campaign, the organisation knew it was time for a new name and a new look. While proud of their origins in the biblical concept of Jubilee debt forgiveness, they knew that the name was also a barrier to engaging new people unfamiliar with the concept and more likely to associate the word with the monarchy.

Keeping supporters engaged

It was vital of course to find a new name that captured the organisation’s mission and values, and also to keep long-standing loyal supporters fully engaged in the process of change. By using simple surveys in Impact Stack they were able to engage with their activists to gather input and perspectives, make sure that they felt fully involved and reassure them that the organisation was still fully committed to finding the best way to stop unjust debts driving poverty and inequality in lower income countries and in the UK.

Gathering input and feedback

An initial survey asked supporters whether they agreed with the need for change, and gathered ideas on possible names and themes, and offered people a chance to take part in more detailed focus group discussions. A second survey went out with the announcement of the new name, asking for feedback and making sure that people felt that they could make their voices heard.

When a supporter filled in the form Impact Stack’s autosegmentation tags, and integration with MailChimp, meant that the supporter would be immediately tagged in Mailchimp as having responded. This meant they could automatically be excluded from any chasers.

Survey responses were actively used to inform follow up communications, for example offering a specific email journey for people who weren’t keen on the organisation’s name change to make sure that those supporters felt understood and valued.

The thank you page for the survey included a message of thanks for taking part, and the chance to make a donation to support the organisation’s future work. Impact Stack session prefill would automatically fill out the fields that a person had already filled in on the previous form, such as first name, last name and email address, making the form easier and quicker to fill in.

Other surveys

Debt Justice continues to use simple survey forms to engage supporters, for example asking new supporters about the kinds of campaigning activity that would interest them, or gathering feedback from activist events.

Through surveys, Debt Justice can also find out more about their supporters so that they can offer the most relevant ways to get involved. For example, asking via a simple survey allows the organisation to identify new supporters who may have recent, personal experience of debt. This means the community organiser can offer these supporters a different supporter journey, with tailored opportunities to get involved in the organisation’s work on issues of household debt.

Says Zak Suffee, senior digital campaigner, “Impact Stack's versatility means it provides a good alternative platform for running simple supporter surveys alongside our other campaigning actions and donation forms. Its ease of use and integration with Mailchimp means we can offer branded forms and get the data quickly where we need it, and avoid the additional costs of using a third party survey platform.”

For more ideas of how to use Impact Stack beyond campaigning actions and donation forms, see our webinar, Getting more from Impact Stack.