Tactic 1 case study: TheyWorkForYou

In 2009, MySociety launched a campaign called 'TheyWorkForYou,' in which voters in the UK could send targeted emails to their Members of Parliament (MP), demanding transparency in the use of public funds. “We send tens of thousands of email alerts every day to readers of our website TheyWorkForYou.com” says Tom Steinberg of MySociety. These emails go to people who have asked for alerts on current events. Each email gives a link to a website, where people can find their MP and write him or her a custom email. After sending the email, people are invited to join a Facebook group, which, when they join, will post a link in their Facebook profile to publicise their own email campaign to their friends. In 2009 TheyWorkForYou successfully mobilised its readers around a UK MP expenses inquiry. The government sought to have MPs’ expenses claims kept secret, despite successful Freedom of Information requests. TheyWorkForYou mobilised people to demand transparency. Tom says, “Whether our email campaign was decisive in influencing Parliament, we'll never know, with Parliament being so secretive. But it certainly mattered that TheyWorkForYou has masses of traffic and that people want to use the site every day. With this, we were able to send a few thousand emails to MPs about this issue. It might not sound like a lot, but they went to over 95% of all MPs. These were all individual messages to MPs from their real constituents. Extremely targeted emails have got to be the most effective form of email campaigns.” Soon after this campaign the UK government agreed to disclose MP expenses.

Tools used: Custom-built content management system (CMS) and contact management system made from open source software components was used to make TheyWorkForYou. Wordpress and Facebook were also used for the MP expenses campaign.

Reach: The campaign was focused on UK citizens and politicians. The website had 500,000 visitors the month the story broke in the UK press, and it receives an average of 250,000 visitors per month.

Cost: USD$1700 in staff salary to run the campaign.

Resources: Web hosting was donated.

Time: From planning to completion, the MP expenses campaign took five days. The CMS was already developed and installed.

Level of Difficulty: 2 with contact management tools in place, 4 if you must develop them.

Links to learn more:

• About the campaign effectiveness
• About the MySociety

READ THE WHOLE OF TACTIC 1: DOWNLOAD CARD (PDF)