The NOI Story

2004: The seeds of a revolution in online campaigning
In summer 2005, 17 senior staff whose '04 campaigns broke grassroots mobilization and fundraising records came together to ask: "Where do we go from here?"

Across the board, our major "04 successes had been fueled by breakthroughs in online organizing. The handful of campaigns we represented had raised well over $200 million, mobilized hundreds of thousands of volunteers, and contacted tens of millions of voters - largely by leveraging existing web-based progressive social networks in new ways.

But we were the exceptions, not the rule. The vast majority of progressive issue-organizations and candidate campaigns either failed to understand the potential of online organizing, or lacked the skills to execute a successful online campaign. Worst of all, the right-wing understood the potential and was already making investments in studying, documenting, and training their young leaders in the best-practices and latest advances in this field.

An "Ah-ha" moment in '05: Grow or get left behind
It was plain to see that if progressives didn't develop a training infrastructure for online organizers, we would quickly be left behind by the right-wing in a field we'd virtually invented. A concept was born: the New Organizing Institute. Like the Leadership Institute on the right, the NOI would become the "go to" place for technical and strategic training. We'd begin by training and placing newly trained Internet campaign professionals (online organizers, Internet directors) on dozens of 2006 campaigns. Candidates and organizations, frustrated by their own inability to generate Dean or MoveOn-like results online, would be eager to accept these students, taught by "the best in the biz." The pilot project would in turn teach us more about what kinds of training worked and didn't, and what all different sized campaigns and organizations really needed.

Passing the test: Winter 2006 NOI pilot

Demand for the training was enormous. Ultimately, 40 trainees were selected from more than 700 applications. We actively recruited outside of techie stereotypes while keeping organizing talent, creativity and passion as our primary criteria. We were rewarded with a genuinely diverse class that included community organizers, campaign professionals, experienced programmers, recent college graduates, computer science majors, individuals with little to no technology experience, web designers, and those looking to break into the emerging field of new organizing in politics. 45% were women and 38% minorities; 53% under 25.

Each evening, students put the day's lessons into practice, competing against each other in teams to win a mock-up congressional campaign by crafting the best strategies, mocking up the best web tools, writing the best outreaches and more. Students were given feedback not only from the NOI team, but a volunteer network of 120 internet and campaign professionals from a wide variety of organizations.

Here is the NOI's first graduating class, smiling even after a grueling week of 18-hour-days:

With the assistance of NOI trainers and mentors, virtually all the NOI grads seeking jobs have found placement since completing the training in March - fanning out across the U.S. to campaigns from Stabenow for Senate (MI) and Richardson for Governor (NM) to the WI Progressive Coalition, Indy Voter and the DSCC. The other half are putting their training into action at organizations large and small, ranging from the League of Young Voters to the National Education Association to Roxvote (a community GOTV organization in Roxbury, MA) and the Ella Baker Center.

The NOI is committed to providing mentorship and future job-placement assistance to this group, and future graduating classes, as they continue through their careers - thus creating the same kind of network in this new field as already exist for established political trades such as fundraising, traditional field organizing.

More

• Read more about NOI's Inaugural Training.
• Hear what NOI Grads had to say about their experience.