Bank ad credits by participating in joint actions

There is no charge. It’s completely free to host or participate in joint actions on Civic Shout.

No. Your list will grow, and people will stay engaged. If joint actions hurt email programs, why have some of the most respected causes in the U.S. been participating in them for years? Here's what actually happens.

When you share a petition, some folks will choose to join other lists—that’s true. With the old-school “list swap” approach, signers end up on about 5 lists at a time. With Civic Shout, the average is 1.5. Learn more about this below.

You’ll be trading a little subscriber attention to add thousands of new donors and activists to your list every month—without touching your budget.

The math checks out, and is why joint actions (even the old school ones) are loved by smart emailers.

Unlike Action Network, or similar services, when people sign a joint action on Civic Shout they are not added to 4–5 other lists blindly via an algorithm.

Instead, they are 1) only joining the host’s list when they sign the petition, and 2) after signing, they are redirected to our “suggested actions carousel”, where they can browse a stack of related actions in a Tinder-style experience and can choose if they want to join any group’s list or not.

Years of our data show that on average, folks only join 0.5 (less than 1) lists at this stage. They may see a lot of actions, but join notably fewer lists compared to the “list swap” joint actions that you’re familiar with—which is better for them and you.

Further, contact data are never just handed out and people are never emailed without their opt-in consent. Ever.

There’s no fine print buried in our Terms of Service that contradicts this or that enables us to do shady things with your or anyone else's data.

These are the exact kinds of practices we fight against, and they’re a major reason we built Civic Shout in the first place.

New joint actions are being published every few days. If you’re not seeing any fits, you can pitch Marie Bergen (our Head of Joint Actions [email protected]) on an idea or host a joint action with your own petition content.

For every signature you generate, you earn credits for 3 clicks on Civic Shout's ad platform—a value of $2.25 per signature, credited to your account the moment someone signs.

You spend them by publishing ads that link to your own external petition or letter campaigns (like you would with Meta ads, for instance).

Running ads on Civic Shout is much easier than you'd think.

You can publish a petition-style ad just by copying and pasting some content from a petition you already have lying around and link to it from the ad.

You can be up and running in minutes, it's infinitely simpler than Meta ads.

Credits are good for our nationally-targeted ExpressCPC cost-per-click ads when used with the “Sign Petition” call-to-action.

Normally, you'd link to a petition, but you can link to a digital letter campaign if you wish.

You can bank hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of ad credits, a sum that can fundamentally improve what your email program can do in terms of list growth, fundraising, and advocacy.

As a host, when people sign your petition you'll get their first and last name, email, ZIP and about 30% of the time, they'll also offer their cell number.

Names show up instantly in your dashboard and are synced with your CRM if connected.

You decide the delivery approach that fits your action.

Digital delivery of a PDF via email to target decision-makers is common, and in some cases, in-person delivery makes sense.

Our team hosts multiple joint actions of our own each month, and we handle delivery in a few different ways depending on the issue and what we're trying to accomplish.

One thing that's been working well for us is to send follow-up emails to signers nudging them up the ladder of engagement with asks to make calls, send letters, RSVP for events, etc., taking the impact of the action beyond the initial petition.

All kinds of progressively-aligned groups can immediately benefit from participating in joint actions. Your cause is an ideal fit if...

• Your list can generate 1,000+ petition signatures in a day. Some groups do 20–30k, but yours doesn't have to
• You're motivated to unlock a reliable new growth source and will participate in at least one joint action a month

Every host or participant gets a joint action specialist assigned to their account at no cost. Our team has been part of the joint action world for a decade and we want to share what's working with you.