2-hour session. Find your time zone here. Instruction in English. Interpretation provided as funding allows in response to registrations.
This training incorporates updates that have been made in A.I. since SMT’s June 2023 A.I. for Organizing training.
Credit: SMT, created in a few seconds using an app for A.I. image creation
How to use A.I. for the messaging, framing and segmentation we need to build people power and win electoral, issue and union campaigns. You’ll learn how to use prompt engineering to generate messages with the right tone, refine your framing techniques and more accurately target your audience. We’ll cover how specific A.I. tools can help us improve internal workflows and processes as campaigners, and how to use image generation tools and create effective prompts.
Although A.I. tools are already proving useful in campaigning, we can’t ignore the significant ethical questions that come with using them, or the alarming ways A.I is already being used to manipulate public opinion on a mass scale. From biases built into the training data used by these models to questions of artistic and content ownership and transparency, to unprecedented opportunities for mass manipulation, there are tremendous concerns associated with A.I. This session will predominantly focus on the practical use of these tools. We will briefly discuss the organizing underway to address these issues and to hold A.I. companies accountable for how this technology develops.
What we’ll cover
Using A.I. for messaging, framing and segmentation; and for organizing and workflows
Winning hearts and minds through effective messaging and storytelling is a key part of campaigning. How can new large language models like Chat GPT, which predict text based on millions of sources, help us to craft such messages? How can they help us connect with different segments? What are the limits of this approach? Explore how A.I. tools can help you create more effective messaging and audience segmentation. In this interactive session, you’ll learn how to use prompt engineering to generate messages with the right tone, refine your framing techniques and more accurately target your audience.
Using A.I. for organising and workflows
New tools like Chat GPT are great at producing content but how can they help our other workflows? From generating suggestions for event formats to helping us to better manage our inboxes – how can new A.I. tools help improve our workflows as campaigners? How can they help us in thinking through our strategies and tactics? What are the limitations of this new technology? We’ll explore how people are using A.I. tools to improve processes and how this could apply to the field and practice of campaigning. You’ll learn about the variety of tools that are available to campaigners and how they can be used.
Using A.I. for design and content creation
Image generation is a key area where a number of new A.I. tools and technologies have sprung up. How can campaigners best make use of these tools? How can you craft prompts that generate the images you need? What are the limits or risks of using this technology? We’ll cover how different A.I. tools can be used to design campaign content.
Instructor: Hannah O’Rourke, SMT Staff Partner
Hannah O’Rourke is a UK-based SMT team member. She is a co-founder of Campaign Lab, a community of politically-minded progressive data scientists, researchers and activists who are working together to build new election tools and change the way we analyse and understand campaigning. She was formerly the director of Labour Together. She has worked in political organising and campaigns for over 10 years with a foundation in political organising and coalition management. Her work has brought together data scientists, researchers, academics, policy analysts, and political campaigners together to tackle some of the most pressing strategic questions facing the Labour Party in the UK.
When
December 5, 11 a.m. ET. 2 hours. Find your time zone here. Training will be recorded for those in time zones that don’t facilitate live participation.
Language Access
Instruction will be in English. Interpretation will be provided with 10+ registrants needing that language or with funder support for it.
Feedback from the June 2023 A.I. session
- “Provided some pretty amazing and groundbreaking tools to support progressives, which are often undertooled.”
- “The demonstrations were super helpful. For example, the ChatGTP was awesome to see and how it worked. I found that working through the programs the most useful and helpful.”
- “Very helpful. It seems less daunting now to put these tools to work in our progressive advocacy campaigns.”
- “A great training that both brought me up to speed on AI, … and challenged me to better understand the AI landscape and its potential!”
- “This was incredibly helpful and I look forward to experimenting with some of the tools that were showcased.”
- “I absolutely loved it and it gave me the spark I needed to come out of my burnout to come up with some new toolkits and campaigns as well as work smarter not harder!”
Cost
Outreach Partner Referral Discount. Groups referred by outreach partners can make use of the Outreach Partner Referral Rate. Please name the outreach partner in your registration and forward the mass email you received to [email protected]. Outreach partners pass along opportunities for training and coaching to their network. Interested in being an outreach partner? Contact [email protected] and describe the size and type of groups you’d reach out to. Typically, this is a list of chapters of a network; allied organizations across a country, state, region; or some other cohort or grouping of many organizations.
In order to support a movement organization learning space, SMT trainings are for staff of non-profits – NGOs, unions and electoral campaigns. Trainings are not for consultants or agencies. Consultants & agency staff who register will have their registrations refunded. Alternatively, on demand trainings are available to all on SMT’s course platform.
Enroll before November 15 to take advantage of Early Bird and Outreach Partner referral rates.
| COST | Regular | Early Bird (before November 15) |
Outreach Partner Referral (before November 15) |
| All groups with budgets of $1M+ | $170 | $160 | $150 |
| North America, Western Europe budgets below $1M | $150 | $130 | $100 |
| Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, MENA, Latin America, Oceania, budgets below $1M | $95 | $75 | $60 |
This training is free to staff of the 60+ groups under active coaching contracts with SMT. Just email your SMT coach.
Testimonials
SMT has been a great partner to co-design and launch a set of offerings that meet the growing digital and remote needs of the organizations we support, including bilingual access for our Spanish-speaking partners. The team is relatable, attentive and knowledgeable and their use of case studies helps to make complex information accessible!SMT coaching enabled us to expand our presence within human rights spaces in Kenya beyond an LGBTIQ audience. It helped us use Twitter to connect with allies in the environmental justice and land rights movements. It was amazing to have someone to work with who knows our work and give us templates just when we needed them.We have had a fantastic experience with SMT…they have been highly responsive to the needs of our grantees.I really liked the A.I. custom training session, especially the parts tailored to our workstream and with examples pulled from our staff. It really helped to situate the tools in our work and open our team's minds to the possibilities.
SMT has worked with us to develop and implement a broad and integrated social media strategy. They helped our leadership understand the importance of such a strategy and taught our activists the basic skills to execute it. From website maintenance to targeted twitter campaigns, they are there when you need them and they understand that it is all about movement building.Our coach was an everyday reminder of what we needed to do. He checked in and followed up on us. It really helped us activate Twitter in our campaigns and tighten up digital security. We moved from just having a Twitter handle to building on a hashtag that saw a jailed human rights activist released from prison.
The program gave my team the tools and time to strategise how our grassroots migrant organising translates to a digital context. I picked up tools like source codes, which then enabled us to see that more people were registering from Instagram than through any other platform and caused us to adapt our strategy. We also became SMT an Outreach Partner to enable our network to benefit from trainings at lower prices
I implemented lessons on personal narrative, public narrative and emails directly into my campaign, so this was an instant gratification. I loved learning from the other Digital Campaigning Certificate Program participants who came from around the world, working on different topics.
Our staff took a lot of SMT courses – including the intensive Digital Campaigning Certificate Program. It helped us take our digital campaigning and collectivizing actions to the next level! We used various tools to increase our follower base and successfully target authorities to take action at the village and municipal levels in India.Without SMT we would not have been able to move our organizing from the field to the digital arena during COVID. They helped us set up systems, coached and trained our folks, helped us troubleshoot and launch digital outreach efforts all in crucial campaign moments. Can’t speak highly enough about what their help meant!I found a lot of value in this Certificate Program that I use in my everyday work: from using social media effectively; significantly growing accounts and activating people online, pressuring targets in campaigns, and running Twitterstorms. Even when using other tools, I still apply the principles I learned!SMT is the only training I know of that speaks our language of activism and uses the tools we use everyday in the field. They are a go-to resource to help raise the bar for communications in the labor movement.
SMT helped GAIA use LinkedIn to reach a key constituency we were having trouble reaching - thousands of people who play a specific role in the waste management industry. We got responses from key players.I strongly recommend SMT. Their strong organizing background, preparation and thoughtfulness made our strategy assessment with them enjoyable and really helpful.We’re starting our third straight year providing grantee partners with Social Movement Technologies training and coaching…our grantees are in good hands.
I took the workers organizing in the digital age training. We really need this kind of training in Finland, which people in the US have had access to for some years. The training was effective to start organizing for instance on Twitter.SMT helped us craft an effective public narrative for our campaign to get a mine closed. SMT helped us finalize a campaign strategy and come up with an effective plan to raise visibility and engage the public. Our campaign led to a pause in the mining. We will keep fighting!
Working with SMT was easy and collaborative. The training helped our Greenpeace Southeast Asia team get new insights into campaign best practices across the globe.
SMT's training helped me use my journalistic skills effectively to highlight people's struggles and create change. Using Twitter more effectively, we supported Syria's refugee camp hospital to get more media attention and raise funds to respond to the hospital's needs as well as build visibility on the issues affecting refugees.
The Design Apprenticeship course helped me become bolder in my design choices. I became confident enough to push for a more systemic approach to design in the team, developing templates and guiding other creative colleagues. This program was pivotal in my development as a designer!
Having access to experts through the certificate program was amazing. The course is so practical. I set up google ads for the first time and created our digital security policy and implementation plan. Our whole team uses the campaign strategy template now. Now we know how to improve our email deliverability and started a texting program. SMT’s training on using WhatsApp to activate our bases helped us activate more leaders by creating conversational WhatsApp groups for members and assigning different leadership roles to volunteers.The trainings are terrific–geared for every level of experience. And being rooted in social change movement, especially helpful to organizers.The SMT trainings I’ve taken have helped us mobilize and deepen engagement in our communities. Through Twitterstorms, phone banking, and other tactics that I learned through SMT’s trainings, we succeeded in our call to #ExtendtheReg for a million young people who would otherwise be disenfranchised by anti-poor COVID policies.SMT's coaching was incredibly supportive, encouraging and accessible. SMT had a huge impact on evolving La Semilla's storytelling program. Through SMT coaching, we diversified our digital communications. Having SMT as a source of resources and as a thought partner has been incredibly impactful to our work. SMT helped us create a social media presence to expand our cannabis worker organizing campaign. Our organizers have enhanced their social media capabilities. We have succeeded beyond our expectations. Working with SMT has been a great experience. They really understand organizing and communications.We’ve heard really good things from our grantee partners. SMT has a strong, grantee-focused way of working.
