Non-Profits

Crossroads Campaigns helps nonprofit organizations advance their agendas by assisting with strategic planning, capacity building, and execution for both short-term and long-term projects. With a combination of long-term perspective and immediate solutions Crossroads Campaigns is set to support nonprofit groups of any size and scale of work.

Our services can be broken down into several key areas:

Campaigns

Crossroads can help organizations develop plans and gather the resources necessary to contact legislators and mobilize communities to take action on education, direct service, and advocacy campaigns. We have put together innovative strategies utilizing a variety of available tools for distributing campaign messages through traditional and non-traditional communications.

We can help your organization set-up legislative meetings, create briefing material, and engage constituents through letter writing, phone call and email campaigns. Crossroads can also create person-to-person contact programs including but not limited to large scale canvasses, forums and events, voter registration and Get-Out-the-Vote (GOTV) efforts.

Crossroads has helped many electoral campaigns and issue organizations across the country build winning campaigns. We work with our clients to take their agenda and issues and build specialized campaigns that effectively educate and engage people towards results. And most importantly, we will put in place processes that will ensure the sustainability of your grassroots operation long after Crossroads is no longer involved.

Communications

Traditional

An important part of any effective strategy is communication. The Crossroads team works with your organization to ensure that there is outreach to media outlets including print, television, radio and the internet. With guidance, talking points, press release and advisory templates, and tips for pitching to the media, organizations receive publicity and get the tools and skills for future communications work. In addition, Crossroads can ensure spokespeople are prepared to interact with the media. We will put together a specialized training program, either remote or on-site, that takes into account participant skills and organizational needs.

Online

We have built successful websites and online strategies for our clients. Ranging from national non-profits to prominent US Senate campaigns and local elections, our team will make sure your online tools match your online needs. Crossroads can help develop an online presence that integrates existing technology and vendors into a comprehensive package to help you engage your online community. We have experience with diverse content and contact management systems including NGP Campaign Office, Wired for Change / Democracy in Action, Joomla!, and ExpressionEngine. We can help develop strategies for outreach through blogs, Wikipedia, and other online outlets.

Crossroads staff members are campaign veterans who have been responsible for online messaging in a variety of settings. We’ve written fundraising appeals, calls to action, general campaign updates, and everything else imaginable. We’ve been charged with creating email schedules, testing response rates, and finding creative ways to acquire new supporters and utilize existing ones. When it comes to online messaging, Crossroads staff has the experience and creativity to deliver results.

Data & Technology

Modern campaigns need the ability to generate and organize reliable data to meet their goals more efficiently. Knowing what to make of all that information and how to put it to work becomes increasingly challenging. Crossroads assists organizations to identify their data management and manipulation needs and then find the appropriate data management systems for them. We also assist organizations in the collection of data and provide data entry services on a variety of projects. We work with organizations to enhance existing lists which includes cleaning lists and deploying new strategies for increasing list size, these strategies include purchasing and swapping lists with other like minded organizations. Crossroads also trains your staff to use data management tools, such as the voter file, and create a strategy around instutionalizing data collection and management.

Capacity Building

Crossroads helps campaigns and nonprofits become more effective in establishing and accomplishing their internal and public goals. We work hard to develop a strategy that aligns organizational capability with short and long-term goals. Not content to apply a one-size-fits-all action-plan, we spend the necessary time to review and understand your organization’s strengths and identify potential areas of improvement. The Crossroads team will assess current staffing, management, and capacity of your organization by participating in internal meetings, conference calls, and other activities as needed. Crossroads will then make recommendations and work with organizational staff and leadership to write plans and budgets that drive goal oriented work.

Fundraising & Development

Fundraising is no easy task in the current environment, but Crossroads can help with your fundraising and development work of small to large individual donors, and foundations. Our staff can help your organization create a successful fundraising and development plan to sustain existing donors, engage new ones, and help your organization raise its resources to achieve its programmatic goals. We work with current donors, staff, board of directors, and leaders to increase your donor prospect lists. We will then help craft a process to research and pursue these donors, while preparing, coaching, and debriefing your team to meet with donors. Crossroads assists in keeping fundraising and development work organized by managing donor contacts logs, tracking and reminding you of donor or reporting deadlines and due dates. We’ll help you think creatively about fundraising and development to identify unique opportunities that lead to untapped donor dollars and sustainable programming.

Outreach

Crossroads will work with your organization to assist in identifying and prioritizing key leaders, other organizations, donors, and elected officials to engage in reaching your mission. We will develop an outreach plan to increase the profile and presence of your organization. When appropriate Crossroads will initiate face-to-face meetings between your organization and targeted individuals. Crossroads has a grasstops network that brings with it numerous organizations and individuals that may otherwise go untapped. By working with these grasstops individuals, Crossroads can extend your network and influence beyond the staffing and resource capacity already in place.

Training & Facilitation

Training

Nonprofits often have volunteers and staff who mean well and want to make a difference but do not have the experience or knowledge necessary to efficiently and effectively carry out assigned duties. Crossroads has organized and presented at dozens of leadership trainings for smaller groups and larger events organized by party organizations, training institutes, and issue advocacy coalitions to ensure volunteers and staff have the skills and knowledge necessary to suceed. We can tailor a program to your specific needs that will help staff work through and prevent challenges, manage other staff, work collaboratively with allies, and otherwise successfully lead their department, organization, or campaign.

Group Facilitation

Often times everyone knows a meeting is needed but aren’t sure what the goal should be. Sometimes a third party is needed to keep meetings on the right track in order to meet goals. Crossroads will work with your organization as the neutral party – looking at the big picture, making sure everyone has a chance to contribute, and working to bring consensus and reach a decision. We’ve worked with a variety of organizations to address a diverse set of issues to reach their goals.

Technical Assistance & Implementation

Nonprofits sometimes need additional support or help on short-term projects like voter registration drives, GOTV activities, convenings and fundraising but increasing their staff size is not ideal. Crossroads can meet your human resource needs by providing temporary part-time or full-time staff hours to implement a project or provide oversight and management of existing work. We can provide technical assistance to your staff and extended network by offering one-to-one assistance, coaching and leadership development, and programmatic support. Crossroads ensures that your organization is prepared to take on any project by working together side by side from beginning to end.