Impact evaluation for digital campaigning

Digital campaigning organizations represent a new, potentially transformative, arena of political advocacy. Australia-based SumOfUs is a largely, but not exclusively, digital advocacy movement of consumers, workers, and shareholders working globally to counterbalance the growing power of large corporations. The purpose of the SumOfUs Capstone project was to identify the state of the field in monitoring and evaluating the impact of digital advocacy campaigning, including agenda-setting, policy change, fundraising, and building the capacity of affected communities to speak for themselves. The project entailed interviews with over 25 digital campaigning organizations, political parties, grassroots organizations, and political representatives, all of which led to an understanding of stakeholder perceptions and an identification of leading practices in this field. Key questions and criteria that SumOfUS can use to determine impact at multiple levels were identified, and recommendations were made for how SumOfUs can monitor, evaluate, and learn from its advocacy efforts.