The budget battle between the White House and Congress threatened one of the most important pieces of student aid legislation- the Pell Grant. We launched a campaign to encourage Congress to say “Pell Yes!” to funding higher education.
The sell is simple: If we don’t maintain Pell Grants, you’ll lose money for school. The call-to-action is old school voter activation: contact your legislator. Well, the first barrier to that is figuring out who your legislator is.
Our Pell Yes Facebook page app has a built-in legislator look up, allowing users to use email, phone, twitter or Facebook to make their voices heard. The build- your-own poster function enables supports to easily share their passion for saving Pell.
But, perhaps the coolest function is the interactive map. We overlaid district-by-district data Pell Grant data onto a Google map. Users can literally click to see how many grants and dollars go into every legislative district in the country. Or, in other words, find out “for whom the Pell doles.” Add a fact sheet and letter template download, and it’s a full on campaign all house in a Facebook tab.
In just about two weeks we’ve gotten 2500+ followers and other schools are getting on board and built a platform for citizen engagement that requires little maintenance post-launch. The campaign lives at www.facebook.com/pellyes
And here’s my second ever iMovie. Right on.
