SWAY

An activist focused tool to maximize the effect of election campaigns in specific districts using personal networks.

Prototyping

Role
Product Designer (UX/UI)

Company
Majority Labs

Year
2020

The Problem


Elections are won and lost by tight margins in a few highly contested districts. National and state-level organizations will often have broad membership, but will be advocating for issues that benefit from regional tactics. In many cases, the real strategic areas for mobilization are suburban, but many advocacy groups have strong membership in “safe” urban areas. These organizations spend a lot of energy and resources inefficiently, mobilizing their membership in areas that are generally already on board.

The Hypothesis


Sway maximizes a campaign’s impact by prompting volunteers to mobilize their network in strategic areas by pulling from their phone’s contact list and guiding them through an easy, automated process.

The Solution


A volunteer downloads SWAY based on an invitation to join an organizations channel, like in Slack or Discord. One person can be a member of as many SWAY channels as they like. The content in an organization’s channel is very straightforward; exclusive updates meant for a small audience of volunteers and highlighted campaigns that require their participation.

Campaigns are designed to be super targeted based on geography. Once a volunteer has accepted a campaign, they will be asked to “Add Contacts” — SWAY will ask for permission to search their contact list for individuals that match the targeted area. These contacts can be saved and updated in the SWAY app, but will not be handed over to the organization itself unless the individual provides explicit consent. Each volunteer still “owns” their contacts, protecting the organization from overreach when it comes to spam laws.

After the target contacts have been uploaded, the app will guide users through a streamlined text-banking funnel, where each contact is sent a message that has been pre-written by the organization (this can be customized based on the individual). This message can be send via text, or Instagram / Twitter DM.

The result is a unique tool that allows organizations to reach deep into the network of their individual volunteers for geographically targeted campaigns.

Core Features

  • An easy-to-use app

  • Invitation-only organizer hubs

  • Campaigns with measurable goals and targets

  • Contact matching based on area code / address

  • Straight-forward mass texting campaigns