What We Learned This Summer (with a Little Help From our Friends)

As you know, Galvanize USA is working hard to scale up our popular, impactful, highly-successful programming so that we can reach even more ideologically-moderate women. Everything we do is built on our previous research and previous success. The last seven years taught us that content with a culture-first lens that centers relationships and storytelling that resonates offers the best defense against rising authoritarianism and divisiveness while promoting social cohesion.

Building on that strong foundation, we spent May through August of this year connecting with partners to explore a wide range of new opportunities to guide our media expansion. We enjoyed more than 30 really insightful conversations with  advisors, service providers, and an array of incredible partner organizations with the goal of learning more about what those partners are doing to support pro-democracy messages in the new media ecosystem so we can move forward strategically, effectively, and in community. We know what Galvanize USA is uniquely positioned to do, but we needed to learn more about how that fits into the wider world of prosocial content!

Here are some of the questions we asked:

• What kind of programming resonates with your audiences?
• What are you seeing catch fire, and what is less effective?
• How are you defining and measuring impact?
• What gaps do you see in the market for new content?
• How can partnerships expand your reach? 

Together, we explored what it would mean to expand SMS programs, new websites, collaborations with content creators, partnerships with peer organizations, more content produced both in and out of house, and even some television and film ideas. Let’s take a look at the top lessons we learned this summer!

WHAT WE LEARNED

START FROM STRENGTH
We’re in a strong position to build on what already works.

• We should expand proven programming like Dear Grace® and bring Grace to new formats.
• We should build on our robust infrastructure, like our SMS program and existing website.
• We should explore responsibly using AI to do even more of the above efficiently and cost effectively.

LEAD WITH OUR AUDIENCE
We always begin with what women want, then layer in what they need.

• We should move away from discrete campaigns and toward becoming an always-on, persistent cultural presence. 
• We should design content around identity, emotion, and values, not just “issues.” For example, we can weave in our subtle, interesting messages that challenge prevailing economic narratives through content on relationships or parenting! Catch this example from our Dear Grace® advice column
• We should prioritize engaging women who most closely align with our mission. We’ll be connecting with all of the audience segments we identified earlier this year, but we’ll really focus on the folks in the middle who haven’t made up their minds about big issues yet.
• We should also focus on engagement and entertainment. We can craft perfect, research-backed TikToks all day long, but they don’t help our democracy if nobody wants to watch them! We have to lead with the fun stuff, and then weave in the civic education and prosocial nudges if we want women to come back to us day after day.

SCALE WITH OTHER CREATORS
We can’t do this alone!

• We should build a network of authentic and values-aligned messengers who can help spread positive messages.
• We should prioritize trust, consistency, and cross-platform amplification. We want to see research-informed, prosocial messages coming from trusted creators in every corner of the internet!
• We should consider pairing authentic creators with AI-driven testing so we can evaluate quickly and only scale what works.
• We should collaborate with mission-aligned partners for reach, credibility, and innovation.
• We should use licensing, co-creation, and data sharing to amplify collective impact. There’s no need to duplicate our partners’ efforts when we can share instead!

OWN OUR NICHE
We know where Galvanize USA really shines.

• We should continue to focus on the space in between culture and civics. 
• We should focus on the practical and emotionally-resonant content that builds familiarity and loyalty.
• We should align our content with what resonates most with our audience, which we know means a lot of beauty, wellness, and parenting content. Prosocial “get ready with me,” anyone?

We’ll also strategically try, and then evaluate, new ideas rapidly as opportunities arise. Curious about what that evaluation will look like?

• We’ll move beyond simply testing individual pieces of content and take a more holistic approach. This means focusing on big-picture narrative shifts, emotional responses to our programming, and overall cultural resonance. We don’t just want our content to “work,” we want our prosocial ideas to spread!
• We’ll focus on narrative adoption. We want to see everyone applying our research-informed narratives when they talk about big issues online!
• We know small actions can build up to big impact, so we’ll watch to see if our audience stays with us and if their world view and civic confidence changes over time. 
• We’ll consider AI-enabled monitoring to strengthen real-time feedback loops. If something isn’t working, we want to course-correct fast. If something is working, we want to double down on it faster!
• We’ll share more about what evaluation and measurement will look like later–get excited for details from our outstanding Research Team!

There are challenges ahead! We’re going to need all hands on deck (and lots more advice from our wonderful partners!) to tackle some of the challenges we identified through partner conversations this summer:

ALGORITHMS: Rented channels (like Facebook and TikTok) are algorithm-dependent and can result in suppression of keywords or topics.

RESOURCES: Social media expansion is resource-intensive and demands strong editorial oversight. It is also hard to measure impact of cultural programming, especially if content does not contain a direct call to action. 

CONTENT: Narrative content requires established creators (the algorithm loves faces over graphics! ), which highlights the need for collaborative relationships with creators who already have a sizable audience.

Fortunately, we’re in good company! Galvanize USA is continuing to explore these challenges alongside media experts and mission-aligned partners: we’ll all figure it out together! We’ll be continuing to evolve our strategies for evaluation and impact in the months to come.

We’ll also be piloting some new brands as complements to the programming currently in Galvanize Together. Those will reach wider audiences and really get our content out into the world where it can disrupt the negative narratives we see online. Get ready to explore so many more types of content from so many more voices on social media!

Galvanize USA’s niche is right at the intersection of what our audience wants, what our audience needs, and what Galvanize USA is uniquely good at doing. With over seven years of experience engaging ideologically-moderate women, a wealth of research, and unique insights from our investment in getting to know our incredible community so well, we’ve really found our sweet spot in the media ecosystem at large. Shout out to our partners for helping us learn so much this summer!

Questions? Ideas? DM us on instagram at @galvanize_usa! It makes our day when you drop us a line on social media.