Tracking engagement supports learning, strengthens coordination, and helps demonstrate progress over time. It also ensures that activities connect to strategy — rather than becoming isolated events. Metrics should be simple, consistent, and aligned with your chosen pathway.
Why Tracking Matters
In short, tracking connects day-to-day activity to long-term impact. Tracking supports:
- Strategic Learning. It helps you understand which tactics are gaining traction and which may need adjustment.
- Coalition Coordination. Shared tracking prevents duplication and ensures partners are building on one another’s efforts.
- Funders and Accountability. Clear documentation demonstrates thoughtful engagement, progress over time, and responsible use of resources.
- Year-over-year Improvement. Capturing lessons learned makes future election cycles more efficient and strategic.
- Institutional Memory. Campaign cycles move quickly. Tracking ensures knowledge does not leave when staff or partners transition.
What to Track
- Engagement activity: Measures the level of outreach and visibility.
- Number of candidate meetings or briefings
- Forums attended
- Questions asked publicly
- Roundtables convened
- Candidate responses: Indicates issue traction and awareness.
- Public references to PN-3 priorities
- PN-3 issue references included on the campaign website
- Follow-up requests from campaigns
- Public visibility: Tracks narrative reach and visibility.
- LTEs and op-eds published
- Earned media mentions
- Social media engagement metrics
- Coalition amplification efforts
- Supporter mobilization: Measures organizational engagement and people power.
- Partners engaged in specific tactics
- Turnout numbers at events
- Story submissions or supporter actions
How to Use Tracking Strategically
Tracking should inform decisions, not simply document activity. Over time, metrics can help organizations:
- Identify which tactics gain traction
- Adjust timing or approach
- Strengthen future engagement
- Demonstrate progress to funders
- Build institutional knowledge for future cycles
Consistency matters more than complexity when tracking. A simple shared tracker (e.g., a Google Sheet or Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet) can capture basic information about an action you’re tracking:
- Date
- Activity
- Who participated
- What was said
- Follow-up needed
- Outcome
Regularly reviewing this information as a coalition helps maintain alignment and momentum.
Consider the Scale
Not every state will pursue every tactic. Success should be defined relative to capacity and context. For some organizations, success may mean one substantive meeting with a campaign. For others, it may mean coordinated statewide visibility. The goal is disciplined, sustainable engagement — not sheer volume.
