We asked AWIP CEO Jacob Lloyd what Joint Actions have meant for the organization, how they’re using them, and what he’d tell other groups considering the program.

How’s it been working out?

Jacob: Better than we ever expected.

The biggest surprise has been the quality of the supporters coming through Joint Actions.

The average gift from Joint Action supporters has been $28.05, compared with $15.00 from our normal baseline, which is made up largely of Meta-acquired subscribers.

That’s an 87% increase, which is pretty remarkable.

In the last 30 days alone, we raised about $35,000 from Civic Shout supporters, and 1,345 of them—roughly 10%—have become monthly recurring donors. That gives us confidence that their lifetime value will be significantly higher as well.

And because we have thousands of opportunities every day to reach people directly on Civic Shout, we can continue engaging and fundraising from supporters even after they’ve become inactive on our email list.

Which means we’re no longer relying entirely on email or paid media to raise money and drive advocacy.

Even people who had unsubscribed from our email list are coming back through Civic Shout, taking action, and becoming donors.

In fact, roughly 15% of those returning unsubscribes have signed up to give monthly!

And the engagement is stronger too. Our normal email click rate is 10.6%, compared with 14.4% for Civic Shout supporters—36% higher.

What are you doing to get these results?

Jacob: We create 3–4 AWIP-branded petitions a week on Civic Shout and send them to our email list.

They’re focused on issues our supporters already care about, and we’ll often resend them to people who didn’t click the first time to get the most from our efforts.

For every signature we generate, we bank $2.25 in Civic Shout cost-per-click ad credits—which is good for 3 clicks to our own petitions or letter campaigns.

The earning ratio is great so the credits pile up quickly.

And, the whole process is very simple. We can usually get a new petition up in about 10 minutes, and our list loves having the actions to take.

The alternative is paying upwards of $200,000 a month in Meta ads to get the results we get with Joint Actions for free.

What would it take to build and sustain a list like yours without Joint Actions?

Jacob: It would take a huge amount of ongoing paid acquisition.

We do high-volume email fundraising, so people are constantly moving in and out of our active audience. It’s not enough to build a large list once—you have to continually replenish it with new and reactivated people who actually take action and give.

Joint Actions give us a way to do that continuously without having to buy all of that traffic ourselves.

That’s why it’s become so valuable to us. It’s not just helping us grow the list. It’s helping us sustain the active audience our U.S. operation depends on.

Instead of spending upwards of $200,000 a month on acquisition, we just create and share a few petitions a week with our list.

It’s a remarkable opportunity that I can’t believe more groups aren’t taking advantage of.

Were you worried that Joint Actions might hurt your list?

Jacob: We know that with Joint Actions, some of our petition signers will choose to join other groups’ email lists after they sign ours. I understand the trade-off.

But so far, that hasn’t been an issue. In fact, our list is stronger than ever on all fronts.

Our total U.S. list is about 174,000, with an active segment of around 57,000. We do high-volume email fundraising, so maintaining a strong, active segment is incredibly important to us.

Joint Actions have completely offset churn and grown the segment by over 30% in only three months.

Engagement has remained consistently strong, with many of our sends achieving response rates above our normal averages.

You’ve earned more than $508K in advertising so far. Can Civic Shout actually fulfill that much?

Jacob: Yes. Civic Shout has more fulfillment capacity than we expected.

They drive around 8,000–10,000 clicks a day to our petitions, so we’ve been able to put the credits to work very quickly.

We use those credits to push people back to our own advocacy actions, which helps us make an impact and grow our audience. It’s become a zero-cost flywheel.

How important has Civic Shout become to AWIP?

Jacob: We’ve basically built our entire U.S. operation on Civic Shout. Joint Actions have become an integral part of our U.S. business model.

I would frame it as wildly successful.

What would you tell another organization considering Joint Actions?

Jacob: Our list is modest compared with what some of the larger groups out there have. If we can do this much with fewer than 180,000 all-time subscribers, I can’t imagine the results larger groups could get from this program!

It’s risk-free. It costs nothing.

Just try it.