Americans for Consumer
Education and Competition
Making the Public Care About Complicated Issues
Interchange fees...what the heck are those? Well, unless you're a banker, finance guru or MBA then chances are you have little-to-no idea that interchange fees are a complicated tangle of charges that make paying with plastic so easy for consumers...but very competitive banks, credit card companies and other finance institutions.
Grassroots Enterprise worked with Americans for Consumer Education and Competition (ACEC), an organization formed to advocate for American consumer rights, particularly battling unfair changes to interchange fees that would hurt consumers. ACEC also serves as a clearing-house for information on financial issues and monitors, tracks and provides analysis of financial legislation and litigation that has a direct impact on consumers.
Grassroots Enterprise worked with ACEC on two web sites, Today's Money Matters, and its related microsite, Stop Check Out Fees. The goal of these sites was to recruit issue supporters and prepare them for online advocacy mobilization in any state posing a legislative or regulatory threat to consumers.
For example, when Texas legislator Gary Elkins sponsored a bill to shore up profit margins for Texas retailers. ACEC found out about the proposal and instantly alerted its a roster of thousands of Texas-based supporters who were directed to the Stop Check Out Fees website. At the site, supporters were prompted to write and send email letters to the Texas state legislature, opposing the Elkins proposal. Representative Elkins withdrew his bill a week after the e-mails started to arrive.
The launch of the two sites led to the recruitment of more than 110,000 individuals, of which 12,000 were based in Texas. Supporters received regular communications including; monthly e-bulletins and action alerts. Response rates averaged 29 percent. Nearly 3,000 issue target letters were generated plus an additional 10,429 petition signatures and letters to Congress.
Featured Project
2007
TFK Facebook Application
Grassroots Enterprise designed and developed "I Am Smoke Free" - a grassroots advocacy Facebook application for our client, the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids. This application was the first to empower Facebook users to send customized and targeted political grassroots letters to elected officials directly from the Facebook platform.
