Measurement vs. Impact

And Nike's $25 billion blunder

Some of the most effective tactics are hardest to measure.

Imagine you’re a donor with two options to spend $1,000. Which do you choose?

1. Stranger-to-stranger contact (e.g. text banking or canvassing): You expect to generate one vote. The program includes a randomized controlled trial and you know exactly who gets contacted, so afterwards you’ll know how many votes the program produced.

2. Friend-to-friend contact (e.g. volunteer or paid relational): You expect to generate three votes. You can watch people text their friends, but you don’t know who they’re texting or whether they voted. While identical programs have been studied, you’ll never know exactly how many votes you produced.

Too often, the movement chooses Option #1. Even after years of successful relational organizing at scale, the movement’s software, muscle memory, and funding streams emphasize stranger-to-stranger contact. Donor advisor incentives may play some role as well; an advisor recommending #1 above can show clients exact results, whereas that’s less possible with #2.¹

This “streetlight effect” isn’t unique to politics. Nike lost about $25 billion of market value over the past year, and according to an insider of two decades, a major reason was prioritizing what can be measured. Nike ended partnerships with iconic athletes, whose ROI is impossible to measure, and replaced them with digital ads and performance marketing that could be tracked.

Relational organizing still needs funding

Leading relational practitioners have shared with me that funding seems more readily available for traditional tactics, but they have had trouble fully funding their programs. Many traditional tactics can no longer usefully accept funding, but relational organizing still can.

If you’re still deploying political funding, look hard at relational programs.

1. I’m not even touching here the many important things that can’t be measured with cost-per-vote.