Your Nonprofit Should Steal These Movement Building Ideas From the Zohran Mamdani Campaign

When Zohran Mamdani announced his run for New York City mayor last fall, he was polling at just 1%. On Nov. 4, the 34-year-old Democratic Socialist won the general election handily, powered by a clear aspirational vision and an online-to-offline organizing model that should have every movement builder taking notes.

The Mamdani campaign wasn’t just about clever TikToks (though they’ll undoubtedly be remembered). It was about using digital organizing as a bridge to old-school grassroots mobilization at scale.

If you're leading a movement-building organization, here are four lessons to borrow from the winning Mamdani campaign:

➡️ Get your people off social media and onto a list you own. The Mamdani campaign’s 50,000 volunteers didn't materialize out of nowhere. They were recruited, trained, and mobilized through a deliberate strategy that used digital platforms to funnel people into real-world activism. That starts with getting people off social media and into a supporter ecosystem you have more control over (i.e., your email list).

Mamdani's campaign used the Manychat chatbot to turn Instagram engagement into an owned list of emails. Here's how it worked: when users commented on posts with a specific trigger word or tagged Mamdani's account in their Instagram Stories, they would automatically receive a direct message with a link or a request to opt into the campaign's email list.

In just two months, this chatbot sent more than 77,000 messages and drove more than 20,000 clicks from Instagram DMs. The flow that collected email addresses gathered more than 3,000 emails in a few weeks an astonishing cost of just $318 total—about 3 cents per acquisition.

➡️ Ask for what you actually need. Two months before the mayoral election, the Mamdani campaign raised enough money to hit the election’s $8 million fundraising cap. Then, the candidate released a video expressing his thanks, but more importantly, clearly articulating what was actually needed to win the election: volunteers’ time.

For a long time, fundraising has been the default call to action for political campaigns, but we’ve seen time and again that money alone doesn’t win elections. What do you actually need? If you had the money, would you spend it on something your supporters could provide more directly if you just asked?

➡️ Turn passive followers into active participants. Mamdani’s events were fun, FOMO-inspiring, and often, a little nerdy. For example, an August scavenger hunt that was announced the night before on social media took 4,000 participants around the city, learning about moments in mayoral history. It was just quick and interesting enough that people showed up on their own and made friends along the route.

While the era of COVID-19 has made social isolation and flaking out of social plans in favor of alone time more common, these moments of genuine human connection generate positive feelings and are community organizing at its finest.

➡️ Hope is fun, actually. There’s already been a lot written about how Tuesday was a rebuke of Trumpism, and it was. But it’s unlikely you’ll find any New Yorker who hasn’t heard Mamdani’s hopeful, affirmative vision of fast and free buses, free child care, and freezing the rent for rent-stabilized tenants. Being against Trump and fascism is one part of the equation, but inviting people to join you in your movement’s vision of an aspirational future is the rest of it.

Joy was an overwhelming theme of the Mamdani campaign. It’s fun to care about your neighbors and love your community. It’s fun to be audacious in your goals. It’s fun to shrug off the haters. It’s fun to be in community with people who get excited about the same things you do.

Tuesday was a reminder that you don’t need billionaire funders to build a movement. You do need a compelling vision of a flourishing future, authenticity in your messaging, and the systems and processes in place to convert online enthusiasm into offline power.

Looking for ways to connect with your audience and build power? We can help. Schedule a free, no-risk strategy call with us to get started.

Photo by Matteo Catanese on Unsplash