Nominee Information

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Save Pell

Campaign Website: http://www.savepell.org ; http://www.facebook.com/savepell ; http://savepell.tumblr.com
Campaign Twitter: @SavePell
Nominator First Name: K
Nominator Last Name: Hammond
Nominator’s Relationship To Campaign: friend
Change Campaign Hoped to Create: This campaign helped protect the federal Pell Grants program during the debt ceiling negotiations this summer. The US House of Representatives had threatened to slash the program dramatically, but when Congress finally reached a deal, not only did they not reject those cuts, they added $17 billion to the program. At the end of 2011, the campaign resumed to protect Pell during the Congressional supercommittee and 2012 federal spending deal talks. Save Pell’s activism once again forced Congress to abandon plans to gut the program, protecting the educational futures of nearly 10 million low- and middle-income college students who count on Pell to be able to afford school and earn their way into the middle class.
How campaign motivated nominator to participate: The campaign was centered around Save Pell Day, which was held July 25. The organizers did a good job in building up a lot of momentum and had support from celebrities like John Legend and Rosario Dawson. I could tell that this was going to be a big day, so I figured if there was any time to participate I would participate on Save Pell Day. You could really tell that the excitement was contagious and “Pell” achieved trending-topic status on Twitter that day. Also, the campaign included the “Faces of Pell” component to help people share their personal stories about how Pell helped them
Innovative approaches campaign took: The campaign used a variety of social media channels including a Tumblr blog (www.savepell.org) to get students active over the summer, when they were not in school and harder to mobilize. Save Pell also got help from Color of Change and Change.org to gather momentum. Other effective tactics included viral graphics about the importance of Pell, a coordinated letter to the editor campaign for college students and a press event featuring Sens. Ben Cardin and Barbara Mikulski.
How campaign was creative or different: The campaign united many diverse partners through social media. Participants included organizations like Rock the Vote, the Trevor Project and the National Council of La Raza, politicians like Reps. Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer and Gabrielle Giffords, as well as public figures like Legend and Dawson. The campaign capitalized on the broad appeal of funding Pell Grants and got help in unexpected places.