Starting a political movement has never been more accessible — the tools to build one are sitting at your fingertips. In this video, political consultant Jay Townsend walks through the building blocks of a real movement: the cause that drives it, the groundswell that spreads it, the influencers who amplify it, the investors who fund it, and the political campaigns that can give it lasting life.
In this video, we’re going to talk about how to start a political movement. It’s easier now than it has ever been — there are more tools at your fingertips than there’s ever been in the history of humankind. Here’s what we’re going to cover: the cause that drives the movement you want to build, how to create a groundswell, how to find influencers willing to help amplify your cause, how to find investors willing to help pay the bills it takes to move that movement forward, and how you use political campaigns to give life to your movement.
First question: what’s your cause? Who are you trying to help? You can’t just say, “I want to go build a movement.” You need a product, and your product is the cause. That cause has to resonate with certain people, so when you’re thinking about your cause, consider who it helps right now, who it matters to, and who else should care once they learn more about it.
Here’s an example of a cause that has begun but hasn’t quite reached movement status in the United States: a universal, federally mandated amount of leave for new mothers. Some states have it, some don’t; some versions are longer, some shorter. A lot of people are saying we need to make it easier — and less expensive — for people to have children they might otherwise put off because of the cost. That’s become a cause in certain circles, and my guess is it will someday become a movement enacted into law. Most European countries already do this.
The people who started pushing this cause identified who would care about it most — young mothers — and then asked who else ought to care, enlisting others who agreed it was a worthy cause that should eventually become the law of the land. In a democracy, the more people who say “yes, this matters to me,” the greater the likelihood it someday becomes law. That’s one way to build a movement.
The second thing is how you build a groundswell around your cause. You have to let people know it’s there, communicate it with eloquent language, and make it explicitly clear who is in pain because this cause hasn’t been realized, or who would benefit if it became the law of the land. To put it out there, you have wonderful tools at your fingertips: YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Twitter (or X, or whatever it’s called these days).
Each of these platforms has a different culture and attracts a different demographic. YouTube is for people who want to learn how to do things, but a lot of YouTube viewers also pay close attention to videos about causes or issues that interest them, including newscasts — one clever technique is advertising your cause on the 8-to-10-minute news clips that MSNBC, Fox, and CNN post at the end of each day. Facebook is a universal way to advance a cause, and if you’re smart about it, you can target ads to reach a specific slice of your demographic.
TikTok is video-first and skews younger, but a startling fact: voters under 35 now say TikTok is their greatest source of news, which makes it one of the best ways to reach a younger audience. Instagram is another platform you can use to advertise to specific audiences. LinkedIn used to be just for posting resumes and finding jobs, but over the last few years it’s expanded well beyond that — people on LinkedIn tend to be a different socioeconomic class than you find on Facebook, many with degrees and important positions around the world. Every day I see political news and people promoting causes on LinkedIn, because they’re looking for the influencers already there to help amplify their message.
Which brings me to Twitter. Sure, there are people who post nothing but incendiary noise, but there are also plenty of people there because it’s a source of breaking news — journalists tend to populate Twitter looking for stories and ideas, and if you’re a real Twitter user, you’ll find articles posted there before they even appear in the newspaper. It’s also a great place to find opinion leaders with a following of 10,000, 50,000, or 100,000 people — if one of them retweets your post about your cause, you suddenly have a vastly expanded audience.
Every cause that becomes a movement eventually needs investors. As your movement grows and you enlist more volunteers and more people to help promote it — whether organically or through paid advertising — you’re going to need people with money they won’t miss to support the cause. Part of your campaign should be devoted to increasing awareness, but a second branch should use social media to actually ask people for money.
There’s a truth in this world: if you don’t ask for money to support a cause, a movement, or even a political campaign, there will be no money. Don’t be afraid to ask — but ask the right way. And I’ll tell you this: if your cause is good, the money will find you.
Now I want to touch on what may be the most important part of this video — the marriage of starting a movement and running a political campaign. I’ll illustrate this with a story. One of my dear friends in this life is a young mother named Lisa. She called me a couple of years ago wanting help with a political campaign in Alabama. Her chances were slim, and we knew from the demographics that this was a gerrymandered district where someone of her party affiliation had almost no hope of winning. I was candid with her and asked what she wanted out of this if, at the end of the day, she came up short in votes.
She had a great answer. She said, “We have this grocery tax in Alabama — in some places it’s 11% on top of the grocery bill people pay. I think that’s obscene, and I’m going to talk about that in this campaign. I’ll talk about other things too, but that one really sticks in my craw.” She said if she came up short, what she wanted most was for people to know what the tax was doing to poor people in Alabama — that it just wasn’t fair.
We went to work. We built her a nice campaign video, she had a great website, she did everything she knew how to do, and she gave it her all — raising a surprising amount of money, some of it from people we didn’t expect to hear from once she started talking about the grocery tax. She came up short in the election. But on a phone call not long after, she told me, “I must have scared the hell out of the guy I ran against talking about that grocery tax — because the legislature just decided to cut the grocery tax in Alabama.” Her cause was advanced even though she came up short.
Q: How do I choose the right cause to build a movement around?
A: Start by identifying who your cause helps right now and who it matters to most — that’s your core audience. Then think about who else should care once they learn more about it, and use that broader group to build support. A movement needs a specific, resonant cause, not a vague goal of “building a movement.”
Q: Which social media platform is best for promoting a political cause?
A: It depends on your audience. YouTube works well for explaining and building on issues over time, including via clips from major news networks. Facebook allows targeted advertising to specific demographics. TikTok reaches younger voters, who increasingly cite it as their main news source. LinkedIn has grown into a hub for political discussion among professionals, and Twitter/X remains a key source for breaking news and influencer amplification.
Q: How do I find influencers to help amplify my cause?
A: Look for people with sizable followings on the platforms where your audience already spends time — particularly Twitter/X and LinkedIn, where journalists, opinion leaders, and professionals congregate. If an influencer with tens of thousands of followers shares your cause, your audience expands dramatically overnight.
Q: How do I find investors or donors to fund my movement?
A: You have to ask directly — if you don’t ask for money, none will come. As your movement grows and you invest in organic outreach and paid advertising, use social media not just to raise awareness but to make direct asks for financial support. A genuinely good cause tends to attract money once you start asking.
Q: Can a political campaign advance a cause even if the candidate loses?
A: Yes. A campaign can shine a spotlight on an issue regardless of the outcome. In one example, a candidate who lost her race still forced the issue of a grocery tax into the public conversation — and the state legislature cut the tax shortly after, showing how a campaign can move a cause forward even without a win.
Jay Townsend has spent more than 40 years advising candidates at every level of American politics. Browse the full library of free campaign resources at JayTownsend.com or subscribe to Jay’s YouTube channel for new videos every week.
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