It’s hard to persuade people who think differently than you do. So while progressive advocates are already pretty good at connecting with other progressives, the tools that they currently have aren’t very good at helping them persuade voters who think differently from them. Grow Progress closes this gap, unlocking support through the power of persuasion science. The company is spearheading a rigorous, evidence-based approach in tuning messages to resonate with targets on their own wavelengths.
Matt Martin and Josh Berezin founded Grow Progress in 2015, aiming to improve the effectiveness of progressive campaigns and organizations in their persuasion efforts. Matt, a political entrepreneur and former Obama campaign staffer, is familiar with thinking of persuasion as a social science — he’s worked with Stanford professor Robb Willer on the applications of moral psychology to social good issues. Josh is the former strategy director at Analyst Institute and has run hundreds of experiments for political campaigns. His background in computer science fuels his passion for helping campaigns apply experimentation and predictive modeling to their work.
People are understandably most effective communicators with people who think like them. However, our current tools are flagging in persuading voters who think differently, because we’re missing one important piece of the persuasion puzzle — personality. Traditional polling and targeting break down voters by demographics, but we know that people who look alike on the surface, based on factors like gender, income, and race, don’t necessarily think alike.
Grow Progress completes the puzzle, propelling campaigns forward with the power to speak to voters based on how they think, not how they look. Their mission is to make voter persuasion faster, easier, and more affordable for progressives. By giving progressives a competitive edge in translating messages to match their voters’ personality traits, Grow Progress seeks to help them change minds and win more elections.
Most recently, Grow Progress is excited to announce that their latest customer used the platform to create a persuasion message that was 329% as effective as their previous message. The team is excited to continue working with organizations hoping to reach similar breakthroughs. If you know of a cause looking to change people’s minds, reach out to info@highergroundlabsdev.ca to connect with the Grow Progress team.
Grow Progress is also currently hiring! Matt and Josh are looking for software engineers and project managers who want to channel the power of persuasion for social good. Get in touch by emailing them at join.us@growprogress.org.
