Development Seed Blog

One of the biggest battles in this year’s midterm elections isn’t between Democrats and Republicans – it’s over women’s reproductive rights. Next week South Dakotans will vote on whether to keep the state’s blanket ban on abortions. There’s no question that this vote will play a major role in many other states’ policies on abortion. So you want to know the results, right? It just got easier for you to get them without being chained to your television or computer next Tuesday.

Today Planned Parenthood launched an SMS campaign to keep you plugged into what’s happening in South Dakota. Just sign up to receive an alert of the outcome of next week’s vote as it’s counted. What’s I like about this campaign is that it’s easy. You can either text a message to the SMS short code that’s set up for the campaign, or you can enter your information through their website, just like you would to sign up for an email newsletter. This is great for people who aren’t that familiar with sending text messages. I entered in my cell phone number through their site and received a confirmation text in seconds.

But how do you get the website to talk to the platform that’s sending out the text messages? Jeff (one of our Drupal hackers) built a module that allows Planned Parenthood’s Drupal site to talk with the SMS aggregator they’re using, Mobile Accord. When a person enters in their cell phone number and carrier, this information is automatically sent to and collected by Mobile Accord’s system, which then sends out the text messages.

It will be interesting to see how campaigns like this one, and the Associated Press’ SMS election results service, are received. Planned Parenthood has a very involved and dedicated base, so I can see this going over very well with them – and I’m sure they’ll be biting their nails come Tuesday. I’d be surprised if we didn’t see more organizations experimenting with SMS campaigns in the next couple years – they’re certainly aligned with our on-demand lifestyle.

There have been many great examples of ways that reproductive health advocacy groups have been using technology to spread their messages. Read this article on RHRealityCheck.org for more.