GRE Wins Two Gold "Pollie" Awards,
Innovative "Tele-Friend" Program
Pioneers New Opportunity

Grassroots Enterprise was awarded two Gold Pollie Awards for its innovative "Tele-Friend" program developed for the Sierra Club.

The Pollies, awards for excellence in political communications, are presented by the American Association of Political Consultants.

"The Tele-Friend program represents a bold new direction for the Sierra Club's political program, which incorporated electronic advocacy for the first time in 2004, and we were thrilled to work with Grassroots Enterprise on this cutting-edge effort," said Carl Pope, Executive Director of the Sierra Club.

"At the Sierra Club, we are constantly looking for new, cutting-edge ways to engage our 750,000 members and new supporters, and we are extremely pleased that the AAPC recognized this innovative program," he added.

The Tele-Friend program, which was headquartered on the Sierra Club Votes website, was a web-based "virtual phone bank." It enabled Sierra Club supporters from around the nation to log on from the comfort of their own homes, access phone numbers of voters in battleground states, make calls, and record detailed information from the calls for real-time reporting and follow up from Sierra Club staff.

The advantage for the Sierra Club was two-fold:

• A chance to reach out to more voters; and
• A chance to offer its most committed activists work that was both highly engaging – and highly useful.

The program was honored with first place Gold Pollies in two categories:

• Best use of website for volunteer/field organization
• Best outbound live phone calls

"To have won these awards in any normal year would already be amazing, but to have been singled out as number one in an election year filled with so much innovation was truly mind blowing," said John Hlinko, Vice President of Marketing and Creative Engagement with Grassroots Enterprise.

"We were excited to work with the Sierra Club on this effort, and look forward to working with all our clients to continue to push the high-tech envelope."

For more information on the "Tele-Friend" service, see http://www.grassroots.com/how/sierra/