AFL-CIO Partners with Salsa to Provide Next-Generation Online Organizing Tools to Nearly 1,000 Labor Organizations

Salsa Labor will empower the nation's largest coalition of unions to more effectively communicate and organize online

Washington D.C., March 16, 2010 - Salsa Labs, creator of the popular "Salsa" organizing platform for nonprofit and political industry leaders, is partnering with the AFL-CIO, the nation's largest coalition of unions, to provide the labor movement with "Salsa Labor" -- a next-generation technology platform for online communication, advocacy, community building, and organizing.

"We want nothing less than to transform the way our union leaders and members communicate, collaborate, and organize to make us an even stronger political force in 2010 and beyond," said Christine Kenngott, Online Mobilization Manager at the AFL-CIO. "The Salsa Labor online platform will help us link hundreds of local unions and millions of labor members throughout the country to more effectively organize and advocate on issues that matter to working families."

April Pedersen, Co-Founder of Salsa Labs, echoed the enthusiasm about this new partnership. "Our relationship with the AFL-CIO and its affiliate unions, state federations, and labor councils represents a major milestone in both our growth and vision as a company. We founded Salsa specifically to help organizations and individuals use technology to organize for progressive change. There are few institutions more critical in accomplishing this goal than the labor movement, so we are thrilled by the opportunities this new partnership brings."

Salsa Labor is an expansion of the core Salsa platform that both Wired for Change and DemocracyInAction currently provide to more than 1,000 nonprofits, political campaigns, party committees, and organizations to organize and energize constituents. An online, hosted application accessed via the Internet connection, Salsa Labor will allow thousands of union leaders and millions of members and supporters throughout the country to:

• Effectively communicate online using e-mail, RSS feeds, text messaging, and more.
• Conduct legislative advocacy with cutting-edge online advocacy and petition tools.
• Build online communities and connect with established social networks.
• Share content within and across unions with new syndication tools.
• Easily report on the effectiveness of outreach efforts and campaigns with simple and powerful reporting tools.
• Support more efficient online to offline organizing.
• Effectively manage a database of millions of union members and working family activists.
• Collect payments for donations and event registrations.

Leaders of labor organizations that are part of this new partnership will begin deploying Salsa Labor in the coming months. "We have hundreds of local unions throughout the country working to keep their membership informed and engaged on issues that affect working people," said Jared Schwartz, Associate Director of Online Communications at the American Federation of Teachers. "The Salsa Labor tools that we are implementing will help us revolutionize the way we message and collaborate with our local leaders and engage our entire membership. Using a flexible and extensible platform is an important step forward for the American Federation of Teachers."

The AFL-CIO adds to a growing list of organizations migrating to Salsa to take advantage of an affordable platform that allows nonprofits and political campaigns to develop innovative online campaigns. The upcoming Salsa "Marketplace" will allow these organizations to easily plug in dozens of applications developed specifically to help progressive organizations better organize.