Last month, we sent out a survey to all our members in Canada to help us guide our campaigning for 2019, over 4,000 people responded. Thanks to everyone who responded. Here are the more detailed results to the questions we asked.

The issues SumOfUs members think are most important:

• Climate Change - 61%

• Rise of the far-right across the globe - 19%

• Plastics Pollution in our oceans - 8%

• Regulating pesticides to protect bees and our health - 5%

• Water Rights - 4%

• Attacks on workers’ rights and the minimum wage - 2%

• Attacks on Indigenous communities - 1%

Canadian campaigns SumOfUs members ranked as most important are:



1. Banning bee-killing neonics

2. Speaking out against Nestle water grabs

3. Introducing a Canadian plastics solution by supporting Motion M151

4. Working to regulate toxic pesticides like glyphosate

5. Helping to quash the Trans Mountain pipeline

6. Protecting wild salmon

7. Challenging Doug Ford’s brutal climate policies in Ontario

8. Calling on the CPP to divest from private prisons

9. Taking on giant tech companies to curb the rise of the far-right

10. Hitting corporations where it hurts at their annual investor meetings

11. Fighting back against Bell’s internet censorship plan

The top ways SumOfUs members want us to participate in the Canadian election are:



• Work with more groups and organizations to elect progressive candidates - 54%

• Work to get corporations to back down on regressive policies - 50%

• Fact check the rhetoric from the parties - 46%

• Work on influencing MPs on specific policies - 41%

• Boost voter turn-out - 35%

• Use social media as a way to campaign and spread progressive ideas - 30%

The top five industries SumOfUs Members in Canada wants us to campaign against are:

1. Oil and gas

2. Factory farming

3. Pharmaceuticals

4. Mining

5. Big tech (like Facebook, Google etc)

   
   

Other results:

We also wanted specific information on our campaigning in general. It was great to see that you really like how we’re campaigning. You had lots of great ideas on how we could improve and here is what you wanted us to do more of:

• 87% of you thought we could be pushing more campaigns into the media spotlight to add pressure on corporations or government to do the right thing

• 72% of you thought we could  be pressuring more corporations from the inside with strong shareholder proposals that shift corporate priorities

• 71% of you wanted us to be partnering with more organizations

Finally, we asked you what you like about SumOfUs and what actions you’d like to take. Here’s the rundown:

• The top three things SumOfUs members like about being members are that SumOfUs is people-powered -- helping everyday people take action together, we run effective campaigns and gets results and we champion and amplify progressive causes.

• The top five actions SumOfUs members would be likely to take are signing petitions, sending an email, share a petition on social media, send a text message to a target of a campaign and send a tweet to a campaign target.

Chip In for 2019

Reading these survey results, we are so excited for 2019. But, we fell short of our 2018 fundraising goals. Right now, we have two campaigners based in Canada, and if you chip in, we can hire another staff member to make sure we have the capacity what you identified as the main priorities in the survey.

Can you chip in to keep our good work going?