Case Study: Australian Marriage Equality achieves historic "Yes" victory (7.8M votes, 79% turnout) with NationBuilder

The Marriage Equality campaign inspired Australians to get out the vote and say "Yes"

Australian Marriage Equality faced the urgent challenge of turning broad public support for same-sex marriage into actual participation in an optional national postal survey. To mobilize first-time political participants and make sign-ups frictionless, the organization consolidated its database, website, email, and social operations onto the NationBuilder platform, using NationBuilder action pages, field tools and constituent mapping to lower barriers to engagement and capture supporters’ contact details.

Using NationBuilder, the campaign launched conversion-focused splash and action pages, a Pledge to Vote flow, and integrated follow-up messaging (via Autopilot) plus offline field mapping and storytelling tools to drive and track voter behavior. The approach helped build a digital base of over 160,000 supporters before the survey, contributed to an exceptional 79% turnout in the optional vote, and saw 7.8 million Australians (61.6%) vote "Yes"—outcomes that helped secure passage of the Marriage Amendment and its enactment on December 9, 2017.

Australian Marriage Equality

Adam Knobel

Digital Campaign Director