The business-backed Unshackle Upstate reform initiative is getting ready to dive into politics.

The consortium of business groups and companies, cofounded by the Buffalo Niagara Partnership, plans to step up its involvement in next year’s Assembly and State Senate races to back candidates who support its agenda that calls for lower taxes, less regulation and restrained spending by Albany.

The group plans to endorse candidates, rate the ones in each State Legislature race based on a report card on selected issues, and raise $500,000 to $1 million from donors to fund its increased political activity.

The more activist approach is a change for Unshackle Upstate, which previously has refrained from endorsing candidates, preferring instead to focus on its lobbying and advocacy efforts for its upstate-oriented agenda.

Unshackle Upstate, involving more than 75 businesses and trade groups, earlier this year proposed a series of spending reductions, ranging from an across-the-board 3 percent cut to a delay in raises for state employees to holding the line on state spending for public schools next year.

“The reality is, we haven’t been overly successful, but times have changed,” said Brian Sampson, executive director of Unshackle Upstate. “People are angry.”

That anger stems from the state’s growing budget crisis, the more than $8 billion in new taxes and fees imposed earlier this year by the State Legislature and Gov. David A. Paterson, and the aborted coup in the Senate that deadlocked state government for 40 days during June and July, he said.

The goal is to build an “Unshackle Army” of supporters to rally around the reform initiative and candidates who back the group’s legislative agenda, Sampson said.

To do that, Unshackle Upstate plans to use Web-based social media sites, such as You- Tube, Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, to get its message out to voters directly. “It allows us greater access to grass-roots development,” Sampson said, noting the success that similar initiatives had during the 2008 presidential campaign.

“We also need to reach out to bloggers” in hopes that they will drive people to the Unshackle Upstate Web site, where its agenda is spelled out in detail, Sampson said.

“It’s a megaphone,” Sampson said. “The Unshackle Army is going to march on the Capitol and demand change.”