It’s an election year.
An important one.
I’m still trying to wrap my head around that one, too.
But it’s certainly not too early to think about precisely how we can engage in the civic participation/Get-Out-the-Vote/voter empowerment process, as nonprofit service providers.
So, in case you missed it, here’s a really inspiring report from Nonprofit Vote, with case studies about what different nonprofits did to increase voter participation, and what lessons they learned in the process.
A few highlights, just to tide you over until you get through the 73 pages:
- Don’t forget to register your staff. Really. Don’t forget that.
- If you want people to register to vote, ask them. Individually. Posters are not an invitation. Asking people if you can register them is an invitation. And it makes a difference.
- You can register people beyond your walls, and getting out to register voters also means building your name recognition and community presence, too.
- Figure out what you want to measure, and then measure it. Do you care most about the total number of registrants? Voter turnout among those you register? Increasing participation among a specific population? Set goals and then hold yourself accountable.
- Invest in staff training. Now. Voter engagement doesn’t necessarily come naturally to nonprofit staff, so staff development is essential.
- Get people to pledge to vote–if they’re already registered, if laws prevent you from registering them, if you just registered them and you want to make sure they vote. Of course it’s no guarantee, but it gets you their contact information, and it gets them to acknowledge–at least briefly–that it matters if they show up. Both are huge.
- Use peer pressure, like in group sessions where the interest of just a few can prompt broad voter engagement.
- Partner. Remember that you don’t need to know/do everything, and you absolutely can rely on your field to carry some of the weight here. There are organizations that specialize in civil rights law, and they can help you with complicated questions/concerns about voting eligibility and restrictions.
- Don’t assume that clients will view electoral engagement as a ‘distraction’–some organizations found that there was tremendous interest in talking about the election and issues and their rights as voters. You may find yourselves having to bracket this work so that it doesn’t spill over into other programs, instead of it being seen as an intrusion.
I’d love to hear others’ reactions to these case studies, or, especially, your own lessons learned from your organization’s civic engagement work. What do we need to be doing in February to ensure that our clients’ voices are heard in August and November? What capacity and support do you need now to make that happen?
What will you do to make sure that we keep answering, “yes!” to the question: Can Nonprofits Increase Voting?
Classroom to Capitol 
Horrible stuff I wouldn’t even dare to make up
I thought about, for this April Fool’s Day, making up something really awesome in the social policy world. But then I thought that would be super depressing, to find out that it was just a joke.
And, so, then I thought about making something up that’s really horrible, because that would make us feel better, right, to find out that it was a trick?
But, then I worried that I’d never be able to make up something so terrible that it would seem at all suspicious. Which was super depressing, too.
So, then I decided that I’d MUCH rather be angry than sad, about the assaults on social work values and on those we serve. So I scrolled through my email archives to find some of the horrible stuff that sounds so outlandishly awful that it should be made up, that I’ve collected over the past couple of months, for a sort of “should be April Fool’s jokes but we’re not laughing, so let’s do something about it” list.
That was too wordy a title even for me.
In no particular order, here are some completely unfunny, all-too-true examples of why social work advocacy is so needed.
No joke.
It shouldn’t be so hard to come up with a list of totally wild things, pulled from our imaginations, that would be instantly recognizable as fabrications.
Maybe that’s my new advocacy goal: make “ridiculous” mean something again, in the policy context.
A year from now, I want to be foolable again.
Share this:
Like this:
2 Comments
Posted in Analysis and Commentary
Tagged civil rights, immigrant rights, policy, racism, women