Applying our campaign framework – Additive, Important, Measurable, Helpful, and Impactful – to partner development
Swing Blue Alliance’s most effective campaigns are built with organizations that are committed to empirically proven campaign strategies and reliable, targeted populations. The postcards that you deliver to your volunteers are the culmination of a lengthy process, beginning months before you hear about it, and developed with the work of dozens of experienced professionals (who also all happen to be volunteers). We just wrapped up a noteworthy collaboration with a new partner – The Civics Center – and our efforts this year exemplify every element of our AIM HI methodology.
The Civics Center – A Key Partner in 2024
The Civics Center (TCC), created after the 2016 election by Laura Brill, a California attorney, is a national nonpartisan project focused on teen voter registration. Brill recognized that while 75% of registered young people have voted in every national election, this year only 30% of 18-year-olds are registered to vote. Those who are not registered are an untapped political force.
Susan Labandibar, cofounder, Swing Blue Alliance, and Tom Sander, veteran volunteer and our point person in Pennsylvania, spearheaded the relationship, working closely with The Civics Center senior staff like Laura Brill and Lisa Cohen, and volunteer Cindy Shulak-Rome. To get things up and running, Sander established the Voter Engagement Network (VEN) to comply with TCC’s nonpartisan guidelines.
Our First Collaboration – the Letters to Parents Project
This partnership, based on mutual trust and an expansion of our mutual efforts, gave Swing Blue the opportunity to use our vast volunteer network to register young voters – an important population. The resulting campaign used what the Analyst Institute encouraged as a “creative” model. In this case, we targeted households with registered adults and unregistered teens in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and the six collar counties around Philadelphia. We sent the adults a letter and encouraged the adult to have a conversation with their child, encourage them to vote, and show them how to do so. When the campaign was posted on the VEN Estore, it sold out quickly, and we all intuitively understood that this was a potentially robust project.
Following our Letters to Parents campaign in Pennsylvania, we widened our scope, sending similar letters to adult households with unregistered teens in Ohio and Arizona.David Nickerson, a senior political analyst, is currently analyzing the Pennsylvania effort, as well as the campaign in Ohio.
Raising Money to Get Youth Registered
Another partnership goal is fundraising. The Civics Center operates with relatively few staff for a national effort. Swing Blue supporters raised more than $70,000 for their work.
In Sum…
The Letters to Parents campaign with The Civics Center was:
Additive – Our letter-writing efforts amplified the reach of TCC’s activities
Important – Ensuring youth are registered to vote, and influenced by likely-voter parents, is an essential effort to increasing turnout this fall (and preserving and protecting our democracy).
Measurable – We can track how many of these young adults register to vote and actually vote this November (and compare those registration rates with households in Pennsylvania and Ohio that didn’t get a letter).
Helpful – Our reputation precedes us! Groups like The Civics Center know that when they collaborate with Swing Blue on a mailing campaign, they’ll get an organized and efficient leadership team, well-targeted outputs, and tireless volunteers who are willing to go the extra mile.
Impactful – Based on our post-campaign analysis and ongoing iterations to team effectiveness and operations, we not only understand what works and what doesn’t, but also ensure our next mailing campaigns build on all learnings.
Looking Ahead
Our months of preparation and communication have been effective: Based on our successful collaboration with The Civics Center, we now have a reliable partnership model that we can use in the future for similar mailing campaigns in swing states.
This Letter is the first of many that will give you a deeper understanding of the partners that we all work with: Each are carefully vetted, devoted to our shared principles, and undertake efforts we can all be proud of. We all work for the same goal: to build a strong registered population of voters who will go to the polls and protect our democracy this year.
Thank you, all. Let’s lean in together!
Janet Nelson and the Swing Blue mailing team
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