How can my business help?
Here’s a short list of actions you can take now:
1
Start by joining hundreds of CEOs and companies that have already committed to take action to support our election process.
As a growing coalition of businesses, Civic Alliance strengthens our democracy by supporting safe, healthy and trusted elections, and by inspiring employees and customers to participate in civic life.
Civic Alliance members, which include such companies as Amazon, Lyft, the NBA, BestBuy and H&M, have access to a range of exclusive tools, resources and events to help craft their nonpartisan civic initiatives. And, they offer a Civic Concierge service that provides coaching and program planning support. Membership is free – Take Civic Alliance’s pledge for business leaders today!
2
Help your team and community make a plan to vote: Make registration, early voting, and mail in ballot information available to your employees, users and customers.
Votewith.us helps individuals make a plan to vote and to have their vote counted by election day (with early voting, where possible). Many leaders are sending dedicated communications to their teams and following up with plenty of reminders.
Civic Alliance, VoteAmerica.com and RockTheVote offer toolkits for member companies to do things like create a registration portal, send election reminders and create nonpartisan activations.
3
Create a voter-friendly environment in your company and community.
Institute voter-friendly policies like paid time off to vote and time off to volunteer as a poll worker or support others in voting (*see more on poll worker recruitment below).
Add National Vote Early Day to your company calendar to encourage employees to avoid long lines by voting in person (preferably) or by mail by October 24 instead. Early in-person voting is crucial to the process in 2020.
Add Nov 3rd Election Day to your company calendar and remind employees about time off to vote or volunteer.
4
Send get out the vote messaging and encourage your team, users and customers to do their part to increase voter turnout.
Once you have folks confirm or create their voter registration, follow-up messaging before and on election day to make sure they get out and vote is key.
Beyond their own vote, your users, customers and employees can have a big impact by encouraging their friends to register and vote, too. Consider inviting your team and users to reach out to friends — and even giving employees dedicated time to do so. A super simple approach is just to call or text 3 friends and ask them if they have a plan to vote, then check in before the election to make sure they follow-through.
The Organizing Empowerment Project offers an SMS-based “bot” that any organization can customize to run their own vote tripling program.
5
Recruit and support poll workers by sharing information with employees, users and customers.
Having enough safe, fully-staffed polls for people to vote amidst Covid is critical to a fair election — and we’re facing critical shortages. Power the polls is a great resource for how to apply in every state. Consider sharing with your employees and giving them paid time off to volunteer — and share more broadly with your users/customers. (checkout Power the Polls’ toolkit with sample messaging here).
6
Provide time to volunteer and get prepared before Election Day.
Consider giving employees time to support get out the vote campaigns. One simple example: Handwritten letters have been shown to have up to a 3% impact on voter turnout. Organizations like VoteForward offer programs that help people write personal, hand-written letters/postcards to marginal voters in swing states.
*VoteForward is a left-leaning organization but they have fully non-partisan letter-sending campaigns that focus on low-propensity voters of color in swing states, if mobilizing electorally under-represented groups matches your organizational values.
7
Think about how you can leverage your company’s unique assets to support the election.
For e.g., support state and local election administrators with monetary or in-kind donations to help reduce the risk of election administration failures due to lack of resources. Anheuser-Busch has stepped up to donate hand sanitizer to polling stations. Find out what your state and local election administrators need: mail-processing equipment, PPE, or other key supplies?
Support voters and poll workers on election day by doing what your team does best. For example, Lyft is providing safe and low cost transport to polling stations. Some local nonprofits will be on hand to distribute protective gear, food and even provide entertainment to voters waiting in long lines on election day. How can you contribute?
Stay tuned for strategic opportunities from the Eleven Three team as we work with frontline partners to address evolving needs on the ground.
Sign up for updates or join the effort here: