Make a Plan
Behind the Plan | What to Plan | Planning Resources
Behind the Plan
Creating a clear plan in advance for your voter engagement activities can help ensure that your efforts are successful.
Choose Your Activities
Decide which activities are best for your organization. Read through this starter kit and determine which activities fit most naturally into your existing programs.
Get Buy In
A successful voter engagement plan depends on buy-in from your organization's leadership. Staff and volunteers are often the point people for creating and carrying out the plan, however the activities are more likely to be carried out organization-wide with support from your leadership.
- Plan a time to discuss your voter engagement activities with your executive director. Bring this voter toolkit to your meeting and lay out the activities that you want your organization to undertake – make sure to specify key points of contact for engagement with your constituents.
Find a Point Person
Finding a staff member to spearhead and organize your voter engagement activities is key to your success. Ideally the point person should be someone who cares about voter engagement efforts. This person must have the time and the desire to boost voting and civic participation in your community.
- Determine who on your staff is best suited to lead your voter engagement efforts. This could be a program staff person, a public policy staff person or a direct service provider
Keep it Simple
Your first priority is the services you provide and issues you promote. By leveraging your existing points of contact with your community, voter engagement efforts can be doable for any nonprofit.
- Match your voter participation activities to your nonprofit's mission and capacity.
- Focus your efforts on higher profile national and statewide elections or those elections that will most affect your organization.
Plan Around Election Deadlines
The two months prior to an election are the most important in any voter engagement effort. When you create your plan over the summer, keep in mind that September and October will be the time when your efforts will intensify.
- September is a time to focus on voter registration and voter education.
- October is a time to continue your voter education efforts, do a special election event and to encourage people to vote
It Adds Up
The nonprofit sector is large. If taken to scale even the smallest measures we take to encourage people to register to vote and vote on Election Day will add up. Whether you help ten people vote or a hundred people vote, it adds up.
What to Plan
Who's Involved
Who might be involved – staff, volunteers, constituents, partner organizations?
- Front office staff who do intake or manage materials and signage in the lobby
- Volunteers or interns who can take on a voter participation activity as a special project
- Program staff who can weave voting into ongoing program activities
- Your communications team in charge of your website and communications
- Partners - will you collaborate with another agency, another branch of your agency, a coalition you're part of or your local election board?
Who's Your Audience
Consider your audiences for voter participation activities and communications
- Your service population or constituents
- Staff, board members and volunteers
- Your neighborhood or local community
What Are Your Communication Vehicles
Plan with the people in charge of your communications and website to include messages and announcements about voting into communications in the weeks leading up to the election.
- Website
- Printed newsletters
- E-newsletters
- Social media (facebook, etc)
- Signage and posters
- T-shirts
- Information in your agency's lobby
Which Activities and Services will Incorporate Voting
Choose activities and services to incorporate conversations about voting, such as -
- Points of service
- Classes and trainings
- Meetings
- Community events
- Sign up for a webinar training or view a powerpoint presentation
- View or download toolkits, checklists and factsheets
- Use our website's 50 state guide to voting in your state