While every year is a “big” election year, 2024 really had some heft to it. With scores of races up and down the ballot spanning the Presidency down to local governing boards in towns and cities across the country, the past year was no small venture for those in the election space.
But, as usual, nonprofits didn’t hesitate one bit to do some heavy civic lifting by applying their democracy superpowers to the task of getting America out to the polls. So as 2024 winds down and 2025 begins to crest the horizon, join us in looking back at some of the top voter engagement achievements from the momentous year that was.
You’ve got the power
In the early part of 2024, we released the Nonprofit Power Report which found that individuals engaged by nonprofits were 10 percentage points more likely to vote than comparable community members. And voters of color engaged by nonprofits were 12 percentage points more likely to vote than comparable community members.
If you converted all of that power into electricity, it would be enough to illuminate at least 250 strands of Christmas lights, 100 individual bulbs per strand, for a GRAND total of 25000 imported Italian twinkle lights.
You get a guide! And you get a guide! And YOU get a guide!
Nonprofit VOTE partnered to create customized voter engagement guides for seven national organizations including National Council of Nonprofits, United Way Worldwide, Social Current, Habitat for Humanity, and Covenant House as well as 20 state nonprofit associations in Iowa, Maine, Nebraska, New Mexico, New Jersey, Arizona, Kentucky, Idaho, Tennessee, and Florida. And don’t worry!
But we didn’t leave you off our holiday gift list! We also made a Voter Engagement Guide that any organization can make use of.
This meeting *couldn’t* have been an email
On 71 occasions over the past year we presented, trained, and spoke on the topic of voter engagement both in-person and digitally. All told, we were able to reach over 6,940 nonprofit and philanthropic staff and leaders.
Call us chatty if you want, but we just had a LOT to say about voting this year.
Watch and learn
Over the course of our 2024 Webinar Series, we hosted 13 free public webinars drawing over well over 3,400 live participants.
And you can cozy up with your favorite holiday beverage and watch all of our past webinars right now on our YouTube channel.
Leave it all out on the field
The Nonprofit VOTE Multi-State Field Program provided funding, materials, and technical assistance to 7 anchor nonprofit organizations in 7 states who, in turn, activated over 87,000 voters in communities served by those nonprofits.
Every one of those nonprofits played an outsized role in this year’s historic voter turnout and and we’re as as proud as an unhinged, overgrown elf.
The gift that keeps on giving
Our Philanthropy for Voter Engagement initiative presented at 10 events reaching nearly 700 in the philanthropic sector, encouraging them to support nonpartisan voter engagement by nonprofits.
Catch up on some of the initiative’s 2024 highlights here.
What a day!
Last but not least, National Voter Registration Day hosted scores of events and engaged a record-breaking 152 premier partners and 5,600 community partners with 65% of the community partners being entirely new to the holiday. NVRD also received a White House Proclamation and a bipartisan Senate resolution declaring Sept 17 National Voter Registration Day. Across the 2024 holiday, we touched 2 million voters who registered and verified their registration, bringing the holiday’s lifetime voter registration total to 6 million. And you can get the full story on this year’s celebration of democracy in the National Voter Registration Day 2024 Annual Report.
It’s HUGE activation like that which makes National Voter Registration Day our favorite day of the year!
Truly so many great successes across so many areas of work! But the one thing they all have in common? Each and every one of the high points of 2024 is a perfect testimonial of what’s possible when the nonprofit sector comes together around the shared cause of building a stronger democracy for all.
And we can’t wait to do it again in 2025! But until then, happy holidays and happy New Year from all of us at Nonprofit VOTE.
