Meet the Vendors and Organizers at Netroots Nation
This episode is a whirlwind tour of Netroots Nation, where Benn talked to vendors and organizers working across the progressive ecosystem: Healthy Campaign (feeding organizers well and cheap), Civic Dinners (community conversations via the dinner table), Tesla Collective (games for social change), Design Action Collective & Community Printers (worker-owned design/print), On The Line (fighting gerrymandering), Center for Constitutional Rights (legal advocacy for justice movements), U.S. Term Limits, Vote Run Lead (training women to run for office), National Popular Vote (state-based Electoral College reform), Witness Homestead (documenting child detention), New American Leaders (training immigrant candidates), Civic Shout (congressional messaging campaigns), GetThru (peer-to-peer texting and calling), We Vote (nonpartisan digital voter guide), Every District (data for down-ballot races), and Action Network/Action Builder (organizing and mobilization tools). The episode closes with a montage of quick advice from organizers on the conference floor, plus VAN data tips from "the Data Diva," Nancy Stolnaker.
Show Notes
Action Network – Mobilizing tools for organizers
Action Builder – Relational Organizing tools, see below video.
Center for Constitutional Rights – Works with marginalized communities to fight for justice and liberation through grassroots efforts, litigation, strategic communication and advocacy.
Civic Dinners – Bringing together communities to foster conversation, build community, and work to solve the myriads of problems facing our cities we call home.
Civic Shout – Mobilization tool to have constituents directly email letters of support or opposition to congress.
Design Action Collective – Graphic design and visual communications for progressives.
Every District – Know where the most competitive races are in your area for different elected official seats.
Get Thru – Text and calling services to cell phones for your campaign.
Healthy Campaign – Helping feed and fuel the movement with tools and tricks for eating healthy affordably and on the run.
National Popular Vote – Working to ensure our president is elected by the people with a national popular vote, being rid of the electoral college.
Netroots Nation – The largest gathering of progressive organizers in the country.
New American Leaders – Working to elect first and second generation Americans.
On the Line – Working to end gerrymandering.
Tesa Collective – Building games to educate and inspire change.
Term Limits – Working to limit the # of terms an elected official can be elected to office.
Vote Run Lead – Supporting women in getting elected to office.
We Vote – A free interactive guide to help you navigate candidates and issues to plan out how you are going to vote on election day.
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Benn Marine 0:08
Alrighty, welcome back to the Ocean of Organizing podcast where every Thursday we explore what it means to build a community and create change. I am super excited for this episode this week. As you all know, I was at Netroot Designation last week, and I am bringing a piece of NetRoot to you. So in this episode, we are gonna be talking to different vendors, different organizers, people doing all kinds of neat stuff. And there's so much hacked into this episode. I'm just gonna jump right on in. So with that, let's dive on in. Rather, these are folks that were either new to me or folks that I was really personally excited about that I think you all will be as well. I'm gonna link to every single vendor that you hear from in the show notes. So don't worry about, you know, if you're driving or walking or whatever, being like, oh gosh, I gotta write that down. Don't even worry about it. Head on over to ocearforganizing.com forward slash net root. All the links are gonna be there. There's also gonna be some videos, and so make sure you check those out. On the note of vendors, I want to be super honest and transparent with you all that none of the folks in this episode have compensated me in any way for any kind of advertising. Even when we cross that road, you all will be the very first to know transparency. I will certainly make that information. So we're gonna kick it off with that. And after that, we're just gonna go back to back to back to back to back with these different folks. So buckle up here we go.
Argie Roswell 2:32
I'm Argie Roswell, and the name of our organization is Healthy Campaign. And this organization came to be because every time I've been in a progressive space, I have noticed that it is oft, often fueled on processed food, factory-farmed food, and I feel that our best win strategy is to stay well while we do the work. And so we brought Healthy Campaign to Netroots Nation to share that idea, and we created this beautiful display of beans and fruits and vegetables and whole grains, along with some of the devices that we use to prepare them. And one of the strategies that we use is really simple, simple cooking that cooks while we're doing the work, and even sometimes while we're sleeping. So we're here at the booth, but we've got dinner, you know, cooking itself in our instant pot.
Benn Marine 3:36
That's amazing. And I think something, or at least for me, I know that I've struggled a lot with being healthy on campaigns. And one of the things that I feel like often gets in the way is, well, time, which I feel like you addressed, but also cost. And one of the things that you had said when I came by those guests, you're like, oh, you can feed 20 people on 20 bucks, and I was like, what? I thought that was amazing. Could you speak a little bit to that?
Argie Roswell 3:58
Um, so yes, um, our signature recipe is the lentil taco filling, and it is literally three ingredients, and one of those ingredients is water, the second ingredient is lentils, and the third is salsa. And so you can put a pot of lentil taco filling in the instant pot, and you can feed a whole bunch of people with that. You might want to add some lettuce, you can always add more. And you know, but if you have to feed a whole group of people in the traditional way, typically you're gonna be paying for somebody to bring in food. And cooking it yourself is actually a fairly affordable approach.
Benn Marine 4:40
Awesome. Oh my gosh, thank you so much. I am so excited about what you all are doing, and I definitely think this will be part of a bigger conversation than we have for sure. Any final parting tips for folks?
Argie Roswell 4:53
One of the we've noticed that people come by this booth and they feel enthusiastic, and I'm just really thrilled to meet you and see your enthusiasm for this message as well. Um, and we on our website we have a toolkit, and our toolkit is really intended as curriculum for people who are training to be, you know, in the movement. Um, please incorporate our toolkit into your trainings and work with us to do that.
Benn Marine 5:22
Awesome, and I'll make sure I link to that in the show notes too, so folks can go right there to find those resources. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Marjorie. I really appreciate it. Thank you very much.
Jane Graham 5:31
Um, my name is Jane Graham. I'm founder and CEO of Civic Dinners, and we're all about bringing people together around the dinner table for conversations that matter. And we're here at Netroots Nation to launch the Lovable City, which is all about bringing people together to talk about what they love about their city, what they'd love to love, and ways that they can come together to help co-create a better future. So we're looking to launch um in a hundred cities across the United States in October and have people gather over dinner, uh find one another, and then uncover what the big kind of urban challenges of the 21st century are so that we can design more conversations to release in 2020 ahead of the elections. Does it stretch beyond the dinner table? Yes, so that's the whole intention of the Civic Dinners platform. So it's not just about a one-off event or a dinner. Um we actually have built in communications from the beginning all the way through the end. So when people sign up at CivicDinners.com, they can find a dinner near them or they can sign up to host a conversation on a topic that they have available in their geography.
Benn Marine 6:32
For folks that are have maybe a little less experience organizing but are looking to just kind of start creating change. Do you have like a toolkit for how they can make these dinners happen and how to get that started?
Jane Graham 6:43
Yes, so it is, we feel like the dinner table is the kind of the gateway for organizing and to getting involved, right? I mean, I think protest, it's like a hardcore person goes out on the streets to protest, and signing, putting your name on a signature digitally is like the easy collectivism version. But for someone else who is really wanting to get more engaged, wants to meet other people, but doesn't quite know how to get involved, they can sign up for a civic dinner, they can go to the civic dinners.com, find a conversation, find a dinner, and then um we have ways, if they want to host, um, they just find a conversation topic that they're interested in. They set up the date, time, location, whether it's a potluck or at a at a dinner. Like the platform is so easy that you don't need really a guide of like how to set up a dinner. But then we send them the host guide once they've registered their dinner, and it tells them what to expect, how to invite friends, how to invite guests, how to get diverse voices at the table, and then what to do, what's next, uh, and what's about, and then it actually provides the questions. So we've done the really hard work of designing the conversation. We use actually Marshall Gann's, um, his theory of public narrative, and we weave it into how we design our conversations so that we have the story of self, the story of us, and the story of now woven into the conversation design so that people leave feeling really hopeful and empowered about the future.
Brian Van Slake 8:01
Hi, uh, I'm Brian Vance Lake, and I'm part of the Tesla Collective. We're a worker-owned cooperative that develops uh games for social change. We both make games for other organizations and then we make our own that we sell and distribute.
Benn Marine 8:13
Awesome. And then you were saying too that you so you also make games for nonprofits, you were saying that you're distributed internationally. Tell us a little bit more about that.
Brian Van Slake 8:21
Yeah, for sure. So uh we team up with uh uh organizations like the Nature Conservancy, we built a game for them called Water for Tomorrow that they use to reach to people about uh water access and fighting pollution. We're working with an organization right now called Jobs with Justice, making a game called Strike. It's a game about labor organizing and like organizing a massive citywide strike. But we also make our own games in-house that we sell and distribute. So for instance, Rise Up, the game of people in power, which is a game about movement building and activism, and then our most recent release, which is Space Cats Fight Fascism, which is exactly what it sounds like.
Benn Marine 8:56
Awesome. So it's a really sounds like it's a really great way to engage folks around education of different issues. So for maybe nonprofits that might be trying to do some education pieces, this might be a good fit.
Brian Van Slake 9:07
Totally, yeah. So I it's for nonprofits, it's also just for people at home playing games with their families and friends, right? So for us, you know, a game has to be fun first. Um, so that we make games that are fun for people to play with their family, their friends, the game nights. Um, but then also, yeah, like uh groups like the SEIU have bought hundreds of copies of Rise Up to use as training tools with uh work uh airport workers they're organizing. Uh groups uh like the ACLU just bought a bunch of copies of Rise Up to use for uh a summer camp they're having with uh high school uh leaders who are coming to participate. Um but then yeah, we just also our games are bought pretty much every day by people just around the country who want to engage with their values while having fun. Awesome. Uh and if folks want to learn more or where they can purchase these games, where should they go? Uh they should go to our website. It's toolbox for, like this is for you, F-O-R-E-D, like educationed.org, toolboxfored.org, or just search RiseUp or Space Cats Fight Fascism and you'll find us.
Sarah with Design Action Collective 10:05
I'm Sarah. I'm here with Design Action Collective and our sister shop Community Printers. Um we're both worker-owned union shops out of California. Design Action is a movement servicing shop with graphic design. We do all kinds of design from logos to websites and everything in between. And community printers has been worker-owned since 1977. Um they're our go-to shop for getting our designs printed.
Benn Marine 10:33
Awesome, great. And if folks are looking to have work um created, where can they learn more about you all?
Sarah with Design Action Collective 10:40
So we're online at designaction.org, and then community printers is comprinters.com.
Benn Marine 10:48
I I myself am super excited to see you all here because I feel like art and and culture are so important in especially in our movement spaces, and I think how that's represented is important, and it's really cool that you all are doing that through this, through this lens. It's really cool.
Sarah with Design Action Collective 11:03
Yeah, we exist because there's so much visual material from the other side out there and advertising and just inundating our daily lives. So we're here so that we can articulate our movement stories and have a chance at combating some of those really negative stories that are out there in our visual landscape. So we're happy to be here doing that, fighting every day.
Mikhail Harrison 11:27
I am uh Mikhail Harrison, my organization is on the line. Uh, and we are an organization that has a comprehensive strategy to really tackle and end gerrymandering across the country.
Benn Marine 11:37
Awesome. And are there certain states that you're targeting right now?
Mikhail Harrison 11:41
Yes, so we have 10 target states. Uh, we are in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Texas, Colorado, and Arizona. Um, those are states that we that we've identified that we can actually do some do some things and get some work done uh in those states. Uh on the line is a campaign of the National Democratic Addition Committee. Um and if you've watched Scooby-Doo and saw them, you know, take the mask off of the ghosts, and and there is a character under there, you know, if we were to take that mask off, it'll be OFA. Uh so we actually merged with uh President Obama's organization, organizing for action, because uh he himself has realized, and as along with Eric Holder, that this should be a priority for us. Uh when Obama was president and we have redistricting the the last go-round, we lost over a thousand seats, um, both in state legislator and and and federal. Um and we don't want that to happen today. We want the American people to know what's going on, we want them to be a part of the conversation uh for redistricting, and so that's what we plan to do.
Benn Marine 12:38
Awesome, that's so great. And does that include uh organizing strategies, or are you doing more lobby and legislative work, or how's that what does that look like?
Mikhail Harrison 12:46
So we are going to hit every single one of those angles wherever we can organize, wherever we can put our funding behind, or uh any any of our bandwidth, um, we're gonna do that. So whether it's a ballot measure, a race that that we think that we can uh win or help help out, we're gonna do that. And so we're any and everywhere pretty much.
Benn Marine 13:04
Awesome. And so for folks that are passionate about ending gerrymandering, how can they learn more and how can they get involved?
Mikhail Harrison 13:09
They can head over to all ontheine.org. Uh we do have we do have 10 target states, but we are organizing in all 50 states. And so we're really gonna rely on volunteers, both our OFA volunteers and also volunteers that we're gonna bring into the movement. Um, you know, just head over to all ontheeline.org.
Nadia Bin Youssef 13:25
Hey, I'm Nadia Bin Youssef. I'm the advocacy director at the Center for Constitutional Rights. The Center for Constitutional Rights is a decades-old civil rights, racial justice, legal and advocacy organization that's on the front lines of social movements working together with impacted communities to dismantle systems and structures of oppression. Racial oppression, economic oppression, gender oppression, abuse of state practices, and have, for many years, since the mid-60s, used the law as a tool to both protect communities from harm and then move us all towards liberation.
Benn Marine 14:01
That's awesome. And so what is that, what does that work look like?
Nadia Bin Youssef 14:05
Great. So historically, I mean, it has meant that the Center for Constitutional Rights attorneys and advocates and media strategists have been partnering with those most impacted by some of the worst policies and practices that impact particularly, you know, marginalized communities, communities at risk, communities of color, immigrant communities, and folks who are held and incarcerated in cages, whether those are prisons or detention facilities. So one of our, over the course of our history, I mean our first case was representing Fannie Lou Hamer and the Mississippi Freedom Delegation in 1964, because it was an integrated delegation that wasn't allowed to participate in the Democratic National Convention. So that's kind of our origin story, but that has meant over the course of the last 55, 53 years that we've we've represented men who are detained in Guantanamo, and we're among the first, if not the first, lawyers to take on those cases and to challenge government practices of detention of men after 9-11. We took on the NYPD and stopped stop and frisk practices in New York. Right now we're working on all sorts of cases, the challenging the asylum ban, the Muslim ban, uh working with frontline environmental justice and indigenous uh water protectors against environmental degradation and the role of pipelines and petrochemical industry taking over ancestral indigenous lands. We're also standing in solidarity with Palestine, doing work that needs to be done, that we're proud to be doing, that communities are demanding, and working with them to imagine kind of beyond the world that we're resisting, right? I think advocacy in particular, so what the advocacy team is doing is standing and working in partnership with the legal team to not only resist the world that we have, but to imagine the world that we want. So, what it what is it that we're fighting for, and what are the cultural and political interventions that we're gonna make to get us there and to get us there together so that we're all living in this emancipated reality and a future vision where all of us are free.
Benn Marine 16:26
Awesome. And if folks want to learn more or get involved, where should they go?
Nadia Bin Youssef 16:29
Yeah, we are based in New York, though we are a national organization. So excited to connect with movements and social movements across the country, across the world, that are tackling these systems and structures of oppression and ready to dismantle them and build something new. So if you're interested in that, you can learn a bit more about us at our website, which is CCRjustice.org. We have a podcast that comes out regularly, we're active on social media, you can find us there. Though I would also say you can find us in the streets, you can find us in community. I think the best thing that you can do in terms of getting involved with CCR is getting involved in the movement for justice. So looking around you and standing in solidarity, being together and letting impacted people lead us to the future where all of us are free and where justice is real, where there is no more net roots conventions, where we don't have to strategize and theorize about the world that we want. That world is here and we're living in it and we're building it collectively. So look around you. That's what it means to show up for CCR.
Benn Marine 17:40
That's awesome, thank you so much. And I and I can attest that that is true because I heard of you all from my friends at Maine Transgender Network, and you've been supporting their work, so I thank you for that. We really appreciate it, and thank you for your time.
Nadia Bin Youssef 17:51
Absolutely, thank you so much.
Austin Seckle 17:53
Hey everybody, my name is Austin Seckle. I serve as the grassroots director with U.S. Term Limits. We're a nonpartisan nonprofit organization founded in the early 90s with a chief goal of establishing term limits for all members of Congress. We support term limits at all levels of government, whether it's for the presidency, support the 22nd Amendment, whether it's for the Supreme Court, we support term limits abroad for every elected office. We think this is a fundamental principle that should apply to all politicians.
Benn Marine 18:24
So, what does that look like in in practice? So is there grassroots organizing efforts around that, or is it more lobbying efforts, or or how does that what does that work look like?
Austin Seckle 18:33
We use the initiative and referendum process and won throughout the the 90s. Um over 20 states passed uh an initiative referendum to term limit their own members of Congress, their own congressional delegation for their state. Congress didn't like this very much. Um it was taking the nation by storm. Um you know, no one had done this before at the state level uh via the petition process. And we ended up having a Supreme Court hearing, ruling rather, excuse me. It's called U.S. Term Limits versus Thornton. And it was decided in a split decision in 1995 what Congressman Ray Thornton from Arkansas viewed term limits as adding an additional qualification for office. Stated that if you wanted to establish term limits for all members of Congress, you had to do it via constitutional amendment. So, like it or not, that's where we're at. We are a people-based organization. Um we believe that we the people are the ones that should ultimately be uh uh the the ones bearing responsibility in Congress, not on uh out-of-touch um, you know, self-interested uh members of Congress who some who have been there for over fifty years. You know, like that's not uh an an unrealistic uh fact here. You know, the the dean of the US House, his name is Don Young, he has been Alaska, they only have one congressional seat. He has been their lone congressman since the early 70s. He he just announced on Twitter the other day, well he obviously did in person, but he he he tweeted out I just filed for re-election in my twenty-fifth term. I mean it's like what what service, you know, are we doing at that point? Um and not to say that if you're in that position, you can do something good, but there's no reason why someone else can't do the same job. Like there is plenty of experience elsewhere, even in politics alone, that'll be able to take over the the jobs of you know, someone like Don Young, who is literally you know, owned the the Connect congressional seat for decades.
Jammu Green 20:44
Hi, my name's Jammu Green, and I am a founding board member for Vote Run Lead. Vote Run Lead is a nonpartisan organization that trains women to run for office and win. We have a very simple way of approaching our work, which is understanding that women have all of the skills and the tools and the education and the passion that they need to run as they are now. So many times women will think, I need some other credential at the end of my name, I need, you know, something else in my experience to be able to run for office. And we are so excited that so many more women, record numbers of women have realized they can run as they are, they can win. There are 519,000 elected offices up for grabs in the country, and we have a situation where something like 95% of the media and financial resources and all of our attention goes to the less than 700 that are federal government positions or a gubernatorial position. And so with Vote Run Lead, we are laser focused on the state and local offices that women can run for, control budgets and issues, and have opportunities to change their communities in ways that are so powerful. And when people talk about the pink wave or the year of the woman, we're like, no, no, no, no, no, no. First of all, this is not something that is a moment. This is a movement. And so we've been doing this a long time. We've trained over 35,000 women to run for office and win, including Representative Ilhan Omar, Representative Lauren Underwood, but also the library commissioner from Ypsilanti, Michigan, came through our training program actually last year at Netroots, I believe. And so whether it is someone who is just starting out after college and has very specific ideas about student loans and how to pursue a higher education for her community, we want to invest in that young woman, or someone who has had a glorious career and is ready to give back in ways that take a lot of time but really have an impact on your neighbors and your communities by being an elected official. So we try to make that happen. 60% of the women we train are women of color, which uh we're very proud of. And we are looking forward to a tsunami, uh, a pink tsunami. Uh forget the pink wave. Uh that's what we'll see in 2020.
Benn Marine 23:40
Awesome, that's so great. For folks that maybe you want to learn more or get involved, uh, what should their next steps be?
Jammu Green 23:46
So at voterunlead.org, we've got over 60 online resources. If you're interested, ever thought about it, someone's ever said to you you should run for office, or it's just creeped into your mind, you can come to our website, look at all of the webinars we have. My favorite is our 90-day challenge, which is like our version of P90X, which is 30 steps you can take in 90 days to figure out what office you should run for, and to figure out how to build your political capital. So voterunlead.org has it all.
Benn Marine 24:18
Awesome. And then another quick question for you. I'm curious for folks that are maybe like non-binary or maybe don't fit in the gender spectrum, is this for those folks also, or is it really laser focus on folks that are identifying as women?
Jammu Green 24:30
So we definitely have trained very successful transgender women and are proud of the success we've seen come through our understanding that as a feminist organization, however you come to us, we want to give you the tools to run as you are. And however you define yourself, we will give you the tools to tell your story in the most compelling way. And really that storytelling is I think what's been missing from politics, those experiences, that diversity, um, our commitment to diversity on on all fronts, uh, I think is uh something to be celebrated, and so all are welcome.
Chris Pearson 25:16
I'm uh Chris Pearson and I work with National Popular Vote. We're a state-based effort to uh fix the Electoral College using state power to create a popular vote for president.
Benn Marine 25:28
Awesome, and I know you've been we talked a little bit about how you're working state to state, how how's it looking overall?
Chris Pearson 25:35
It's actually going very well. This is a big project that very few people have heard of, but we're 70% of the way to get fixing the way we elect the president. Um so that means we've passed 16 states. We just got four this year actually. Um Delaware, Rhode Island, uh, excuse me, Delaware, uh, New Mexico, Colorado, and Oregon all came on board. Basically, the Constitution gives states total power over their own electors, um, and so that's what our bill uses that power, and our project requires a threshold of states before it takes effect. So we need to pass states that hold a majority of the electors. That's 270. When we hit 270, our agreement goes into effect. We're gonna have a popular vote for president, you run a campaign, you add up the votes in all 50 states, you get the most votes, you go to the White House. We now have 196 of those 270 electors, so we're well on the way.
Benn Marine 26:30
Awesome. And for folks who maybe want to learn more or get involved, what can folks do or where should they go?
Chris Pearson 26:35
They can visit us at national popularvote.com, find us on Twitter or Facebook, um, and they should talk to their legislature, their own state legislator, and ask them to promote our bill.
Andrea Hildebrand Smith 26:47
Andrea Hildebrand Smith, and I work with Witness Homestead, which is the group of people who stand outside the child detention center in Homestead, Florida, on a daily basis. Um they have three major roles that they um that they fill there. One is to be a daily presence, just expressing opposition to what's happening. Um they also do their best to show love to the children who are inside because very occasionally they can see them over the fence, and that is a central part of their mission. And then a third part of what they do is collect information about this child detention center, which is run by a private company. Um, so just by being there, they are able to see things like shredding trucks that go in every day almost to shred documents, one assumes. Um ultrasound trucks that go in on a regular basis that we wouldn't know about if they weren't there. Um actually the role that John Kelly, uh Donald Trump's chief of staff, who um is a member of the board of directors, people didn't know that except that Witness Homestead saw him on a golf cart entering the camp and did, you know, connected the dots from that point. So anyway, they'd have a critical role in collecting information that's really been critical to the lawsuits. So I'm here at NetRoots actually because there's a need to find experienced activists who can join them. The campaign is at a uh a point where there's national attention and a lot of people are realizing this is a this is a terrible thing and they need to go join the witness. And generally a lot like many, many people come for a few hours or a day or maybe a day or two. Um and I am looking for seasoned organizers who have experience in uh witness or or other organizing um who will be very disciplined about interacting with a very difficult situation and orient the volunteers who come to witness who will, you know, get you would get trained if anyone who's in this role would get training from the core team and then help manage the camp for the day because it's growing and there's a need for people who can come and do this for four or five or seven days at a time. If someone's in a position to make a week that they can commit to homestead, um you could make all the difference.
Benn Marine 29:13
That's awesome. And so if folks are feeling like that's something that they have the capacity to do and they really want to, how do they get in touch with you all?
Andrea Hildebrand Smith 29:20
Uh they should email me at Andrea at resistance mom.com.
Benn Marine 29:26
Awesome. And then also I know that you have a podcast yourself. Do you want to tell folks a little bit about that as well?
Andrea Hildebrand Smith 29:31
Sure. My podcast is called Resistance Mom. And it is a podcast about the work of defending democracy. Um, particularly for parents who um are seeing the promise of equality and the promise of democracy itself being um taken away from our children. I and um I think it's a huge motivator for millions of people who have really rebuilt their lives around the task of building democracy here in the United States.
Ann Flohmanhaft 29:58
Sure, my name's Ann Flohmanhaft, and I'm the program associate at New American Leaders. Um, New American Leaders is leading a movement for inclusive democracy by getting new Americans, first and second generation Americans to run for office, work on campaigns. Awesome.
Megan Cagle 30:16
Hi, thank you so much for having us on. I'm Megan Cagle, I'm the director of communications with New American Leaders, and like Ann said, we are leading a movement to create an inclusive democracy by training first and second generation Americans to run for office and then supporting inclusive democracy at every level of government.
Benn Marine 30:34
Awesome, and so what does that look like in practice? So are you how are you like actively recruiting folks or or encouraging folks to go to your website? How what what does that look like?
Ann Flohmanhaft 30:42
Sure, so um we have the first six months of the year we do a ready-to-lead training all across the country, um, and we go into different states. And folks can definitely look us up on social at New AmericanLD, um, and we'll release our training dates in November. Basically, our ready to lead is our stable training, and it basically uh real lets people realize that their American experience makes them the ideal public servant.
Benn Marine 31:08
Awesome, great. Anything else you want to share with folks?
unknown 31:11
Yeah.
Megan Cagle 31:12
We are here at NetRoots, and we're so excited to be with everyone. This is an incredible gathering of leaders from across the country, and we are so excited to be working with them to have everyone join our movement to create an inclusive democracy. Especially right now, it's more important than ever that we work together to make sure that everyone is represented and included in our government, and that means people running for office, supporting on campaigns, and being the incredible advocates that they are in communities. We need everyone to be seen and represented so that we can create a government that works for all people.
Elliot Golden 31:43
Yeah, my name is Elliot Golden. I'm co-founder and manage campaigns at Civic Shout. Uh and at its core, we're an acquisition service. And instead of powering everything through petitions, we run congressional messaging campaigns. And we're helping a lot of people speak up and help folks build their list in the process. So instead of people just signing on to a petition, at that moment we're able to drive a ton of action. Sort of helping causes and companies, all progressive, uh, get way more for their acquisition spend. Uh, and it's built on top of a platform that's similar to change.org. Uh so you can run your own campaigns, you can author one, send it out to your community, or you can drive your own traffic to it, drive tons of advocacy and get names, or you can let us handle the heavy lifting for you and promote it through our channels and online uh, you know, yeah, on online acquisition.
Benn Marine 32:42
Awesome. And so and that is exclusively with progressive orgs. Uh and where where can folks find you again? Uh civicshout.com.
Joanna Williams 32:52
Yeah, my name is Joanna Williams. I work at Get Through. We specialize in contact tools, communication tools, so peer-to-peer texting, and we have a dialer, the only dialer on the market that can call cell phones legally. Awesome. And and you guys have a really interesting story. Uh, could you just share a little bit about that? Yeah, so we were founded by the folks who worked on Bernie 2016. Our D uh CEO, Daniel uh Suin, worked on Bernie 2016 as a national texting director, used Hustle for that. Um it was the first time Hustle had been used at scale uh for a major political campaign. Uh while using Hustle, uh the team noticed there were some gaps in terms of like just the architecture and structure and um capability of the program, so they decided to create uh Through Text, which is our texting tool. Uh we actually rebranded back in March. We used to be known as Relay, uh, but now we're get through is the company name, and our two products are ThruText and Through Talk. Through Text is our texting tool, it's a peer-to-peer texting, which just means that you can have one-to-one conversations at scale. And um our dialer is called Through Talk. And like I mentioned earlier, we can call cell phones, landlines at blazing uh lightning speeds. Over 300 calls per hour. So your volunteers can get set up uh with their phone banks and just have those calls uh coming through quickly. Awesome, thank you so much.
Dale McGrew 34:29
Hi Ben, I'm Dale McGrew with We Vote, and we're based in Oakland, California. We're an open source, nonpartisan national digital voter guide. What we do is we bring together advocacy uh endorsements from across the political spectrum so you can actually follow an individual organization to always see their endorsements, or you can follow a value or an issue that you care about.
Benn Marine 34:51
Awesome, and so that's really helping folks. Uh I'm thinking about like the average voter who maybe is like, I really want to vote, I don't really want to care, and I really want to be educated, but I don't even know where to begin.
Dale McGrew 35:01
How does this help those folks? Absolutely. So I envision someone sitting on BART or sitting on the Metro in New York, pulling out their phone, downloading the app, and actually just that they heard about through a friend or they got a link sent to them, and it just follow a few issues and your ballot starts to light up with all the endorsements. You know, we as an organization are totally nonpartisan, we don't endorse, but there's a lot of wise folks who put a lot of time thinking about why they should choose one candidate or a certain measure.
Benn Marine 35:31
Awesome. So talk us through what it actually looks like. So people go through, they log into the app, they see the different issues, they say, I care about these things, and then and then what happens from there?
Dale McGrew 35:42
Well, I'm pretty impatient, and I have a lot of friends who are impatient. So what we do is we've tried to streamline and really reduce all the friction just the way that Facebook, you know, did that over early MySpace or over early Friendster. Facebook really rose because they were fast, they gave you what you wanted very quickly. Commentary aside, they're very good at usability. So we've focused a lot on that. We have over 27 engineers and designers who volunteered with us. We're mostly volunteer driven to make the app super fast. So what you see is literally what's on your ballot. You can you know go in and see what are the organizations that are have written commentary, kind of like Yelp for Politics, where you can actually see all the endorsements and say, well, I want to listen to this one and that one, and who are the supporters, who are the opposers, and just makes it real easy. Awesome. And how accessible is this? It's a free app for anybody, or or how does how how can people utilize it? Totally free. Yeah, you can and you can basically use the website, iOS or Android. Yeah, it's really it's a labor of love. A lot of folks have put a lot of a lot of their juju into it. Awesome, and where can people learn more and where can people download and find it? Uh uh. So we're in either app store, we're at Weavote. At Weevote is at Twitter as well. We're also at Weevote.us. Awesome, thanks so much, Dale. I appreciate it. Yeah, thanks for running this podcast. It's awesome.
Nicole Hobbs 37:03
Nicole Hobbs, every district.
Benn Marine 37:06
Drew Morrison, every district. All right, perfect. Awesome. So tell me a little bit about every district, how you got started, and uh what you hope to accomplish with it.
Nicole Hobbs 37:16
Sure. So my name is Nicole Hobbs. I'm one of the co-founders of Every District and also serve as our executive director.
Drew Morrison 37:23
I'm Drew Morrison, political director with every district.
Nicole Hobbs 37:27
And like many young organizations, every district was started in the wake of the 2016 election. Uh, so we have three co-founders. We all had a background in local politics and campaigns, but none of us were working in politics at the time. So after the 2016 election, we asked ourselves, how can we make the next election very different from the one that we just experienced? And given the political landscape of 2017, it was clear that Virginia was going to be the battleground state. And so we wanted to be involved there to help candidates. And given our backgrounds in local politics and campaigns, we wanted to help candidates not necessarily running in statewide races, but in more local races. So in early 2017, we went out looking for an organization that could tell us where there were competitive districts in Virginia and how we could connect with potential candidates running in those districts. And in you know, February of 2017, that organization didn't exist. And so that's how every district got started. We started reaching out to candidates, uh, trying to figure out what we could do to help them. It became clear that fundraising was a huge need for candidates. And really the second biggest issue that we had was figuring out where there were competitive districts in Virginia. So we got our hands on some data, uh, created the Every District Legislative District Index, which is the competitiveness ranking that we assigned to state legislative districts to understand where there are competitive districts. Um, and from there, we had a great election night in Virginia in 2017, uh, worked with a bunch more candidates in 2018, and are continuing on from there, and that's really our origin story.
Benn Marine 39:08
That's awesome. And now you have this data is available nationwide. Tell me a little bit about how, like, let's say somebody organizing or or somebody that just like really wants to get involved in a legislative push on whatever issue and they're interested in those candidates. How can they utilize this outside of, because this information I feel like is typically only accessible to those working on those higher income campaigns.
Drew Morrison 39:35
That's exactly right. The way that people can get involved is by going on our website, everydistrict.us, we have the competitiveness of every single state legislative district across the country on an interactive map on our website. And folks can see where in their communities are their districts where they can make a change. And what we do is we work with the candidates in those competitive districts. So as elections come up, we provide easy ways to both fundraise and volunteer for those candidates. So, for example, we're working in Virginia and Mississippi in 2019 right now, and we have the candidates, you can see where their districts are, how competitive their districts are, and how you can sign up to go work a phone banking shift or to donate $25 or raise even more to help them win. Cool, awesome. Uh, any other thoughts you want to leave with folks? You know, one thing we think is so important is to democratize both the information that's available, and that's what we've done through our legislative district index in our map, but also the approach to fundraising. You know, we really don't take an organizing approach to fundraising traditionally, and that's the second piece of what we do is after you've found out about districts in your community you care about, you can become what we call a fundraising champion. Whereas opposed to those emails you get saying, you know, on July 31st, if you don't donate, something terrible is going to happen. You can use relational organizing tactics to engage with your friends and family about what these elections would mean. So we really think that fundraising should become organizing so it really builds momentum for the future, and that's what we work on if you're interested. Awesome, thank you both so much. I appreciate it.
Speaker 26 41:09
Thanks so much for having us on.
Brian Young 41:11
Uh yeah, I'm Brian Young, I'm the executive director at Action Network, and we build tools for the movement. We're 100% owned by a nonprofit, and we built originally the first thing we built was a distributed events tool for the Black Friday strikes back in 2012. And then we built, extended that to a full email mobilization tool set. And just recently we built the first tool set really designed by and with on-the-ground organizers. To, because I feel like as a movement, we have very good mobilization tools, but we've always been lacking in real good organizing tools built to the organizing tradition.
Benn Marine 41:47
Yeah, that's awesome. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Because I I think we may have spoken earlier about how it's so relationship-based. Can you talk about how this particular the name of the tool and then how it's used in that relational way?
Brian Young 41:59
Sure, the tool set's called Action Builder, and you make a good point about the relationships. When you think about mobilization tool sets or the voter file or all these, or anything commercial, it really reduces people to a digital profile and a set of data that then you can reach that person and get them to do something. The commercial world tries to get them to buy shoes or whatever. And as a movement, we try to get them to do societally beneficial things like vote, donate to our organizations, contact their legislator, but it's still that same model of people, individuals that we're reaching with a message in a blast email sort of context. And organizing is not that. Organizing is about trusting relationships between two people and within a community. You know, when you think about the really societally game-changing campaigns and organizing efforts, civil rights, the union movement, suffrage, it was people taking very risky actions. If you're gonna sit at a lunch counter when people that look like you should not sit at that lunch counter and might get beaten up and arrested for sitting at that lunch counter, you have to know that there's a web of trusted relationships and a community around you backing you up. And that's what organizing is all about. It's about building that kind of trust, connecting with people, building that community so you can take collective action to really empower your community. So our tool set is built to that tradition. It's about leadership development. And when you develop leader, like take a canvas or a voting contact tool, the person knocking on the door is just a data gathering device, essentially, when it comes to the tool set. That's all they are, they're not really represented. Whereas in organizing, that's your leader. That's the key to the whole effort. So in our tool set, we do a lot to foster leadership development and tracking leaders' activities over time and the relationships they build over time. So it makes organizing visible and durable in a way that we've never really been able to as a movement. Because a lot of organizing still happens on pen and paper and in your head. So being able to do it in a system makes that organizing effort. If a volunteer is doing the organizing and then Because volunteers are busy and they have other things to do, now their work is gone because it's all in their head mostly. But with Action Builder, you'll be able to see that organizer's work and then maybe get another leader to take over that work. So organizing becomes something that you build over time and your program can build over time and you're constantly building power at every step.
Benn Marine 44:19
That's awesome. And then what um you you also have, I think was Action Network as well. And how is that, how does that complement Action Builder and how is it different?
Brian Young 44:29
Yeah, that is where I think things get especially exciting. Action Network and Action Builder are the two tool sets. Action Network is an email mobilization tool. It is it was originally different because of the distributed nature of what we did, like those Walmart strikes, you you know, in the events on the Black Friday, you could go to a website, put in your zip code, find the local event. If there was an event, you could host your own. Things we do as a movement a lot now, Women's March, March for Our Lives, that was the first of those because the technology empowered that work. But it's still mobilization. And mobilization is really good for capturing people's energy in a moment and turning it into action, like the Women's March is a classic example. But you think of there's these spikes that you capture with mobilization moments in your campaign. Suddenly your issue is hot and you can get a lot of people to turn out. Inevitably that falls off, and that's where the organizing needs to happen. So you have a mobilization, you get a lot of people to turn out to an event, you get a lot of people to sign a petition, whatever, you capture that data in the mobilization tool, but then you can pull it into the organizing tool, and that's your organizing universe because you know these people care about this particular issue enough to take at least that action. And then you start contacting them, developing some of them as leaders, and they can talk to their other community members about this, and then your next mobilization is going to be bigger because you have this organizing infrastructure. And then that bigger mobilization gets pulled into your organizing program, which makes your organizing program bigger, which makes your next mobilization bigger. So you're constantly on the upslope of building power. And it's those two things working in concert is where that can really happen.
Benn Marine 45:59
Awesome, that's great. And for folks that want to check it out or give it a try, where should they go?
Brian Young 46:04
Uh ActionBuilder.org. Um we are in the early stages of it. We launched it three months ago, so there's a sign-up form. You can sign up to learn more, keep on the get on the waiting list to use it because we have we have a waiting list, people are already using it, and we're trying to manage the growth of it carefully. And Action Network, we have a free version of the tools because we really are trying to empower grassroots users so they can get started right away, building events, emailing people through the blast emailer, etc. etc. Um, so they can start using that right away, get on the any organization get on the wait list for Action Builder, and as we start rolling out wider and wider, more and more people will be able to use it.
Benn Marine 46:43
Alright, folks, and now the moment you've all been waiting for. Uh while at the conference, I went around and asked a lot of different organizers that were just passing through the halls, walking around uh the the town square where all the vendors are, and I was asking folks all the same question. If you had one piece of advice for organizers, what would it be? Hear some of what they had to say. Just keep trying. And that goes double for the women.
Speaker 19 47:14
Listen to the communities who are most impacted. I think it's about listening to people's stories and giving people the space to tell their stories because it's in our lived experiences uh and the experiences of the people who want to make change that that change can really happen.
Joanna Williams 47:29
Organization, you know, just network is the key. Uh don't forget the power of relational organizing, right? So uh helping to build capacity in others, building their skill set. Um as an organizer, you don't have to do it all. You want to empower folks to um develop the skills and talents that they have so they can also become organizers.
Speaker 23 47:50
Is relationship building. We spend too much time trying to contact people just to get a name and build our numbers, but we never really take the time to do the one-on-one to get to know the people. I mean, you really can't get people out and agitate them to where they can come out to stand for the issues if you don't know what it is that interests them. So get to know the people and build a relationship with them. And then when you know something that they would like to fight for, then that's when you call them.
Speaker 2 48:22
Uh build relationships and connect with uh those local to you first and then expand out.
Speaker 48:28
The one tip that I've always learned is relationships are everything. That's how you succeed. So always, even if you're not here, try to find out, you know, through social media or anything to try to connect with people and see what they're doing.
Speaker 5 48:39
Organizing and this work for justice and making the world more fair and more just, it has to, you have to take your ego out of it. It has to be selfless. Um people's lives are at stake and it can't be about us.
Speaker 28 48:50
Self-care. Self-care is going to be so important for us right now. It's easy to lose ourselves through all of this because we want to be there and help others, but we also need to take care of ourselves too.
Speaker 1 49:01
Um, I would go to the younger kids so they have, so they know what you're doing.
Speaker 30 49:06
It would be to remember that part of organizing is building relationship and community. So in order to really go to the table and have something to offer, you need to know what you have to offer. It requires a lot of self-reflection. And once you've done that, and perhaps you need to do it on a more regular basis, uh, then you're more in tune to what you're actually offering to others and how to tap into that with them and create community.
Speaker 15 49:37
Never forget that search engines exist and never assume that a resource doesn't exist before you've looked for it.
Speaker 27 49:44
Well, um, as a mom of a kid who has a learning disability, I would talk a little more about education reform and what we can do to empower parents around bullying and how to close the gap between public and private institutions.
Speaker 20 50:00
Take care of yourself. Don't let the movement kill you. It's like fight for what you want to fight for and what we need to fight for, but make sure that you're taking care of yourself and the people you work with at the same time, or we can't make it. That's super real. Do you have any tips for folks? Number one, let's start with like go home. Um, and you know, we know for a fact that working above a 50-hour work week does not increase, like it massively decreases productivity. Don't do it. Go home, get rest, come back fresh and ready to go.
Nancy Stolnaker 50:32
My name is Nancy Stolnaker, also known as the Data Diva by interns that wish to suck up to me. I have been working in campaigns for 15 years. Six of that was in field, nine of that in data. So I've got a couple of quick van data tips for you. So, one is that if you're worried you might have gotten logged out of your van screen and you don't want to lose your work, don't worry. All you have to do is open up another tab and go to van. If you were logged out, then you can log back in in that tab, go back to your original one to save your cut turf or data entry or whatever without worrying about losing it. This could easily at some point save you from having to completely recuff that massively complicated turf that you got a phone call in the middle of. Another thing to keep in mind when you are doing data entry from paper, best thing to do is barcodes. But if you do have to do grid view, this will make things a little faster. In the upper right hand of the screen is a small gear. If you click on that, you can change the display settings. So one of the things you can do is you can remove fields you don't need. Like, for instance, you probably don't need someone's phone number or their state and zip code. So you can pull those out so that you don't see them. When you go back to the main screen, it will be narrower, so it may fit on one screen, and you don't have to scroll side to side, as long as you don't have a super long script. Also, you can change the number of rows that show up. So if you are entering, say, phone lists and there's 13 people per page, you can change it so that Van will display to you 13 people at a time, and that way one screen on your computer matches up to one piece of paper. This can make it much easier to keep track of everyone. Doesn't work as well with canvassing because the number of people on any given page varies more. And for more data tips, you can follow me at datadeva underscore net at Twitter, and I give out regular campaign tips.
Benn Marine 52:22
Awesome, thank you so much. What about do you have uh, maybe for folks who aren't familiar with Van or are maybe new to organizing, do you have like a like one piece of advice that you wish every organizer in the world knew?
Nancy Stolnaker 52:34
The really important thing with organizing is being able to work hard and really caring, and people can tell. This is all a game of passion, but please do take care of yourself. Um, for instance, make sure you get enough vitamin C. There are little cough drops that have vitamin C instead of menthol in them. Buy a pack of a hundred of them and have everyone take a couple a day. Gummy vitamins. Gummy vitamins are also super important because since you don't need water, you don't ever have to go, oh, I want a vitamin, but I can't take one because then I'd have to open up another bottle of water. And because they essentially taste like candy, you'll look forward to it. So you'll actually take them and then you'll get your riboflavin because takeout does not have much riboflavin. I think. I'm not a nutritionist, I do spreadsheets. Awesome, thank you so much.
Benn Marine 53:27
Thank you, team, so much for tuning in to this week's episode of uh the Ocean of Organizing podcast. And as always, if you have feedback from me, I would love to hear it. Uh head over to oceanoforganizing.com, check on that, click on that little feedback link, and let me know your thoughts. Also, this week's show notes you can find at oceanoforganizing.com forward slash Netroots. I'll have links to everyone who was in the show today, as well as some extras and a link to Netroots Nation. Netroots Nation, while I know a lot of these conferences can be cost prohibitive, uh not only just in the cost to register and attend, but also there's travel and all of those things are involved. Netroots does do a fairly good job of making it accessible with different scholarship opportunities. I know also there's different nonprofits out there too that will sponsor your attendance. So if you're listening to this episode, you're like, oh my gosh, I'd love to go to something like that. And and this really just barely scratches the surface. This is mostly all the coverage just from the town square where all the vendors uh hang out and where I was hanging out during the conference. Um at the at the organizing booth. But there are workshops, a plethora of workshops happening all day on every day during the conference. So definitely worth checking out. I'll have links to all of that um in the show notes as well as some of some videos from the different vendors. Keep up with a good fight, team. Thank you. I appreciate you. Be well.
