To build consistent voter turnout beyond star candidates, funders must shift from late-cycle spam to early, year-round investments in community-based civic education, trusted messengers, and leadership development.
It seems counterintuitive to focus on voter turnout in New York City, given the stunning results of November’s election. The momentum behind Zohran Mamdani’s impressive victory shows that a compelling candidate, actually addressing issues that matter to everyday New Yorkers, will bring folks out of the woodwork. This Fall, turnout nearly doubled among eligible voters in New York City. But the truth is that we won’t always have a Mamdani, and we can’t rely solely on impressive candidates to get folks, especially the most marginalized among us, out to the polls.
And yet, every election, mailboxes will be stuffed to the brim with mailers, inboxes will be overrun with pleas to turn out, and the airwaves will be crowded with the familiar list of promises and fear-mongering. While some of this will be valuable information and a helpful reminder to vote, most of it is just what we call it: spam! Funders and their PACs will throw money at elections in the final days in hopes of reaching voters who have not yet made up their minds or need a final push to get to their polling place. The irony is that if they had invested this money earlier, it might have gone further towards building meaningful and engaging campaigns.
Now, some would be correct to point out that some of these funders are nefarious actors who aren’t interested in movement-building and choose to peddle in fear-mongering and xenophobia. But for those who do want to build a better, more inclusive politics in our city, these dollars could have and should have been invested in these campaigns months ago.
For as long as I can remember, the narrative that New Yorkers are “bad at voting” has been widespread, often suggesting we’re too busy, too lazy, or just too uninformed to engage in elections. With only a 21% turnout in the June 2021 mayoral race and just 6% in the June 2023 local elections, it’s easy to see why. The reality is that many barriers keep New Yorkers — especially the most marginalized among us — from casting our ballots.
My research set out to uncover what’s going on and determine how funders can help. I interviewed six individuals working in civic engagement in New York City, who support the hardest-to-reach New Yorkers to overcome these barriers, about what they want funders to consider when resourcing programs. Here are the topline takeaways:
- Give early. Many organizations receive large, late-cycle gifts that they can’t use effectively. Giving to campaigns late in the cycle makes it harder for organizations to plan, leading to stress and staff burnout. The All By April Pledge is one example of funders taking action by making their donations, all of them, by April.In my time working in elections, I have seen incredible, fast-paced work. In the 2024 midterm, I supported an organization that received a late-cycle donation of $20,000 designated for field outreach. They quickly hired a short-term organizer to stand up and execute a paid canvas operation. Within 10 days of the election, the director found a location, hired seven canvassers, printed scripts, cut turf, and knocked on almost 2500 doors –– truly impressive. But their candidate? He lost by 8 points. Anyone who knows the first thing about field campaigns knows that that is no field margin, and that $20k, gone the way of a tired yard sign. What if that donor had taken the approach of thinking about the community they wanted to turn out and invested that $20k earlier in the year? Perhaps the organization could have implemented a relational strategy into their GOTV mix; they could have run an ongoing voter registration canvassing campaign. They could have designated a portion of an organizer’s time early on to see how best to support the ongoing efforts. Who knows if it would have made a difference in the turnout, but for the same amount of money, the local organization and community would be stronger for it.
- Make civic engagement a year-round priority. When civic engagement is woven into year-round or regular programming, people feel more confident navigating the voting process, and community organizations build a culture of engagement. People need multiple opportunities to register to vote, and the less political and more mundane the environment, the better. This is why registering to vote when you get your driver’s license remains one of the most effective voter registration methods around. Places like community centers and public libraries are great locations for voter registration. While it is not the sexiest of programming, this kind of civic engagement plays a critical role in meeting our communities where they are. And having ongoing opportunities for people to register means that individuals know where they can go to update their information.
- Support community training and civic education. You can’t expect people to participate in elections if they don’t know how or why it matters. Many communities aren’t engaging in elections because no one has explained how the government impacts their daily lives. Investing in civic education builds lifelong voters, not just one-off participants. One of the most common challenges that came up for the organizers I interviewed was a gap in civic education. Caroline Scown, training manager with the Chinese American Planning Council, one of the largest non-profit providers of educational, social, and community services for Asian-Americans in the United States, explained that voting is not something that appeals to many of their members who are recent immigrants from China. In some cases, they are fleeing persecution from their government and therefore don’t respond to messages like “Your vote is your voice” or “Make your voice heard this election!” Caroline used her small program budget to do a community training series where she helped residents map the connections between the challenges facing their communities –– food insecurity, housing affordability, and accessing social services –– and drew direct lines to the elected officials responsible for enacting those changes. Through better understanding these connections, participants were motivated to vote in local elections and mobilize their families and communities to do the same.
- Invest in leadership development. Organizations and movements thrive when they have strong local civic engagement leaders. Leadership doesn’t just happen; it’s built. When funders support leadership development through multi-year grants and higher program budgets, they set organizations up to impact voter turnout for years to come.Tell me if this sounds familiar: a local community organization receives a small grant to do ongoing civic engagement work. A role is posted for a position that pays a barely legal salary for an entry-level staffer. The position includes nights and weekends. And even when (sometimes especially when) they hire someone great, that person has moved on before the year is out for a better gig. By investing in leadership development, funders can support organizations in hiring more senior program managers and providing them with ongoing support, keeping staff around for multiple cycles, building institutional memory, and stronger programming in the process.
- Support relational and trusted messenger outreach programs. Investing in GOTV programs with a strong relational and/or trusted messenger component allows community leaders to turn out their communities using authentic language and meeting communities where they are. The best messengers are the ones already embedded in the community. In 2022, a small racial justice organization based at a local commuter school received C3 funds to run a voter registration and mobilization fellowship. They were very clear in their GOTV goals (something this organizer LOVES) that the focus of their outreach was Black youth between the ages of 18 and 25, living in central Brooklyn. They hired six fellows to execute the program, who were all part of that demographic, but rather than focus on turning out their communities, the program purchased modeled lists. Unsurprisingly, much of the data was inaccurate or outdated (a problem often amplified in marginalized and urban communities), and the result was the fellows dreading their outreach work and everyone feeling ineffective. After successfully making the case to the funder that a relational strategy would be more effective, the program manager revamped the program to focus on activating community members, and the youth in the program learned about organizing their community and had higher-quality and more enjoyable conversations throughout the rest of the cycle.
To dive deeper, check out the research behind these recommendations:
- Barriers to Voting in Low-income Communities, Immigrant Communities, and Communities of Color
- One-Pager on Recommendations
- Presentation on findings
Special thanks to the following individuals for their contributions to this project: Karla Bradley, Interim Executive Director, New York Civic Engagement Table; Carolyn Scown, Civic Engagement and Training Manager, Chinese American Planning Council; Edward Garcia, Organizing Co-director, Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition; Lena Cohen, Senior Policy Analyst, United Neighborhood Houses; Isaiah Fenichel, Hudson Valley lead Network Organizer, Citizen Action of NY; Louisa Hacket, Executive Director, Community Votes; and Jill Gross, Director Graduate Program in Urban Policy & Leadership, Hunter College and advisor on this project.
