2012 Webinar Series Schedule

The general election will be here before you know it, so to help you prepare we're hosting a webinar every month until November. We'll cover a variety of voter engagement topics to ensure you know how to conduct registration drives, educate voters, and get out the vote--all while staying nonpartisan! Remember, our webinars are free for 501(c)(3) organizations and will be available on our YouTube channel.

See the full webinar lineup for 2012.

New and Updated Factsheets

To help you prepare for this year's election, we've updated and expanded our factsheet series! In addition to information on 501(c)(3) permissible activities and working with candidates, we have new factsheets on:

• Election Day Registration, explaining what it is, which states have it, and how it helps voters keep their registration current.
• Expanding Voter Registration Opportunities, discussing advances in online voter registration and pre-registration that streamline the registration process and make it more accessible.
• The National Voter Registration Act, describing the role of public assistance agencies that are required to offer voter registration to clients.

Visit our full factsheet library to learn more about these and other topics, including state voting laws for ex-offenders, ballot measure advocacy, and what nonprofit staff can do on and off the clock.

January Webinar: Making a 2012 Plan

With 2012 underway, it's important for your nonprofit to think about how you plan to register, educate, and engage voters. Join us for:

Plan Ahead: Building a Voter Engagement Timeline for 2012
Thursday January 26th, 2:00-3:00pm Eastern

In this webinar we'll discuss when, where and how to incorporate voter engagement activities into your work. We'll also help you develop and tailor a 2012 voter engagement timeline for your organization. Don't miss this opportunity to start building your 2012 voter engagement plan!

Featured Presenter: Jeff Narabrook is the Public Policy Associate at the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits. Jeff leads their voter participation efforts as director the Minnesota Participation Project.

Recent Trends in Youth Civic Engagement

A new CIRCLE study, "Understanding a Diverse Generation: Youth Civic Engagement in the United States," provides an in-depth analysis of recent youth civic engagement trends. The findings challenge many common myths about the ways in which young people (ages 18-29) are involved in our political system.

The study found that at least three quarters of youth were somehow engaged in their community or in politics in both 2008 and 2010--but in very different ways. Six distinct patterns of engagement emerged in 2010:

• The Broadly Engaged (21% of youth) fill many different leadership roles.
• The Political Specialists (18%) are focused on voting and other forms of political activism.
• The Donors (11%) give money but do little else.
• The Under-Mobilized (14%) were registered to vote in 2010 but did not actually vote or participate actively.
• The Talkers (13%) report discussing political issues and are avid communicators online, but do not take action otherwise.
• The Civically Alienated (23%) hardly engage at all.

See a visual representation of these numbers.

Although this data contradicts the bleak and homogenous picture often painted by the media, it is still clear that many young people are not fully engaged. Other research suggests that some of them could be persuaded to vote if they were directly asked to participate or if voting seemed more accessible--something nonprofits can address. Learn more about nonprofit voter engagement and how your organization can increase participation rates in your community.

(Image Source)

RSVP for Thursday's Webinar

There's still time to register for this week's webinar (and our final one of 2011). We'll help you start planning for next year's general election and how your nonprofit can maximize your impact with the resources you already have.

Plan Ahead: Building a Voter Engagement Timeline for 2012
Thursday December 1st, 2:00-3:00pm Eastern

The 2012 presidential election will be here soon, and it's time to start thinking about your nonprofit's plan for registering, educating, and engaging voters. This webinar will cover when, where, and how to incorporate nonpartisan voter engagement activities into your work. We'll also help you develop and tailor a 2012 voter engagement timeline for your organization. Don't miss this opportunity to start building a voter engagement plan for 2012 now!

Upcoming Webinar: Making a Plan for 2012

Our final webinar of 2011 will start you thinking about next year's general election and how your nonprofit can maximize your impact with the resources you already have.

Plan Ahead: Building a Voter Engagement Timeline for 2012
Thursday December 1st, 2:00-3:00pm Eastern

The 2012 presidential election will be here soon, and it's time to start thinking about your nonprofit's plan for registering, educating, and engaging voters. This webinar will cover when, where, and how to incorporate voter engagement activities into your work. We'll also help you develop and tailor a 2012 voter engagement timeline for your organization. Don't miss this opportunity to start building a voter engagement plan for 2012 now!

New Report on Turnout Gaps in 2010 Midterm

We're pleased to announce that our new voter turnout report, Voter Participation Gaps in the 2010 Midterm Election, is now available! It is the latest in our America Goes to the Polls series, and is based on the newly released biennial Census survey on voting and registration. The report tracks, analyzes, and explains income, age, education, and disability voting gaps. Prominent turnout gaps include:

• Age - 24% of youth (ages 18-29) turned out in 2010, a sharp drop from 51.1% in 2008.
• Household Income - There was a 20 point turnout gap between members of lower income and higher income households.
• Educational Attainment - Only 35% of those with a high school diploma or less turned out in 2010, compared to 61% of those with a college degree or more.
• Mobility - There was a 34 point turnout gap between individuals who had resided in their home for less than a year (28%) and those who had resided in their home for at least 5 years (62%).
• Disability - The survey included data on voters with disabilities and found that turnout among individuals with hearing difficulty actually exceeded turnout for those with no disability by 4 points.

Download the report to learn more about voting gaps. Then visit the Resources section of our website to see how your nonprofit can help close them.

October Webinar Recap

Thank you to everyone who joined last Thursday's webinar, States Move to Restrict Voting: How Nonprofits Can Protect the Right to Vote. And a special thanks to Megan Donovan and Ellis Jacobs for sharing their expertise with us.

The presentation and associated materials are now available: Watch the presentation online (with audio) or download the PowerPoint and audio file. If you have additional questions about voter suppression and voting rights, please feel free to contact our presenters:

Megan Donovan
Staff Attorney, Fair Elections Legal Network
mdonovan@fairelectionsnetwork.com

Ellis Jacobs
Senior Attorney, Advocates for Basic Legal Equality
ejacobs@ablelaw.org

FELN creates regular Voter Suppression Updates, which are posted on their blog along with other news and updates. We also mentioned these two reports from the Brennan Center for Justice:

• Citizens without Proof: A Survey of Americans' Possession of Documentary Proof of Citizenship and Photo Identification
• The Cost of Voter ID Laws: What the Courts Say, which contains a section on what states need to do to educate voters

Register Now for Thursday's Webinar

There's still time to register for this week's webinar on recent election law changes!

States Move to Restrict Voting - How Nonprofits Can Defend the Right to Vote
Thursday October 27th, 2:00-3:00pm Eastern

2011 has seen an unprecedented nationwide effort to pass legislation that creates voter registration barriers and limits access to the polls. New laws require voters to provide photo ID at the polls, mandate proof of citizenship before registering to vote, and place severe restrictions on third party voter registration drives. These new regulations have the potential to disenfranchise millions of Americans, and will disproportionately affect lower-income, minority, youth, and older voters. Join us for a discussion of these troubling trends and efforts to counter them.

Featured Presenter: Megan Donovan is a staff attorney with the Fair Elections Legal Network. She has also worked as a legislative advocate for the Center for Reproductive Rights and a contract attorney for The Campaign Legal Center.

New Hurdles: States Restrict Voting Rights

Earlier this month, the Brennan Center published a new report on "Voting Law Changes in 2012" that details and analyzes the bills that have been proposed and passed since the beginning of this year. Most have made it much more difficult for citizens to both register and vote.

Restrictions have come in many forms, including:

• Photo ID requirements. Some states require voters to show government-issued photo ID that as many as one in ten voters do not have.
• Cuts to early voting, a hugely popular innovation used by millions of Americans. 
• Proof of citizenship laws that require a voter to provide proof of citizenship in order to register.
• Reversals of felon disenfranchisement reforms. Once again millions of individuals with past criminal convictions will be barred from participating in the political process. In fact, the report states that "Disenfranchisement after criminal conviction remains the single most significant barrier to voting rights in the United States."

The Brennan Center estimates that more than five million Americans could be affected by the new rules already put in place this year. The report also found that the restrictions will most heavily burden "young, minority, and low-income voters, as well as…voters with disabilities"—the populations that many of our nonprofits serve and "who have been historically locked out of our electoral system."

While many laws have been passed, some have faced fierce resistance from voters. In Ohio and Maine, citizen campaigns have forced referendums on new election laws in both states.

For more on this year's restrictive voting laws, tune in for our October 27th webinar, States Restrict Voting: How Nonprofits Can Defend the Right to Vote. In the meantime, encourage your clients to register to vote and ensure that they understand your state's laws.

(Image Source)

October Webinar: Defending the Right to Vote

Our October webinar will address new election laws that make it difficult for countless voters to register and cast their ballot. Many nonprofits are now wondering how to best help their clients participate under the new rules, but are also seeking information on how they can fight back against restrictive voting laws.

States Move to Restrict Voting - How Nonprofits Can Defend the Right to Vote
Thursday October 27th, 2:00-3:00pm Eastern

2011 has seen an unprecedented nationwide effort to pass legislation that creates voter registration barriers and limits access to the polls. New laws require voters to provide photo ID at the polls, mandate proof of citizenship before registering to vote, and place severe restrictions on third party voter registration drives. (In some states, these laws have not yet been implemented and are under review by the Justice Department to ensure compliance with the Voting Rights Act.) These new regulations have the potential to disenfranchise millions of Americans, and will disproportionately affect lower-income, minority, youth, and older voters. Join us for a discussion of these troubling trends and efforts to counter them.

Featured Presenter: Megan Donovan is a staff attorney with the Fair Elections Legal Network. She has also worked as a legislative advocate for the Center for Reproductive Rights and a contract attorney for The Campaign Legal Center.

New Census Data on 2010 Election

The Census Bureau has released data on "Voting and Registration in the Election of November 2010" that compares voting and registration patterns by demographic, social, and geographic characteristics. This release is the latest in a series of national reports that is one of the most frequently cited sources for registration and turnout data.

Last year, Hispanics comprised 7% of voters, the highest percentage ever for a non-presidential election. The percentage of non-Hispanic white voters was 77.5%, down from 80.4% in 2006. Tiffany Julian of the Census Bureau's Education and Social Stratification Branch noted that "The electorate looks much different than when we first started collecting these data 37 years ago," yet turnout and registration rates still do not mirror the nation's growing diversity.

There are persistent voting gaps for many of the populations that nonprofits serve. In addition to racial and ethnic gaps, economic gaps remain stark: People in families who earned $100,000 or more were more than twice as likely to vote as those who lived with families earning less than $20,000. Homeowners were more likely to both register and vote than renters.

Based on this data, Nonprofit VOTE will be issuing a report next month that details registration and turnout gaps, along with other relevant information for the nonprofit community. In the meantime, check out the full data files from the Census Bureau.

(Image Source)

September Webinar: Voter Registration for Nonprofits

As you may have heard, September is our favorite voter registration month, and it's this month's webinar topic too!

The ABCs of Nonpartisan Voter Registration
Thursday September 29th, 2:00-3:00pm Eastern

Registering to vote is the first and most necessary step to becoming an active and engaged voter. This webinar will explain how your nonprofit can conduct effective, nonpartisan voter registration, emphasizing on-site strategies. Our discussion will help you decide what makes the most sense for your nonprofit given staffing, time, and other constraints. We will also share Nonprofit VOTE's new Voter Registration Toolkit and other online tools that will help you plan and execute successful voter registration activities.

Featured Presenter: Bridgette Rongitsch is a consultant with Grassroots Solutions, a firm that helps nonprofits, campaigns, and other groups organize, train, and mobilize grassroots supporters. She is the former national director of Nonprofit VOTE and previously worked as an organizer for the Minnesota Participation Project.

Do Nonprofit Staff Vote?

Survey says…yes!

Earlier this year, the Silicon Valley Council of Nonprofits (SVCN) polled 560 nonprofit staff members to learn more about the sector's voting patterns. Respondents included 114 "executive and senior managers" and 446 "line-staff personnel," described as mid-managers, caseworkers, program and clerical staff, etc.

100% of executive and senior managers reported being registered to vote, along with 92% of line-staff. Overall, nonprofit staff were 49% more likely to be registered than the average Santa Clara county resident, where the survey was conducted. In California's 2010 midterm election, nonprofit staff turnout was 21% higher than the county average. In 2008 it was 12% higher.

In California's 2010 midterm election--which featured gubernatorial candidates--turnout among nonprofit staff was 21% higher than the rate for all county residents. In 2008 it was 12% higher. These participation rates help make the case for the sector's importance and impact, and it can also send a message to elected officials.

This study is exciting because there is almost no information on the voting habits of nonprofit staff. This data, along with other emerging research is building the quantitative case for what we already know anecdotally--that the nonprofit sector is a key player in the voter and civic participation field. Although the numbers are likely inflated due to an overestimation of self-reported behavior, Census surveys have found that the margin of error for voting questions is only a few percentage points.

Still, there are gaps to close within our ranks: respondents who identified themselves as Asian or Pacific Islander were about 12% less likely to be registered than other groups surveyed. Black respondents were about 29% less likely to have voted in the 2010 midterm election.

Nevertheless, it is safe to say that many nonprofit employees are already voting. While we often focus on the voting behavior of clients and constituents, your organization can also ensure all staff members are registered to vote by including a registration form in the paperwork for all new hires or adding a reminder to paycheck envelopes. Visit our website for materials and ideas.

(Image Source)

New Voter Registration Toolkit

Many states and municipalities have upcoming registration deadlines, so it's the perfect time to talk about one of our favorite voter engagement basics--voter registration!

We're pleased to present our new Voter Registration Toolkit for Nonprofits and Social Service Agencies. This toolkit describes the role nonprofits can play in registering voters and comes with:

• Seven Basic Principles for Agency-Based Voter Registration. This outline is accompanied by an easy-to-use checklist to help you plan and track your registration activities.
• A "Register to Vote" poster, available in either English or Spanish, to help you publicize your registration efforts.
• Seven Reasons Your Nonprofit Should Register Voters. This handout describes how voter registration benefits your organization, your clients, and your community.
• An online guide to voter registration for all 50 states. It includes information on eligibility and registration deadlines, links to check your registration status or download a registration form, and contact information for state and local elections officials.

The toolkit is available in both English and Spanish. Download the toolkit and associated materials directly from our website or order a print copy.

Yesterday's Webinar Now Available

Thanks for joining yesterday's webinar, Think Locally: The Value of Municipal and Regional Elections.

The PowerPoint presentation is now available, along with the audio portion of the presentation in MP3 format. You can also watch the full presentation, including audio, online.

If you have additional questions about municipal and local elections, please feel free to contact our presenters. They'd be happy to speak with you.

Efrain Escobedo
Executive Liaison for the LA County Registrar-Recorder
Email: EEscobedo@rrcc.lacounty.gov

Lindsey Hodel
Director of Training and Partnerships, Nonprofit VOTE
Phone: (303) 910-5700
Email: lhodel@nonprofitvote.org

Thanks for joining us this month--we'll be announcing our September webinar shortly, so stay tuned!

Register Now for Thursday's Webinar

You can still sign up for Thursday's webinar:

Think Locally: The Value of Municipal and Regional Elections
Thursday August 18th, 2:00-3:00pm Eastern

Typically, voter turnout is significantly lower in local elections than in national or statewide races. The upside is that municipal, city, and other regional elections give your nonprofit an unparalleled opportunity to boost turnout, simply by encouraging your clients and community to vote. Because local elections are intimate affairs, your organization can also build rapport with local candidates and elected officials who make many decisions that directly affect your organization and community. Join us for a discussion on how your nonprofit can effectively engage in local elections and maximize your impact--without overloading staff and volunteers.

Featured Presenters: Efrain Escobedo is the Executive Liaison for the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder, overseeing local elections throughout the county. Through his work, he also assists nonprofits interested in engaging in the electoral process. Lindsey Hodel is the Director of Training and Partnerships for Nonprofit VOTE, helping nonprofits across the country implement successful voter engagement programs. She has experience running a variety of voter engagement campaigns, both in Colorado and nationally.

Tweet

August Webinar: Valuing Local Elections

Although there are no presidential candidates on the ballot this year, your nonprofit and community still have plenty to gain from participating in local elections.

Think Locally: The Value of Municipal and Regional Elections
Thursday August 18th, 2:00-3:00pm Eastern

Typically, voter turnout is significantly lower in local elections than in national or statewide races. The upside is that municipal, city, and other regional elections give your nonprofit an unparalleled opportunity to boost turnout, simply by encouraging your clients and community to vote. Because local elections are intimate affairs, your organization can also build rapport with local candidates and elected officials who make many decisions that directly affect your organization and community. Join us for a discussion on how your nonprofit can effectively engage in local elections and maximize your impact--without overloading staff and volunteers.

Featured Presenters: Efrain Escobedo is the Executive Liaison for the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder, overseeing local elections throughout the county. Through his work, he also assists nonprofits interested in engaging in the electoral process. Lindsey Hodel is the Director of Training and Partnerships for Nonprofit VOTE, helping nonprofits across the country implement successful voter engagement programs. She has experience running a variety of voter engagement campaigns, both in Colorado and nationally.

Tweet

Last Week's Ballot Measure Webinar

Thanks to everyone who joined us for last week's webinar Laws on the Ballot: How Nonprofits Can Take a Stand on Ballot Questions. The presentation is now available as a PDF along with the audio portion. You can also watch the presentation with audio online.

If you have questions about how your nonprofit can take a stand on ballot questions, the Alliance for Justice has a toll free number you can call for technical assistance: 1-866-675-6229. As always, please feel free to follow up with our presenters if you have additional questions about the webinar.

Abby Levine
Legal Director, Advocacy Programs, Alliance for Justice
Phone: (202) 822-6070
Email: abby@afj.org

Ben Dudley
Executive Director, Engage Maine
Phone: (207) 553-7157
Email: ben@engagemaine.org

Lindsey Hodel
Director of Training and Partnerships, Nonprofit VOTE
Phone: (303) 910-5700
Email: lhodel@nonprofitvote.org

For more information about working on ballot questions, refer to the Alliance for Justice's Worry-Free Lobbying publication or visit their state law resources page for state-by-state information on ballot measures and disclosure laws. They also have a factsheet on ballot questions and recall elections.

You can also check out Nonprofit VOTE's ballot measures and nonprofits factsheet.

Tweet

July Webinar: How Nonprofits Can Work on Ballot Questions

In the spirit of American independence, join us for our July webinar on direct democracy.

Laws on the Ballot: How Nonprofits Can Take a Stand on Ballot Questions
Thursday July 28th, 2:00-3:00pm Eastern
Many states put laws and constitutional amendments on the ballot, asking voters to make critical public policy decisions at the polls. Often, nonprofits have a vested interest in the outcome because many ballot questions directly affect our organizations and communities. Learn how your nonprofit can take action and benefit from engaging the public around ballot measures. We will address why this is considered "lobbying," rather than "electioneering" and what nonprofits can do in their advocacy efforts for or against ballot measures.

Featured Presenters: Abby Levine is the Legal Director for Advocacy Programs at the Alliance for Justice. Prior to joining the Alliance, she was a Public Policy Analyst at the National Council of Nonprofit Associations (NCNA) where she monitored and analyzed issues affecting the nonprofit sector--such as challenges to nonprofit tax exemptions and advocacy, state budget cuts, streamlining government grants, and corporate governance. Stephanie Tama-Sweet co-chairs the Human Services Coalition of Oregon (HSCO), which advocates for the health and dignity of all Oregonians and has been involved with numerous ballot measures. She is also the Director of Government Relations for the American Heart Association in Oregon and previously served as a Public Policy Advocate at the Oregon Food Bank.

Tweet