8 Comments
Jun 2, 2021Liked by Micah L. Sifry

Fabulous! As someone whose degree is in the same field and who volunteers with League of Women Voters this post is a breath of fresh air! Sharing widely.

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Jul 17, 2021Liked by Micah L. Sifry

+++++1 this article. I'm not a developer but worked at a leading e-commerce company obsessed with the customer experience for 15 years. I have 5 years of experience now in political organizing. This article rings so true in every way that I have goosebumps.

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author

I'm curious what your team has learned about the impact of the postcarding strategy. I've seen studies suggesting that it isn't very effective at moving votes.

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I would love to connect with you about that, bc there is extremely strong evidence that postcards are effective and along with handwritten letters the most cost-effective way to mobilize Democratic voters. I recently published our studies that were previously only behind the Analyst Institute paywall on our website in the FAQ section, along with a blog that provides some additional context:

https://www.turnoutpac.org/postcards-faq/

Shoot me an email if you'd be open to talking more about this. I know we both know Aram Fischer and Lara Putnam and I'm a big fan of yours! reid.mccollum@turnoutpac.org

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I retweeted this tonight, Micah, because it is so relevant NOW! https://twitter.com/patticrane/status/1496367443241213952

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Yes. Sadly, nothing has really changed on this front.

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I launched a small progressive training and capacity building organization a month ago. When I tell fellow progressive political workers that I'm spending a very non-zero chunk of my time collaborating with a former colleague who's a human-centered designer to figure out affordable user research and testing that builds personalized, accessible ladders of engagement for volunteers, they look at me like I've lost my mind.

This writeup is so affirming and such a wonderful breakdown of how to center this work for any of us in the distributed organizing space. I now have it as one of the top 5 bookmarks that I can go back to and reference throughout the building process.

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Libby Falck's guest post about building a case for human-centered design in organizing https://theconnector.substack.com/p/digital-organizing-as-if-volunteers is very apropos.

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