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Engaging students as Volunteers and Voters
By Paul Rogat Loeb
What if colleges could register students as voters, help them educate themselves on the issues, and encourage them to volunteer in the campaigns of their preferred candidates? If they could register as many of America's 17 million students as are eligible, and engage as many as they can to volunteer in the electoral campaigns, it would make a huge impact, both on the coming election and on the lives of the students who participate.
As I describe below, two excellent higher education projects offer resources to get students engaged in precisely this way: the 2008 Campus Vote Initiative and Your Vote, Your Voice.Together, these sites offer all the resources anyone needs to fully engage their school in a full-scale non-partisan involvement effort. But neither budgeted staff time for follow-up. And without this person-to-person follow up, all their good work risks getting ignored, because people won't necessarily know about their resources to act on them.
To fill this gap, I'm doing a couple of things. First I’m hoping anyone on a campus will fill out the campus vote map I created so I can connect you with other people at you school, and with the national campus engagement efforts. Please fill out the map even we corresponded recently because it's a key part of how I'll link people together.
Together with my assistant, Dr Erica Kay, I've creatd a checklist drawing together engagement resources from both the 2008 Campus Vote Initiative and Your Vote, Your Voice. Schools have already said it's enormously useful and you can access it here. I've created a Campus Election volunteer guide, to tell you how to organize on your campus, and schools are finding it similarly useful..
I’m also consulting with Campus Compact's state offices to help them do the necessary nonpartisan outreach, building on their national initiative. Those I've spoken with are totally excited about participating, but because they haven't previously budgeted for this, they're going to need extra outside funding to hire the necessary staff. I'm trying to raise money so selected Compact offices can hire additional people to work directly with their member campuses and ensure they do all they can to engage their students. I'll be donating 10,000 from my lecture earnings to do this (if I net $60,000 instead of $70,000 this year, it's worth it), and will spend the bulk of the next couple months trying to raise tax deductible donations from every source I can find. Even modest donations, and you can give online through the main national non-profit portal, NetworkForGood
I'm also trying to find people who could volunteer in doing these critical follow-ups in the states that have the most competitive races, and where student actions and votes will clearly make a difference, who ever they choose to support. In some cases, faculty and staff are volunteering by phone and email in other states than the ones where htey live.. I hope you can participate in this too.
Here are the ways you can help, with more details below.
- Fill out the campus-involvement form with your name, school, contact info, and what you can do on your campus.
- Then use the checklist to engage your campus
- Pass this website onl to friends and colleagues who work in higher education and have them enter the information in the form so I can connect them with other interested people at their schools.
- If you have significant time to volunteer and are comfortable navigating college bureaucracies get back to me directly with a sense of your background and how much time you have to contribute. I'll then plug you into one of the key Campus Compact networks, and you can help them ensure the campuses in their state plug into the national efforts. (You'd be doing this by phone and email, so could do it from wherever you live).
- Contribute financially to this project, complementing the money I'll be personally donating, and the money I'm working to raise. Because the campus voter engagement efforts are nonpartisan, all donations are tax deductible. If one hundred people came up with $100 each, we could fund an additional state.
- Get your school to help support these efforts, by allocating service learning staff to help coordinate, or by offering stipends to students to help them reach out to other campuses.
Here's more information on the project's context and how you can help.
Engaging Students as Voters and Volunteers
When citizens start voting and volunteering at a young age, these habits tend to stick. And in this election, student votes and student volunteering will matter, whoever they support. If we build on their newfound passion and concern, their involvement could have a major impact on the election while also setting them on what could be a lifetime path of engagement.
As mentioned, Campus Compact, has created a wonderful resource to help schools get engaged, the 2008 Campus Vote Initiative. Along with Your Vote, Your Voice, this initiative encourages colleges and universities to register students to vote as they participate in orientation programs, sign up and attend classes, receive paychecks from student loans or campus jobs, and pursue other co-curricular activities. It also offers ways to help students reflect on the pivotal choices they'll be making, including structured days of campus-wide discussion. Finally, it offers powerful examples of ways colleges can help students volunteer with their favored candidates, or participate in related projects. Given sufficient institutional support, these kinds of efforts could make a tremendous difference, including by helping students engage their non-college peers, who historically vote at far lower rates.
But neither initiative has budgeted for the kind of personal follow-ups that are essential if we want to get the vast majority of America's campuses seriously involving their students in the election. As a result, their good work risks having far less impact than it might, because only through these direct follow-ups will the maximum number of schools be likely to take the available national resources and seriously run with them.
After extensive conversations, I've come up with an effective solution. With Campus Compact offices in almost every key state, they're in an ideal position to hire staffers or enlist volunteers to do these more personal follow-ups. I've worked with Compact's state offices for years and can't imagine a more effective network, or one whose judgment I'd trust more on finding the right individuals for this task.
So I'm proceeding on several simultaneous fronts:
I'm hoping to get as many faculty, staff and administrators as possible signing up to help engage their individual schools, using the resources on the national websites. If you can do that, and enlist others by passing on this email, it would make a major difference.
I'm also looking for people who have more time, and might be willing to volunteer (including by phone and email) with local Compact offices in the states with the most contested elections, and thefore the most potential to get students involved, whatever their political affiliations. They'd be doing the kinds of intensive person-to-person follow-ups that will be necessary to get individual campuses involved and taking advantage of all the available election engagement resources If you have time to help and are comfortable navigating academic bureaucracies (or know anyone else who is), I'd love to connect you with the efforts in your state, or if you're not in a competitive state, then efforts in states that are. If you're interested you can get back to me directly with a sense of your relevant background and a rough sense of how much time you'd be able to commit, either over the summer, or between now and the election. I'll then hook you up with one of the key Campus Compact offices, and you can work together with them to do follow-ups with their member schools.
My other approach is to raise tax deductible donations so Campus Compact offices in selected states to help with the follow-up. (Campus voter involvement efforts will of course be nonpartisan, as is appropriate for educational institutions. This also lets the donations be tax deductible).
The staffers they hire could be energetic graduate students. Or people like just-graduated University of Akron student body president Kyle Bohland, who's worked with Ohio Campus Compact since freshman year, served on their statewide board, and revived Ohio's statewide Student Association after a lengthy dormancy. The head of Ohio Campus Compact, who recommended him, thinks he's one of the most promising young leaders he's seen in years, and Kyle had already been talking with him about getting involved in exactly these kinds of efforts. I've now made a tentative commitment to hire him full-time because Ohio is so key, and he has equally skilled and enthusiastic counterparts throughout the country. Whoever the state offices enlist, they'd approach colleges and universities throughout their state networks to ensure they know about the excellent engagement resources now available, and help them participate as comprehensively as possible.
I'm also hoping that individual schools may be able to support this effort, whether by contributing extra to their local state compacts, or by making work/study resources available, like stipends for grad students (or skilled and motivated undergraduates) to help organize their campuses and enlist other schools.
Because Compact's state affiliates work regularly with schools in their area, they already know the best people to approach, whether sympathetic college presidents, campus service learning directors, or student affairs coordinators. Knowing the culture of each campus, they can determine which schools will run with the campaigns on their own and which will need an additional push. Since their offices are all based at colleges or universities, they have ready access to people who'd be an excellent fit for the job.
The Campus Compact state directors I've spoken with love this idea. Their budgets don't allow them to hire additional staff with their own existing resources. But the state directors would love to coordinate if I could just come up with the necessary funds to hire or find the people they need. So I decided to initiate this project (without pay), and even contribute $10,000 out of my own funds.
Given the magnitude of the potential impact, the money required to do this is modest. It will take just $20,000, including all related expenses, to hire the poised-and-ready former University of Akron student body president to work full-time from now to the election making sure that Ohio campuses engage their students. If we can come up with the funds to keep him working the entire time, it will make a major difference getting the state's campuses involved in engaging the 640,000 students in the states. I'm actually hoping to raise enough to fund positions in as many as fourteen key states, with several positions in each of the largest and most competitive. Campus Compact's state offices will cover miscellaneous overhead. I'm investing three months of my time (an in-kind contribution of roughly $15,000), and the previously mentioned $10,000. Combined with other election-related contributions I've made, this will be over half of my discretionary income, but the project seems is that important. All money raised will go directly to the people we hire. If I could get 100 people giving $100, we'd be able to reach another key state. And if I could get 15 or 20 people giving $500-1,000, we could cover one or two more.
Right now, I'm spending the bulk of my time approaching every appropriate foundation or major donor that I can think of. For most, their lead times are simply too long, which also knocks out most of the foundations currently supporting the national projects. But I'll go as far as I can with whatever resources I raise, which is why I'm hoping that you and the other people on my list might be able to help.
If you have no discretionary money, I hope you'll still be able to make a difference by working to engage your campus or volunteering in the campaigns. But if you are able to help, you can either donate online to my tax deductible 501 (c) 3 fiscal sponsor, Illinois Campus Compact, or make out a check out to them and send it to my Seattle address below, so I can keep track. If you're able to give a larger amount and have further questions (or know potential major funders), just email me at the address below.
I hope you can help in one way or another. It feels that important to ensure that this opportunity doesn't get missed due to overloaded email inboxes and lack of personal follow-up.
Thanks
Paul Loeb
You can email Paul Loeb here
I've enclosed a budget and a longer and more detailed analysis of youth electoral involvement, the historical promise of the current political moment, and the specifics of the existing campus election-engagement initiatives. Illinois Campus Compact is donating their overhead to oversee this project, while passing the money to the more competitive states that we'll fund.
State Compact Voter Engagement Project Budget
This wholly incremental budget can be funded at any level. As of August 1st It will take about $6,500 to add a half-time person between now and the election, including expenses like cell phone minutes, materials,and the costs of driving to the various schools.And $13,000 for a full-time staffer, like the wonderful former University of Akron student body president we ehired in Ohio. I'd love to add people in as many states as possible, focusing in particular on those whose competitive races will allow students to realize how much their voice and actions can count.. If you'd like to specify a particular state for your contributions, I will try to honor them (and will definitely honor them if you're able to fund an entire position). Otherwise, I'll look at whatever amount we raise, and apply it for the maximum possible impact.
We've already started with a wonderful staffer in Ohio, and I'm also talking with Campus Compact staffers in Colorado and North Carolina. I see this as a tremendously important pilot project, both for now and in the future, and will add more states as resources permit. I'm donating all of my time, as well as $15,000 of my own resources