I made this document to help Democrats win the 2020 Election. Please download it and ask the people in your life to sign it. You probably know a lot of people who are anxious about the upcoming election. Let's take that anxiety and turn it into productive action and let's start now!
This Action Pledge is a tool that you can use to take the impact of your time and energy and multiply it exponentially. The power of each of us as individuals is negligible, but if we can inspire others to join us, we can produce a meaningful impact.
(If you've got ideas, skills, or connections that could make this concept better, please, let me know. If you'd like to take this concept and modify it yourself to help Democrats in 2020, go for it!)
Download this document as a fillable PDF using THIS LINK.
How to fill in the Action Pledge:
Write your name in the first empty field "(YOUR NAME)".
If the second fillable text field "(THE PERSON WHO ASKED YOU TO SIGN THIS)" is blank, write the name of the person who asked you to sign this pledge. (If no one asked you to sign this pledge you can leave this area blank)
Check the box next to one or more additional actions that you are willing to commit to completing in the next month. Fill in any relevant details. There is more information on all of the Suggested Actions and Organizations below.
Sign and date the Action Pledge. Scan your completed Pledge or take a photo of it and send the photo to the person who asked you to sign this pledge. Keep the original and post it somewhere prominent.
Complete your actions within one month! One of those actions is getting 3 more people to sign the pledge, and so...
How to get other people to fill in the Action Pledge:
Reach out to someone you know that is worried about the upcoming election. Ask them if they would be interested in joining you in taking action now to ensure Democrats win in November.
Give them the Action Pledge and the Pledge Manager. You can download this Pledge as a fillable PDF using THIS LINK. You can enter your name in the second text field "(THE PERSON WHO ASKED YOU TO SIGN THIS)" and then save the PDF file before you send it or print it out.
Explain to them how to fill out the Action Pledge. Ask them to send you a photo/scan of their completed Action Pledge and post their original copy somewhere prominent. Explain to them how to track the pledges they collect in the Pledge Manager.
Record the details of their pledge (Name, Date, Action Commitments) in your Pledge Manager document. More details below.
Follow up two weeks later to see if they're on track to complete their commitments. Follow up one month later to see if they completed their actions. Ask them if they would like to renew the Action Pledge for the next month.
Tips for getting people to sign the Action Pledge
People will be much more likely to sign the Action Pledge if you ask them individually and if you let them know that this is something that you think is important.
Do you feel silly asking other people to sign an Action Pledge? That's fine. You can say so: "Look, I feel kind of silly, but my friend asked me to do this, and I think it's actually a really good idea, so I wanted to ask you if you'd consider joining me..."
Don't get hung up on candidates. It's easy to disagree about which Democratic presidential candidate is best, but we can all agree that we want the Democrats to win and there are plenty of organizations/actions that support this goal.
Suggested Actions
This is, by no means, a definitive list. These are just the things that I came up with by myself and by asking the people I know. I am not an expert and the suggestions I’ve made reflect my personal situation: a US citizen living in a non-swing state. If you have suggestions you think I should add, or if you’d like to make changes yourself, you are more than welcome to! You have my permission to edit and customize these documents in any way you think will be helpful for electing Democrats in 2020. I created this document in Photoshop, just email me if you would like a copy of the original document so you can customize it yourself.
Get ___ more people to sign this Action Pledge
Getting other people to sign the Pledge is the heart of this whole concept. Let’s harness the power of the pyramid scheme to promote progressive political action.
How many people can you recruit? Well, how many people do you know who want to remove Trump from office? Keep in mind that you can ask people to make small commitments. Most people should be able to donate $10 or recruit 3 additional people. It’s OK to start small, and hopefully people will be inspired to do more once they’ve gotten started.
Donate $$$ equivalent to ____ x Lunch / Dinner Date / Weekend Trip to one of the groups below or to: _______________________
This is a bit confusing, I know. I wanted to make a way for people to write down some indicator of how much money they were going to donate without having to write down a specific number because a lot of people are shy about money. So please circle one of the items Lunch / Dinner Date / Weekend Trip and then think about how much you would typically spend on that. If you are willing to donate a multiple of that amount, you can write that multiplier down in the first blank field. So, for example, someone might donate the $$$ equivalent of 3 x Dinner Date.
The organizations listed at the bottom of the document are the ones that I think have the best plans for defeating Trump and electing Democrats to the most important positions of power in 2020. If you know of other organizations you think are good, please let me know, I’d love to hear about them.
How much should you give? I think it’s helpful to think about discretionary purchases like a Dinner Date or Weekend Trip. How much do you spend on indulgences like that, and how important are they compared to the situation we find ourselves in? I certainly don’t mean to suggest that people shouldn’t treat themselves to nice dinners and special vacations, but I do think it’s worth pausing for a moment to consider priorities.
Start a (Swing Left?) Fundraiser and raise $ ______
I think that Swing Left is one of the best places you can donate money right now and they make it very easy to start your own fundraiser so that you can solicit donations for 2020 and keep track of how much money you manage to raise.
How much should you try and raise? How many people would you feel comfortable asking? How many people would you feel uncomfortable asking? I would say that the stakes are so high right now that we should all be willing to overcome a little social anxiety. What’s a little awkwardness compared to potential armageddon?
Join a local (Indivisible?) group / Attend a local meeting
Indivisible is an organization that supports local groups that take progressive political action. There’s probably a chapter near you. Or maybe there’s another group that’s dedicated to progressive political action. Find one, join it and go to a meeting and meet some new people.
Write ___ (Vote Forward?) letters to infrequent voters in swing states
An organization called Vote Forward can provide you with names and addresses of infrequent Democratic voters in swing states. They also provide a template for a letter you can send to these voters. By hand-addressing these letters and hand-writing a brief note about why you think voting is important, you can have a measurable positive impact on voter turnout.
How many letters can you write? According to Vote Forward, about 20/hour. And they make it easy to host a letter writing party. Get together a few friends and you can easily write a few hundred!
Travel to a swing state to spend ___ hours registering voters or canvassing
If you are capable of traveling to a swing state and registering voters, that’s awesome. I haven’t really looked into the best way to go about doing that, so if you know of good resources for that sort of action, please let me know!
Suggested Organizations
I’m not an expert on political mobilization organizations but after a little research, these are the people I found doing work that I thought seemed most exciting. If you know of any other organizations doing valuable work, please let me know!
Swing Left
Swing Left’s strategy is to focus resources on the Super Swing States, the states which are not only swing states for the Presidential election, but where there is also a Senate seat up for grabs, or control of redistricting is at stake, or all three. Visit their website, enter your zipcode and Swing Left will generate a list of actions you can take. If you’re in a non-swing state like me, they will probably include writing letters with Vote Foreward, attending or hosting meetings or donating to their funds. Their funds raise money for key races so that the Democratic candidate that wins the Democratic Party nomination in their race will have a big check waiting for them the day after the primary is over, when the money will be most needed and most useful.
Movement Voter Project
The Movement Voter Project’s strategy is to raise money for grassroots, local groups in the swing states and districts where that money is likely to produce the most impact. They support local groups with local knowledge and connections, who know what it’s going to take to win elections in their communities. They think strategically about which organizations to fund using a few key principles. They target: places where there are multiple important races, places that are not receiving ample support from elsewhere, places where there is the potential to make a multiplier effect, and in the places they target, they support multiple local groups to create a whole political mobilization ecosystem.
The Democratic Party
Nothing special or surprising here. I’m just kind of assuming that money donated to the Democratic Party is going to be spent strategically to win power for Democrats in 2020, and I figure some people may want a more mainstream option than Swing Left of the Movement Voter Project.
Indivisible
Indivisible started with a guide for taking action to resist the Trump administration. It has grown into a collection of thousands of local, grass-roots groups, each one dedicated to connecting people in their community to figure out how to promote progressive politics. Go to their website, enter your zip code and find a local chapter to join!
Vote Forward
Vote Forward makes it easy to write letters to infrequent Democratic voters in swing states. They provide addresses and letter templates, you hand address the envelope, hand-write a short personal explanation of why you think voting is important and then you sign the letter and hold onto it until a few weeks before the election. Randomized trials have shown that a hand-written letter like this can have a measurable, positive effect on voter turnout, more than anything else you can do without actually traveling to a swing state.
Pledge Manager
This document goes with the Action Pledge document above.
Use this document to track any pledges that you collect (starting with your own pledge). This provides a place for you to record who made the pledge, when the pledge was made, and the date it should be completed by, as well as the specific actions that were committed to. This should make it easier for you to follow up over the course of the following month to see if your friends are on track to complete their pledges in the one-month time frame.
Regardless of whether they are successful or not, you should celebrate whatever they did accomplish and ask them to consider making another set of pledges for the next month! Keep the momentum going!
