Help Your Community Vote - by Nonprofit Vote (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

The definitive practical handbook for nonprofit staff and community leaders to build effective, nonpartisan voter-engagement programs using proven strategies, legal guidance, planning tools, and real-world examples.

Nonprofits are among the country's most trusted institutions and have extraordinary reach into communities that political campaigns routinely overlook. Yet many nonprofit leaders who want to encourage civic participation hesitate because voter engagement feels complicated, time-consuming, or legally risky.

Help Your Community Vote gives them a clear way forward.

Created by Nonprofit VOTE, the nation's leading resource for nonpartisan nonprofit voter engagement, this practical handbook brings proven strategies, legal guidance, planning tools, examples, and training resources together in one place. Readers can use the book from beginning to end or turn directly to the section they need when planning a campaign, training volunteers, or approaching an election deadline.

Readers will learn how to

• build organizational support for voter engagement and connect the work to their mission;
• register voters while following federal and state rules;
• create effective voter-education programs and candidate forums;
• talk with voters, conduct outreach, and respond to common questions;
• plan GOTV and election-reminder campaigns; and
• measure results, fund the work, and turn voter engagement into an ongoing organizational practice.

Worksheets, planning grids, real-world examples, pro tips, and companion online resources help organizations move quickly from good intentions to effective action.

About the Author

Nonprofit VOTE is a national leader in helping nonprofit organizations register voters, educate communities, conduct nonpartisan voter outreach, and strengthen participation in democracy. The organization also manages and fiscally sponsors National Voter Registration Day. Brian Miller has served as executive director of Nonprofit VOTE since 2014 and previously led United for a Fair Economy. He is coauthor of The Self-Made Myth. Gwen Stembridge is Nonprofit VOTE's education and partnerships director, leading national trainings, developing voter-engagement toolkits, and supporting partner organizations across the country.