Indivisible Has A Plan For the 2020 Election
Indivisible Has A Plan For the 2020 Election
This has three parts: up top we’ll talk about some of our goals and broad work this year, in the middle, we’ll talk about specific costs we have regularly, and way at the bottom, we’ll talk about why we’re asking you to donate to support the Indivisible plan for the 2020 elections.
Indivisibles,
Let’s talk about work, tools and funding for a minute.
This post has three parts: up top, we’ll talk about some of our goals and broad work this year, in the middle, we’ll talk about specific costs we have regularly, and way at the bottom, we’ll talk about why we’re asking you to donate to support that work. Help us fund the Indivisible plan to win in 2020.
(This post is long, even by Motiv8ionN8ion.com’s standards. If all you want/need to know is that we’re about 36% behind our budget goal for the month and that we need your donation to help close the gap, please click here to donate!)
Part 1: Our Work
We’ve been up to a lot of different things this month, and we’re proud of all of them. Here’s a quick look at some of the things we’ve been focused on:
The Indivisible Plan for 2020
Presidential Debates: The first presidential debates last month were our first opportunity to see 20 of our candidates side by side. We captured reactions from Indivisibles immediately after each debate with a text-message survey, and NBC reported out the results in their coverage! This month, we’re doing it all again with next week’s debates. We’re determined to empower Indivisibles to engage with the candidates and make your voices heard. If you’re not already on the list, text DEBATES to 977-79 to join the debate focus group.
Nationwide Advocacy: If we tried to put every major action this month into this post, you’d never be able to read it all. A couple of examples: this month, nearly 100 New York group leaders are gathering to share best practices and plan for the coming year. And in Kentucky, Indivisibles met up at their first-ever Statewide Convening to plan how to #BeatBevin, #DitchMitch and turn Kentucky blue!
Defending the Squad: We joined many others in calling out Trump for his disgusting attacks on Rep. Ilhan Omar and the rest of the Squad. Kamala Harris probably put it best, tweeting, “It’s vile. It’s cowardly. It’s xenophobic. It’s racist.” And we went a step further, cutting checks from our account to support all four candidates and make a clear financial statement that we’re behind them.
Congressional Outreach: Indivisibles nationwide reached out to their Members of Congress on a multitude of topics. We asked members to support H.Res. 257, which would start an impeachment inquiry against Trump. We called on members to support H.R. 582, the Raise the Wage Act, which would raise the minimum wage to $15/hour. And finally, we asked members to support cuts to ICE and CBP funding in the annual Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill so that we can #DefundHate.
National Indivisible Calls: Every month, we host national calls where group leaders, members and other Indivisible activists talk with our staff about how to hold Congress accountable. This month we focused on what’s coming up in the August Recess, and we’ll do it again in a few days — watch out for the link in Monday’s newsletter.
As much as we’d like to be able to do all that important work without having to send emails, the fact is that advocacy and providing resources to our groups and activists costs money (more below), and we’re committed to earning that money from the grassroots, so that we’re accountable to you, and never to corporations who’ll try to control what we do in exchange for support. So here’s our ask:
Part 2: The Costs
Digital Ads: We use online advertising as a way to get information in front of Indivisible supporters quickly, and as a way to grow our support base and increase the number of people who know about our work. And while each individual view of an ad only costs us pennies, there are millions of Indivisibles and potential Indivisibles so that cost adds up — we’ve spent nearly $35,000 on ads this month alone! When you donate — when anyone donates — we use the money to keep building the movement. Here’s a couple of the things donations from grassroots supporters have helped fund this month:
Toolkits: Basically, building toolkits with the information, scripts and other resources Indivisibles need to take action is a major endeavor, and they take dozens of staff hours and substantial resources to complete.
Text Messaging: There are two kinds of text messages that we use a lot. One’s called “one-to-one” messaging, which is what you probably do with your friends or when you volunteer: one person sends a text to one other person. That’s particularly effective for contacting voters or volunteers with a personal touch, and we have a tool that allows us to track how effective it is. The other kind is called “one-to-many”, and it’s when we send a text message that reaches many people who’ve subscribed to our list all at once. It’s what we use for the most breaking news items and our post-debate surveys — it’s an incredibly powerful way to get information out to you FAST. Neither one is cheap though — we spend tens of thousands of dollars each month on them.
Web Hosting, Email Systems, Event Mapping and Other Infrastructure: They’re not as fun or exciting to talk about, but costs like hosting for our website (which gets a lot of traffic every day), access to the tools we use for event mapping, and other crucial pieces of Indivisible’s infrastructure really add up. We could make a joke about Trump and Infrastructure Week here, but instead we’ll just say this: These are the sorts of systems that Indivisibles rely on to do our work, day in and day out, and by investing in them, you’re investing in making our movement the strongest it can be.
Help fund the Indivisible Plan
Part 3: One More Ask
The rest of this year and the next are crucial to kicking xenophobia and authoritarianism out of our country — potentially the most important of our lives.
As much as we want to avoid sending a lot of fundraising emails, this Indivisible plan is essential to save democracy, and right now, we’re about 36% behind on reaching our target budget by the end of July.
We’re asking one last time: Please, click below to donate as much as you can today to help close the gap to our goal before the end of the month:
If you’ve saved your information with ActBlue Express Lane, your donation will go through immediately:
OK, almost done with this MASSIVE post. To be clear: this movement isn’t about money. It’s about all the stuff up top, which is to say, it’s about people plan and the power we’ve built in the face of indescribable ugliness and hostility. You don’t have to give money to be part of the movement (but we appreciate it when you do!). You just have to make your voice heard and stand Indivisible with a few fellow Indivisibles in your community. This is how we’re going to save democracy.
If you’ve been reading our emails and watching social media this week, you probably know that as Members of Congress (MoCs) went home for the 4th of July recess, we sent Indivisibles a 4th of July Recess toolkit and an immigration resource with the Indivisible plan on how to pressure your Members of Congress while they’re home for town halls and parades.
As the weekend’s activities wrap up, we wanted to give you a little visibility into the organizing, policy and communications work that goes into building a toolkit like this one and activating Indivisibles nationwide. We’re sharing this as part of our policy of transparency about what we’re up to, and also (full transparency) because we’re hoping you’ll be able to chip in to support our work.
Here’s a quick overview of a few of the pieces of staff work that go into creating and supporting a toolkit like the one we sent out for this weekend:
Policy Research and Writing: On something we know about in advance, like this, our policy and communications teams generally spend about two weeks researching and developing the most effective calls to action, coordinating with partner organizations, and then drafting language to make sure everything is as easy-to-understand as possible.1
Graphic Design: It takes a full day of work from a graphic designer to get the layouts, graphics, social media posts, and more ready to promote a toolkit.
Web Development: Once the design and content are ready, our web developers spend another day loading the content into our website and making sure the resources are accessible and readable on all kinds of devices (particularly phones, which are what most folks have with them when they’re actually talking to MoCs).
Emails, Texts, and Social Media: After all the resources are created, our web and social media teams get to work getting them in front of you: generally we spend about a half day of work loading emails, social media, and text messages to ensure as many Indivisibles as possible get all the information you need. And on the backend, we keep an eye on the replies, making sure we’re responding to problems and questions as they inevitably crop up.
People power! And of course, at the core of all our work are the Indivisibles, and organizers who actually put their hands up to ask hard questions, take to the streets and contact your MoCs. Every time we launch a campaign, you’re the ones who turn all the work above into real, long-lasting change. We can’t do it without you!
As you can tell — there’s a lot that goes into the toolkits we send you. We work hard to make sure that everything we send out to you is timely, accurate, and most importantly effective at achieving our collective goals. And we’re investing in good staff and cutting-edge tools to make sure we achieve all of those goals. Can you chip in $10 or more to help us? Support from grassroots Indivisibles is our largest single source of revenue, and we’re counting on you to help fund our work!
Still not sure exactly how all that work relates to your $10? Here’s some information on a few of the direct costs associated with a toolkit (this isn’t all of them, but it should give you a good idea!):
Text Messaging: It costs $6,000 to send a text message promoting a toolkit to our entire SMS list. Text messaging is one of the most effective ways to ask Indivisibles to take action, but it’s also expensive!
Website Hosting: It costs roughly $250 roughly to pay for a week of website hosting. Having a reliable website with minimal downtime is crucial to our work. If you’ve been around a while, you may remember when the traffic to the original Indivisible Guide google doc crashed the page — we never want that to happen again.
️ Event Mapping Tool: Our event mapping tool helps groups and Indivisibles organize and connect with each other (you may remember how crucial that was with the #StopTheBans protests a few months ago). It costs roughly $1,500 to keep it up and running for a week.
Emails: Emails are the backbone of our advocacy program, as they are for most organizations. We pay a flat fee for access to our mass emailing tool, and it costs $1,914 per week to keep it up and running.
Here’s the truth: We need people reading this to click and donate. Grassroots gifts are our biggest single source of funding, but only about 1 in every 100 people reading each email end up giving. We really need you to be one of that select group, because we have to hit our budget goals in order to stay on track with the ambitious plans we’ve set in motion this year.
Every contribution, from $5 to $500, makes this work possible. Thank you for being part of it, today and every day.
To many more change-making tools and toolkits to come, in solidarity,
Indivisible Team
Repeated here gratis by Motiv8ionN8ion.com
Thank you for being up to the task, for reading this long post, and for all the good you’ve done building this movement together. Work the Indivisible plan of attack. Let’s keep going!
In solidarity,
Indivisible Team
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