LET’S PUT ON A SHOW!
Get on the youth voter registration wagon! Text Arcade NC! No Kings III!
Field Team 6 was founded in 2019: in-person voter registration done like no one else – partisan, sure, but with a sense of humor and humanity.
In late February, 2020, I put my entertainment career on hold and started what was supposed to be a short-term gig helping build out the Field Team 6 fundraising and organizational capacity. My first assignment was working with a super-smart volunteer on a donor deck. Our crazy goal? Raise $1.2 million to register 100,000 new Democrats in battleground states before the November election.
Two weeks later the pandemic hit.
As dozens of voter drives were pulled off the calendar I tried to reassure Jason, FT6’s founder, suggesting that finding data and reaching unregistered folks digitally could be even more successful than in person. He wasn’t buying it. The data was bad. Data was expensive. The country was shutting down. It looked grim.
Jason had put his entertainment career on hold back in 2016. We’d worked together back in the day. We spoke the same language. We knew how to pivot. We knew how to put on a show. So we did. We started buying data. We started holding Zoom fundraisers. A trivia night. A comedy night. Short films. Flamenco. Auctions. Paddle raises. But more Zooms than you could shake a stick at. We raised $1.2 million dollars that year. After our digital outreach 700 thousand people registered. Biden won.
We did it.
And now, 8.3 million registrations later, we have a new problem. It’s not finding new data. We have lots and can source more. It’s not finding better data. We’ve refined our modeling over the years including after 2024! It’s not targeting. We’ve always been strategic, and our 6-Phase plan this cycle is to work where new voters are needed the most. We can always use more volunteers (especially for in-person drives), but we have amazing volunteers.
No, it’s money.
People are tired of hair-on-fire fundraising texts. People are sick of emails. People are disgusted when they see political consultants pocket millions from campaigns or spend it all on fleeting TV ads. Even our own donors are tired. I get it. I’m tired too.
But I wouldn’t still be here 5 years after my gig was supposed to end if I didn’t believe 1,000% that Field Team 6 is doing something historic that no one else can do: feed new Democratic voters into the democracy just when Republicans are making it harder to register and vote.
Here’s the pitch. I need every one of you reading this to stand up, shake out the despair, wiggle your patooty and put on your fundraising hat. Start a lemonade stand. Hold an in-person fundraiser for your block or your church or your book club. Hold a Zoom version with your out-of-state college alums. Donate stock. Start a text or WhatsApp chain and match everyone who gives. If you can write a big check, great, add a zero. If you can’t, pitch someone who can. I don’t know the answer, but I know we need to raise $3 million dollars in the next few months if we’re going to register 3 million new voters. That’s our latest crazy goal. It’s not hard. We just pivot. We put on a show. You can help.
Wanna chat about how? Or get details on why? Email me HERE.
– Dale Roy Robinson, COO, Field Team 6
Here are a couple things (among the many, many options) to do coming up this next week and beyond:
#1 – Tuesday, March 17, at 3p PT/6p ET. Text Arcade to NC. $25 bucks gets you 1400 texts to unregistered, likely Dems!
#2 – Wednesday, March 24 at 12p PT/ 3p ET. In person voter drive training with FT6 founder Jason Berlin! You’ll leave fired up, and knowing all you need to lead your own voter drive (and how you can get a voter drive kit for free)!
Bonus: become a recurring donor and/or attend our Donuts + Democracy “Get on the youth voter registration wagon” joint fundrasier!
Bonus: Get ready to attend (or host) No Kings III, March 28!
Bonus: Pre-printed postcards to NC need you!
Bonus: Jason joins Practivist Pod as co-host!