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Great new GOTV pics from Kentucky

Samiya Bashir — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 20:24:14 +0000

Thanks for the wonderful pics, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth!

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Collateral Damage

Samiya Bashir — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 14:00:22 +0000

Follow The Project, PBN’s live, daily, multi-media civic engagement project every day through November 7th. To lead us off, PBN is publishing a few critically important pieces that look at the importance of sound investment in effective civic organizing. Click here for updates.

During the 2006 electoral season, PBN partner Kentuckians for the Commonwealth learned first hand how paratrooper tactics disrupt years’ worth of work in their communities. According to nationally based, numbers-centric guidelines, national groups did a better job targeting the KFTC’s population, and reached more people.

But a closer look shows that while KFTC contacted a third of the people the national paratrooping group reached, they did it for a tenth of the money. KFTC’s numbers, unlike those of the paratroopers, reflected three person-to-person contacts for each individual counted. KFTC’s contacts included civic education and leadership development on a personal level – a crucial benefit that lasts, and one that you can’t get from mailings or robocalls.

This was achieved despite having to constantly firefight to battle the bull-in-a-china-shop blunders of the national organizers. “Last November, on election day, our Lexington organizer was flooded with phone calls from people all over the state asking for a ride to the polls,” said KFTC director Burt Lauderdale. “Somebody at a national organization had contacted our office months before and asked, in general terms, if we provide rides to the polls. We said yes and gave them the info for the local guy.”

“What happened next,” said Lauderdale, “without our permission or notification, was that 36,000 letters were sent to a targeted selection of voters from all over the state. The letters were a mildly threatening attempt to increase turn out by intimidating voters who stayed home for the last election. The organization didn’t identify itself in the letters, listing only a P.O. Box. What they did say was, ‘If you need a ride, call this number.’ That number was the direct line to our lone organizer who was inundated with calls from hundreds of miles away. KFTC had nothing to do with this direct mail piece, but communities across our state were left with negative feelings about us and our work.”

“Now, when I talked to the director of that organization in the days after he was embarrassed,” Lauderdale continued. “He apologized for the miscommunication, then turned around this Spring and did it again. This same group sent another huge mailing to their database encouraging them to register to vote; only it was sent out to them after the voter registration deadline. This was all very expensive to do. It’s frustrating because it’s an ineffective waste of money. Plus, it creates a mountain of mess that we’re left to clean up.”

This organization was knowledgeable enough to locate KFTC and put their phone number onto its direct mail outreach. The next logical step is to find ways to connect with their work in a complementary way. This is where paratrooper tactics fail, and where effective bottom-up collaboration wins.

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Want to change the country? Include a Southern Strategy.

Samiya Bashir — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 14:00:30 +0000

“Y’all don’t know what you’re doing anyway,” is how Kentuckians for the Commonwealth’s Burt Lauderdale paraphrases the widespread dismissal of Southern leadership. “It’s a total mystery for progressives.”

“I was in a meeting right before the 2006 national election,” said Lauderdale. “The speaker got up and talked about all the really good work that was happening around the country. And then he said, ‘Well, of course the South is lost.’”

Afterward, Lauderdale approached the speaker, told him he was from Kentucky, and pressed him not to write off the South. “He seemed sort of stunned that I was even at the meeting and didn’t know what to say,” recalled Lauderdale. What did he come up with? “‘Well, it’s not the organizers,’ he said. ‘There’s just too many Baptists.’ As if piling insult on top of insult might make his first gaffe better.”

If we’re serious about changing the country we cannot afford to entire states or regions. When it comes to the South and the Southwest, the people designing the electoral strategies often have no knowledge of the regions. They’re afraid of them and filled with prejudice. As a result the attitude toward folks on the ground is disrespectful and dismissive. As a result, when paratroopers drop down to run campaigns, they often stumble from one lost opportunity after another.

The assumption that we can’t move a progressive agenda in the South or the Southwest is wrong. This conclusion is usually offered by people who look at the map through the political version of those old 3D glasses. All they see is red or blue with a little purple sprinkled in for texture. What they don’t account for is that when you are actually in these communities – and no state is made up of only one community – a completely different story is being played out.

We have developed leaders who are assertive, detailed and clear about their goals. There is a great deal of synergy in our operations that national groups are missing out on. As Missouri Jobs with Justice’s Lara Granich told us, “The learning curve can go both ways.”

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Follow The Project on:

The days up to, through, and beyond November 2nd will be tracked using PBN’s Tumblr blog, its website, and online social networks.

Kentuckians For The Commonwealth Seeks Electoral Organizers

Brigid Flaherty — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 22:28:45 +0000

Electoral Organizers Wanted!

Kentuckians For The Commonwealth is a grassroots social justice organization with 5,500 members statewide. KFTC is hiring 9-14 electoral organizers to work in different areas of the state for an 11 week, non-partisan voter empowerment campaign. Electoral organizers will work to recruit and train volunteers, lead door-to-door canvassing efforts, and coordinate phone banks to voters between August 25 and November 8, 2008. Positions are available for people willing to work between 20 and 40 hours per week.

Location: We are seeking applications from people to work in the following locations: Louisville, Lexington, plus Rowan, Madison, Pike, Perry, Floyd, Letcher, Knott, Harlan and Warren counties.

Position description

Electoral Organizers will assist KFTC’s organizing staff to coordinate non-partisan voter empowerment campaigns aimed at registering, educating and turning out new and unlikely voters. These positions are supervised by KFTC’s Voter Empowerment Organizer, and will take day-to-day direction from a KFTC organizer in each field office.

Key responsibilities include:

-Develop and implement a door-to-door canvassing program in specific precincts, including developing a canvassing schedule and maps, recruiting and training volunteers, preparing materials, and ensuring data collection.

-Develop and implement other forms of direct-voter contact, including public events, presentations to community organizations and schools, phone banks and mailings.

-Develop and implement get-out-the-vote strategies, including recruiting volunteers to canvass, make phone calls, provide rides and raise visibility on Election Day, November 6.

-Coordinate voter education efforts, including candidate forums and candidate surveys.

Skills and Qualifications

-Knowledge of local communities, especially low-income communities, communities of color and other areas with historically low voter participation.

-Organizing experience (either as a volunteer or staff in community-based social change organizations or as an activist within student organization).

-Electoral experience, including door-to-door canvassing, phone banking, and managing volunteers.

-Excellent communication skills, including the ability to listen, persuade, and build relationships with a wide range of people.

-Ability to work effectively with people from a wide range of income, education and racial backgrounds.

-Commitment to long-term social change.

-Strong organizational skills, including planning, tracking information, and attention to details.

Compensation

Candidates must commit to work through the November 2008 election. Salary for this position is $12.17 per hour. KFTC provides full family health benefits for positions above 30-hours per week.

Application

Interested applicants should send a resume and letter as soon as possible to Dave Newton, KFTC’s Voter Empowerment Organizer, at Dave@kftc.org or 250 Plaza Drive, Suite 4, Lexington, KY 40503.

Interviews will take place between August 11 and 15. The first day of work will be a training on Monday, August 25th in Lexington. Please call 859-420-8919 with any questions.

Kentucky Leaders Make Plans for Summer Training Institute

Samiya Bashir — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 04:20:10 +0000

PBN’s Kentucky State Alliance partners are working hard to plan an exciting and fruitful Voter Empowerment Training scheduled for July 25-27, 2008.

Staff and volunteers from Kentuckians for the Commonwealth and Kentucky Jobs with Justice, including street & community captains, and volunteers and staff from organizational allies will come together for three days of education and training toward a shared understanding up the PBN-KY approach to voter empowerment.

Sessions led by Kentucky Community Leaders, as well as leaders from PBN partners in New Mexico who will travel to Kentucky as a part of PBN’s emphasis on peer-to-peer learning and resource sharing, will offer crucial relationship-building activities, as well as concrete opportunities to learn about:

integration of orgaqnizing and voter empowerment;
the difference between the PBN/KY State Alliance approach and classic/partisan campaigns;
the value-added of Pushback Network and the Kentucky Pushback Alliance for diverse, local — both rural and urban — organizing, social justice, and voter empowerment groups, initiatives, and campaigns;
specific strategies for working effectively with immigrant communities around voter empowerment;
effective voter empowerment strategies in rural communities; and
working respectfully and effectively across lines of difference (inlcuding race, class and age).

Dozens of organizers are expected from around the state and Training Planners Dave Newton, Darnell Johnson and Lisa Abbott say attendees will leave the Training with the skills and confidence to engage in effective, non-partisan voter outreach.

This electoral season is shaping up to be the best yet for in affording KY communities the opportunity to make each action count both at home and throughout their state!

KFTC’s Primary Season Wrap-Up

Samiya Bashir — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 16:18:52 +0000

PBN State Alliance Partner Kentuckians for the Commonwealth (KFTC) had members from all across the state participating in their non-partisan Voter Empowerment campaign. Leading up to the May 20th primary election, KFTC members registered, educated, and mobilized thousands of voters to strengthen our democracy with their participation.

Thirty-two percent of registered Kentucky voters showed up to vote in the recent Primary elections, smashing the previous record of 26.5 percent turnout in 1992. These numbers included 43 percent of Kentucky’s registered Democrats (many excited about the long presidential primary they had a rare opportunity to influence) and 18.9 of registered Kentucky Republicans.

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