Trusted community groups are one of the keys to unlocking higher participation rates in New York City elections, in some cases even doubling turnout, according to a new report released Monday from a coalition of civic-minded donors.
While there are a series of factors that contribute to low turnout — from election fatigue to misinformation — the GoVoteNYC donor coalition spent $2.45 million on a two-year experiment investing in ways to buck New York City’s low voter turnout trend in state and local elections by literally meeting voters where they are.
Their report assessed what happened when 18 community nonprofits in neighborhoods with a history of low turnout received grants ahead of the 2021 and 2022 elections to help them educate people about voting in their native language, and as part of the other services the organizations already provide in the community.
“We knew that nonprofits were in those neighborhoods already working with people who [political] campaigns deem low propensity voters,” said Martha King, senior program officer at the Charles H. Revson Foundation, one of the coalition's lead donor organizations. “The experiment was to focus on nonpartisan education and mobilization and use the existing organizations that we have in the city to change the abysmally low turnout.”
Turnout in city elections often tops out at just 25% of eligible voters, and dips even lower in special elections, according to data from the New York City Board of Elections. It’s an issue lawmakers and policy analysts have long struggled to address, and is likely to come into focus again as voters head to the polls this week for an off-cycle June primary election.
Organizations who received funding issued feedback on how they provided support within their respective community to augment their already existing services with voter education. Altogether, members of the coalition contacted 2 million New Yorkers in 2021 and 1.8 million in 2022, according to the report.
The Hispanic Federation was one of the organizations that received a grant from the GoVoteNYC donor coalition to reach out to Latino New Yorkers. The group was able to hire a civic engagement director as well as paid canvassers to help educate people about why their vote mattered and what offices were on the ballot.
As a national organization, the group also used their grant to provide smaller grants to local nonprofits in including Voces Latinas in Jackson Heights, Queens; WE STAY/Nos Quedamos in the South Bronx; and Urban Health Plan across the entire borough of the Bronx — all organizations that are providing other services to people in the community aside from civic engagement.
Frederick Vélez III Burgos, the Hispanic Federation’s national director of civic engagement, said they were able to offer these groups a toolkit, including printed materials and digital messaging to help them contact potential voters who may not have turned out in previous elections.
He said they worked to help explain the city’s electoral system in ways that people understand, using his own experience as an example.
“I’m from Puerto Rico. We don’t have a lot of these positions,” said Vélez, referring to the offices voters saw on their ballots in 2021, like the City Council, borough president, public advocate, city comptroller and mayor. “We have to start explaining things in terms that people understand and I think that’s where we shine because that’s our expertise.”
The report found that Latino voters contacted by the Hispanic Federation voted at double the rate of overall Hispanic voters across the city.
Another grantee was United Neighborhood Houses, which operates settlement houses that provide services to help improve the quality of life for low- and moderate-income New Yorkers. The group trained 47 staff members at 20 of their settlement houses to educate people about why voting matters. Voter education became an extension of the services they already provided.
For example, when settlement houses served as hubs for distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine, United Neighborhood Houses would also offer people information about ranked-choice voting, how to cast a ballot and why their votes mattered.
Susan Stammler, executive director of United Neighborhood Houses, said staff members asked people to sign pledge cards committing to vote in the election. After the election, they compared the pledge cards with data from the Board of Elections that shows if someone voted. They found that people who signed their pledge cards in 2021 were twice as likely to vote compared to the citywide turnout.
She said their get out the vote work has been successful because it relies on people speaking with people they know, not with strangers.
“It’s your neighbor coming to you and talking about why it’s important to vote, why voting matters, and let’s meet up together and go to the polls,” said Stammler. “Building on that trusted relationship is so critical — that is the secret sauce of this work.”
