Calls, texts, postcards, and meetings
have more impact if sent by a
known, trusted source.
Trusted Sources is a voter engagement initiative that provides resources to progressive organizations to help motivate their members and contacts to participate in the electoral process through voter registration efforts and voter turnout.
Trusted Sources is joining forces with Together We Elect, whose mission is to elect Democrats to the U.S. House and Senate through volunteer activity. Together we are focusing on voter outreach in those states that matter the most in the mid-term elections this November.
How it works
Participating Organizations which have signed on to Trusted Sources will pool their contact data into a common database managed by TargetSmart Communications, a recognized leader in voter data and analytics.
Trusted Sources asks Participating Organizations to share the Trusted Sources protocol with their chapters and members in the battleground states and districts identified by Together We Elect. State and local leaders will be encouraged to make calls, send messages, canvas, and encourage voter registration and GOTV among individuals within the trusted group.
After data enhancements are performed, contact lists are returned to each group as sophisticated constituent databases which list voting registration status, voting frequency and a turnout score.
(Each organization’s lists and data remain the proprietary property of that organization and will not be used by Together We Elect in any way.)
After agreeing with the Trusted Sources protocol for voter engagement, Participating Organizations will work to accomplish five objectives:
- Register and remind voters to get out and vote on election-day, vote early, or use absentee voting.
- Build Participating Organizations’ capacity with development training and strategic outreach through enhanced lists and expanded programs.
- Use the Together We Elect website and other tools to provide information about state registration laws and voting locations.
- Encourage voting at the state and local levels as well as the federal level. Many issues are now decided by state legislatures, state attorneys general, governors, and secretaries of state.
- Assist, via Together We Elect, in recruiting in-district volunteers for those organizations that want to work jointly in building volunteer teams for their targeted districts.
FREE
Participating Organizations are not charged for services including list enhancement and voting histories as our ultimate goal is increased voter participation among individual members and Participating Organization’s contacts.
EFFECTIVE
Using past initiatives as benchmarks, we anticipate increasing the number of informed voters on election-day. In 2008, eight groups using our methodology provided a total of 1,277,507 records with only 621,466 confirmed registered voters
This represented a 15.1% increase in registration. The successful results of the Trusted Sources protocol were achieved at a cost of less than $2 per new registration.
The 2022 project effectiveness will be realized in spring 2023, when states release their new voter files. We will then be able to measure outcomes based on increased voter participation.
INCLUSIVE
We will work with groups concerned with racial and gender equity, peace and security groups, LGBTQ communities and organizations formed to save the planet and combat climate change.
PROJECT COORDINATOR
Karen Mulhauser, president of Mulhauser and Associates, has been consulting for nonprofit organizations, grant makers and candidates since 1988. She brings years of leadership experience as CEO of three nonprofits and board member of over 35 domestic and international nonprofits.
Karen served as executive director of NARAL (National Abortion Rights Action League and the Center for Education on Nuclear War and Citizens Against Nuclear War (CAN). She founded the nonprofit America’s Impact (now called Foreign Policy for America) to elect candidates to Congress with principled foreign policy positions. Karen also coordinates Consulting Women, a network of over 1,000 DC area self-employed women. She founded Trusted Sources in 2006 and has coordinated several voter engagement initiatives since then – the latest was Every Woman Vote 2020. She has worked in several Congressional and Presidential campaigns and was senior advisor and helped coordinate Women for Obama.
