Democracy Week - Colgate University, NY

Although DM has been a constant and known presence on the Colgate campus for years, it is easy for many people to ignore us. So at the end of last semester we decided to make it nearly impossible for anyone on campus to ignore our group by hosting an entire week of events. And three months later, in late September, everyone on campus knew it was Democracy Week. With a crowd of almost 300 at our big event, democracy week was a huge success. We received the Campus Life Award for our work registering voters and the events of Democracy Week. The week was the product of a lot of hard work, but it was also a lot of fun and a great way to get the word out about clean elections. Here are some tips for planning a week of Dm events:

1. Start Early
• Because we began planning early for this week, we were able to step back and set the dates in a strategic way. We planned the week for a time early in the semester to catch the eye of incoming freshman, but late enough not to get encompassed by welcome back activities.
• You can also make sure to avoid other big speakers or events by getting your events on the calendar first!
• By giving members important tasks from day one you retain membership much better.
• When you are planning such a large-scale operation there is no way you can pull everything off in a short period of time. Giving yourself a lot of time enables you to make all the appropriate contacts and reach out to many facets of the community.
  

2. Create a Focus to the week or Big Event
• In order to draw attention and crowds, center your week around one main event. We were lucky enough to have Adonal come speak. But looking for a well known speaker or any event that would be sure to illicit a lot of attention in the media and community.
• Because of Adonal’s speech, faculty and administration will be drawn to the week. Will the support of these groups you can receive extra funding
• Also, a big speaker draws the attention of the media. Your school paper and hopefully local media outlets will want to cover you big event providing an outlet for you to talk about Clean Money and the rest of the events in your week.
  

3. Outreach to other groups
• The support and cosponsorship of other groups is key. By reaching out to other groups you will get more diverse and higher attendance at events.
• Outreach is another reason the big event is important. Other groups will be attracted to a big name and then you can talk to them about the smaller events.
• Take advantage of other groups at your school and incorporate them into the week. For example, we asked the debate team to put on a debate about Clean Elections. We also got the Activities Board to show The Tom Delay Movie in a big Auditorium. By engaging other groups in the week, you create a broader appeal and decrease your own workload.
  

4. Outreach to the Community
• The support of the community was an invaluable addition to Democracy Week.
• We contacted local media outlets, gave presentations in the high school, and invited the community to all of our events.
• The local community showed high interest in our issue, and through these events made more contacts with people who want to get involved.
  

5. Seek guidance from experienced faculty and administrators
• When we confirmed that Adonal would speak, we contacted the President of the University. She signed on as a copsonsor, offered to aid in funding, and put us in touch with key administrators.
• Meeting with Deans is a very helpful tool in learning how to put on large scale events. The dean I met with gave me a long list of people to contact within the University that would help in advertising, publicity, catering, and scheduling. He also told me which professors to contact.
• If you have a big event, let professors know early so they can put it on their syllabus.
• We were also able to get cosponsorship from a center on campus that brings speakers. This center was instrumental in the planning and funding for the big event.
• Use people who have planned these type of events before, and look for funding everywhere!
  

6. Use your staff link
• Don’t forget to ask your staff link for help. They have experience in planning these events too and will make sure you are covering all your bases.

7. Delegate tasks
• Planning this type of event takes A LOT of time and energy. Get your members involved early or you will be sorry later!

8. Advertise, Advertise, Advertise
• One of the most important aspects of a week like this is advertising. Because there will be a series of events you can create posters listing all the events.
• Explore other forms of advertising as well: We spray painted sheets, sent out emails, went to groups and clubs, hung up tons of posters, passed out flyers, and tabled.
• We also used events earlier in the semester to advertise as well. For instance when we registered the freshman class during orientation, we were able to speak to all of them about the upcoming week of events.

9. Recruit New Members
• Don’t forget to use this opportunity to recruit new members. Put sign up sheets at every event.
• Mention meeting times at every event and give people a way to take action!
  

Colgate Democracy Week Events:

Voter Registration all week long

Monday – Kicked off the week with a “splash on campus” – We put condoms with clean elections facts in the dining halls.

Tuesday – Debate Team debated the merits of a federal CMCE bill.

Wednesday – Brown Bag lunch panel of Professors and Students “Student Activism: Then and Now”

Thursday – Adonal Foyle talk “Playing the game of democracy: an NBA player speaks out” with reception to follow.

Friday – Adonal Foyle visit to Colgate Bookstore – talk on banned books

- Colgate Activities Board presented “The Big Buy: Tom Delay’s Stolen Congress”

Smack Down Your Vote - Bloomsburg University, PA

On November 7^th, 2006 Bloomsburg University’s chapter of Democracy Matters hosted a get out the vote drive called “Smack Down Your Vote.” The obvious purpose of the event was to remind students to vote. Based on previous experience, for an event this big to be successful three things are required, the first is free food, the second is loud music, and the third is talking with professors. Once students hear about free food the word spreads like a wild fire and when anyone hears loud music, usually most people will instinctively want to check it out. The most important part of setting an event up is talking with professors before hand. Meeting with any professor face to face and telling them, what your event is and what you planned is key. Also from this meeting, if you can tailor the event towards something the professor is teaching in class this will increase your chances of getting students to attend. The most important part of meeting with a professor is asking them if they can either require their class to attend the event or offer extra credit. It is very different when you put them on the spot and ask them face to face instead of through an email.

Along with the three key components, we invited the University Democrats and College Republicans in a debate. They debated issues such as Iraq, Iran, Tuition, Economic policy, taxes etc. Later in the day, they talked about why you should vote for their specific candidate. They debated each candidate who would be on the ballot.

Throughout the day, we provided voter guides for students who attended. The voter guides were strategically placed near the food so students would have to walk by them to get to the food. Theses guides contained the candidate’s views on issues such as Tuition, Student Loans, Iraq, Corruption/Ethics, and various other hot button issues.

Advertising the event took time and effort. We started preparing for the event almost a month before Election Day. We made fliers, table tents, wrote a press release, spoke in classes, and had our advisor send an email to all faculty, multiple times. The table tents had all kinds of stuff on them such as free food, learning about who to vote for, and the location and the times things were taking place.

The biggest challenge when organizing this event was planning. Reserving a room big enough, getting a band to commit to the event, ordering the food, paying for the food, getting permission to put the table tents in the eating areas, talking to enough professors, printing all the materials, researching the candidates views and making sure the Democrats and Republicans were ready to debate proved to be a daunting task that required the involvement of all of my members.

Despite the tremendous amount of time it took to plan the event, we made a huge impact. Almost 400 students voted who lived on campus and more than 200 off campus voted. This had a tremendous impact on the local state representative race and it was because of our efforts.

The lessons learned from this event are planning is everything and every member needs to help. If you do not give yourself enough time to get what you want done, you cannot do it last minute and you cannot do it yourself. The more members you can delegate things too the better. It is better for you because you will not go insane trying to do everything and when people are involved they will want to stay involved.

John Latini Jr.

President – Campus Coordinator

Democracy Matters

Bloomsburg University

orgs.bloomu.edu/budm

Party at the Polls - UM Twin Cities, MN

Hi, it’s Joe from University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

We have had a very busy and largely successful semester at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. We’ve hosted a large outdoor concert, started a website, held a lecture event featuring now prominent Congressman Keith Ellison, printed t-shirts, cosponsored two debates, printed voter guides, and run our usual business of tabling and recruiting. These things all undoubtedly helped to advance the cause of Democracy Matters and retaking democracy. However, none of them had the impact or were as rewarding as our Party at the Polls.

The premise of Party at the Polls was to attract a crowd near the polling place, ultimately increasing turnout. When we were planning our party, we realized that at the U of M, gathering a crowd is never a problem. Every day the central polling place on campus, Coffman Union, is packed with people. The problem with Coffman Union, however, is that most students cannot vote there. We decided to take a different approach. We would take the great mass of confused, would-be-voters and transform them into a mass of informed voters-to-be.

Our Party was planned by a team of five group members with one of them specifically in charge of the event. Besides planning, the preparatory work included renting a tent, ordering pizza, buying groceries, printing information, picking a space, making posters, and securing a permit.

The planning stage was focused on how to efficiently get information out to large numbers of people. Minnesota has the option of same-day registration, so we needed to tell people both how and where to vote. This was complicated by the fact that we needed to know which of the over 10 polling locations near campus to send students.

Our solution was hand-outs and laptops. Each person received a hand-out describing what they needed to register. If that person didn’t know which polling place they belonged at, we found it for them by searching for their address at our Secretary of State’s website.

Activities on election day included setting up the tent, making coffee and hot cocoa, and staffing the tables. For six hours during the day we answered questions, distributed food, found polling places, gave directions, and told people, “No, I’m sorry, you can’t just vote at Coffman Union, you have to go to your precinct.”

A group of foreign visitors stopped by our tent. They had come from south-eastern Asia to observe our elections process and to understand how our democracy functions. They spent a lot of time talking to us just trying to figure out why on earth we were out there. They thought for sure that we must be supporting some party or candidate. That we were there just for democracy, just because we believed that everyone should have their voice represented, even if it differs from our own, was almost too much to get by the language barrier. It was a moment where we had this sudden realization that our work really was affecting something. The Party at the Polls was a direct way for us to help our democracy. Most of our group’s efforts are indirect. They are aimed at education or influencing decisions that promote legislation which would benefit our democracy. By helping people to vote, though, we were working at the ground level of what makes our democracy work. By our best estimates over 700 people stopped by our tent about half of which were missing some piece of essential information. The sheer number of people that we were able to help made us realize that our work really does matter.

Party at the Polls - Gettysburg College, PA

As Election Day grew closer my Democracy Matters chapter was trying to think of a way to get students more excited about the political process. At Gettysburg College we have access to a student “nightclub” called The Attic. Every weekend there are a variety of activities there and it is set up to entertain hundreds of people, if needed. My group and I thought it would be a great idea to have some kind of party in The Attic after the elections to sort of celebrate those who voted. The national Democracy Matters set us up with Working Assets (www.workingforchange.com). This organization has donated over $50 million to non-profit organizations since 1985. They came up with and funded the idea to hold election parties throughout the country at college campuses. This was made possible by working with a few of the Democracy Matters college chapters.

Once we established our coalition with Working Assets we started to plan our own “Party at the Polls.” We wanted to make sure that we could reach out to our unique campus. We are a relatively conservative liberal arts college in a very small town. Our biggest challenge was how to get students to come out to an event on a Tuesday night. Our first idea was to get a live band. This fell through because of the timing of the event so we really needed to think fast to come up with something just as good. We ended up deciding that a DJ and all-you-can-eat wings would bring students out. We also held a raffle with several gift certificates from generous local businesses and an i-Pod shuffle. We thought that a raffle throughout the night would not only pique the interest of students, but possibly also get them to stay throughout the whole event. Everything was planned, now we just needed to pray for nice weather!

We held our election party from 8-10pm in The Attic, and it was a very successful event. We had 130 attendees, many of whom stayed for a good portion of the night. We ate through over 600 wings and gave away over 20 great raffles. Throughout the night we would interrupt the music to raffle off a prize and inform students about who Democracy Matters is and why it should be important to them. Overall, I was very happy with our event. I would have loved to have found a way to get the attendees more involved in our discussion but this is a very hard goal to obtain with a large audience. I also would have enjoyed having a live band and think that it would get the students excited too, especially if the band joined us in our wishes for a strengthened democracy. I learned that organizing an event takes a lot of teamwork. Everyone in the group was really helpful in doing all of those extra tasks that popped up at the last minute; like running to the store for those all too essential salty snacks to go along with our wings! The most important part of planning an event like this is having a great team to help you out. We were all paid off by great food and times at our event.

Devon Marshall

President and Founder, Democracy Matters Gettysburg College Chapter