headcount

Organized by the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival, HeadCount and the NRDC Action Fund, the Best of Bonnaroo collaboration marks the first time free music has been used to prompt Americans to contact their elected officials.

The Best of Bonnaroo compilation of 17 different live performances from the festival is available for free at www.Musicforaction.org. Before downloading the music, visitors are asked to email their Senators, the President, or their local newspapers about climate change.

"This generation has an opportunity to be remembered as one that confronted environmental challenges and took responsibility for the future,” said Jack Johnson, whose song “Inaudible Melodies” can be heard on the compilation. “With that opportunity comes the responsibility to speak out."

America is closer than ever to passing its first federal climate change-related legislation, but many hurdles remain. The House of Representatives approved an energy bill last June that would reduce emissions of heat-trapping gases and encourage the development of green jobs. President Barack Obama then told world leaders that the U.S. will reduce carbon emissions by 17 percent over the next 10 years (compared to 2005 levels). However, there has been little movement in the Senate, leaving one crucial step incomplete. Literally the whole planet is waiting to see what the U.S. will decide, as India and China are not likely to act without the U.S. doing the same.

With climate change legislation now at a critical juncture, several organizations teamed up to use the gift of music to inspire citizens into action. HeadCount – a nonpartisan civic engagement organization best known for registering voters at concerts – conceived the idea as a way to point new voters toward being informed and active citizens. The NRDC Action Fund – an advocacy group committed to passing legislation that jump-starts the clean energy economy and reduces pollution – stepped in with resources, research, strategic guidance and a base of 250,000 supporters.

“The musicians we work with are very passionate about this topic and have great power to drive change,” said HeadCount’s Executive Director Andy Bernstein. “Their music will serve as a soundtrack for action.”

“Forging a clean energy future means healthier kids, a safer world, and more jobs,” said Heather Taylor-Miesle, director of the NRDC Action Fund. “This is our moment to demand that Congress put us on the path to a clean energy future by beginning to address climate change. We are excited about the opportunity to work with musicians and new activists throughout the country to make it happen.”

Here is the full track list for the Best of Bonnaroo download compilation:

Wilco - Bull Black Nova
Pearl Jam - Animal
Jack Johnson - Inaudible Melodies
Dave Mathews Band - Rapunzel
Death Cab for Cutie - Cath...
Ani DiFranco - Fuel
Phish - Kill Devil Falls
Gov't Mule - Banks of the Deep End
O.A.R. - Delicate Few
moe. - Not Coming Down
Raphael Saadiq -100 Yard Dash
Bob Weir & RatDog - Throwing Stones
The Disco Biscuits - And The Ladies Were the Rest of the Night
The Decemberists - The Wanting Comes in Waves/Repaid
My Morning Jacket - Oh! Sweet Nuthin’
Guster - Happier
Phil Lesh and Friends - Box of Rain

Visit Musicforaction.org to take action for climate change and download the free compilation!

Yes, Copenhagen is nearing, which is partly why the White House hosted a Clean Energy Economy forum with young progressive leaders last Wednesday, though there were a few patriots from the other side of the aisle also in attendance. Thanks to FM friend Sujatha from the PIRGS, we got invited to attend this forum as press (our video from the event is being edited now and should be up soon). The real push for this forum came from the Energy Action Coalition and its executive director Jessy Tolkan. Kudos, EAC.

As a first-timer to the White House, I followed the flock of well-dressed young leaders to an entrance and was promptly rejected and then redirected to the press entrance. This is proof that bloggers get some respect from the WH - thank you. My shots at how the WH ran the event come later; first, the good stuff.

The event was separated into two sessions, the first included speakers such as Labor Secretary Solis, Secretary of the Interior Salazar, Energy Secretary Chu, and EPA Administrator Jackson. Each speaker also answered audience questions in addition to delivering their prepared speeches.

On the HeadCount blog, Andy Bernstein shares his perspective on the second session, a breakout discussion between young leaders and "mid-level executive-branch staffers":

The final hour of the meeting was spent in breakout sessions with middle-level executive-branch staffers. That’s where I really started to drink the Kool-Aid and feel like I was getting an eyewitness view of democracy functioning as it should. Myself and about a dozen attendees sat down with Brandon Hurlbut, the deputy chief of staff to Energy Secretary Chu. He explained he quit his law job in spring 2007 to work on the Obama campaign in New Hampshire and joined the Department of Energy after the election. He shared some of what they’re working toward, such as an energy-efficiency rating system for homes realtors can use to increase property values. “I didn’t quit my job and come here to not get things done,” he said off-handedly at one point.

As press, I witnessed only the forum, which was not as exciting as the breakout session which Andy described in his blog. Andy describes what Congress and the youth activists are able to do well - lobby days.

I don't know if the breakout sessions allowed for digital participation, but if it didn't, then the White House should know that speaking to invite-only youth leaders isn't enough. The Obama administration has used online tools to collect and evaluate ideas and should use this tactic regularly with the collaborative-loving Millennial generation.

The forum itself felt like a pep-rally for young climate activists. Secretary Solis even brought-back campaign slogans and chants, which didn't seem to catch on with the live audience. The campaign is over, now is the time for governing and that's what the young leaders were eager to hear about.

Zachary Stark-MacMillan over at It's Getting Hot in Here expressed some of my own opinions about the disconnect between the administration and youth leaders:

Second, you urged us to take the lead and take action for what we believed was right. This is great advice to give to young people. However, you were speaking the “youth leaders” of the climate movement, to perhaps the most accomplished group of young people in the country. There were young entrepreneurs who have started their own businesses, founders and leaders of student groups, and veteran organizers who have made real change in their communities. We were at the White House because we have taken the lead, we are taking action, and we are powerful. We were at the White House because we want to start working with you on climate change, but if the administration keeps talking about ‘clean coal’, subsides for nuclear power, and 450ppm of carbon in the atmosphere instead of 350ppm, then we have serious disagreements. We need to resolve these issues and move forward together, before we end up fighting each other. We elected President Obama to be a leader on climate change, we would like him to start leading with strong and specific goals, and we will support him.

There was more than just a policy disconnect. When the secretaries were asked directly about how young people can help the administration move forward on climate change, there was the knee-jerk response - vote[!?]. And the other response was to convince your parents. Like Zachary mentioned in his open letter on It's Getting Hot in Here, the administration needs to understand that they are talking to the people who organized one of the highest voter turnout rates in modern history...on a budget. These leaders, regardless of age, are talented innovators and organizers. Telling them to vote and convince their parents is very nearly condescending.

Headcount just released results from a poll conducted at Phish's Festival 8 and other concerts across the country on healthcare.

Headcount found that approximately 22 percent of concert-attending music fans lack health care. Nearly 1,000 people responded.

The results:

Take the poll yourself at Facebook.

I've written many times about HeadCount, the voter registration organization that originated within the jam band scene (disclosure: I'm on the advisory board). I think they've put together an amazing, national organization that accomplishes real political work without sacrificing the vibe of a small, tight-knit community. If you've ever been to a HeadCount show, you know there's a real connection between the fans, the music and the politics.

Over the last four years, they've built this community with far fewer resources than other political nonprofits, and they've expanded beyond their roots in the jam band scene. Now, they're morphing once again.

Yesterday, HeadCount relaunched their website and announced that they're expanding beyond their core work - voter registration - and into the realm of issue advocacy:

Building on the momentum of registering more than 100,000 voters last year, HeadCount has launched a new campaign called “What’s Your Issue?” that encourages fans of live music to take the next steps beyond voting to become more informed, active citizens. Anyone who answers a brief issue survey – either at a concert or online at www.HeadCount.org – will be entered in a drawing to win two free VIP tickets to Outside Lands Music Festival, held in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park August 28-30, 2009, plus round-trip airfare for two on Southwest Airlines from anywhere in the U.S.

The campaign will visit concert tour stops this summer by Dave Matthews Band, Phish, The Fray and NINJA (Nine Inch Nails and Janes Addiction). Festivals such as Bonnaroo, ROTHBURY, High Sierra Music Festival, All Good Music Festival, Camp Bisco and Gathering of the Vibes will also host the “What’s Your Issue?” campaign. [...]

HeadCount continues to offer voter information and registration services at its concert tables and at www.HeadCount.org. The organization also provides a wide range of resources that facilitate civic participation. The HeadCount blog (www.HeadCount.org/blog) is a one-stop online community updated daily with news on “Music, Politics and Everything In Between.” HeadCount street teams are partnering with local nonprofit organizations, such as Save the Bay, and creating joint volunteer outings. HeadCount makes it easy to write to members of Congress, with pre-printed letters available at concerts and online at www.HeadCount.org. It’s all part of an effort to give music fans the tools to be involved, active citizens, while creating a real community of fans who are bound by shared ideals.

The “What’s Your Issue?” survey serves as the gateway to the HeadCount community. It lists six issues that, according to a recent online poll, are particularly important to fans of live music. They are:

• Food and Farm Policy
• Health Care Reform
• Personal Liberty
• Gulf Coast Recovery
• Human Rights
• Sustainability and Conservation

Once someone identifies the issue most important to them, they are sent a link to an area of HeadCount.org devoted to that issue. Users will find a blog, background information, artist interviews and links to related websites. Most important, they’ll also find a “Take Action” area that enables them to volunteer for a related organization or email their Congressional representatives.

This is a great organization and a great campaign. And their new website is super clean and a cut well above their previous site. As usual, I can't recommend HeadCount highly enough. Go check them out.

The election was seven days ago and I'm starting to get emails from various organizations announcing their victories/contributions. This is not even close to a scientific assessment of the effectiveness of each group, but it's nice to give people a shout out, and it's a good look at what the youth vote world is saying about itself. We will see more rigorous assessments of individual programs as people like David Nickerson, Gerber and Green, etc. start crunching real data. And between now and the inauguration I plan to spend time talking to the major youth groups and writing up individual pieces on each organization's efforts. For now, here's a small taste of what went on in 2008:

Oregon Bus Project

• Bus Project Foundation registered 23,000 new young voters this year, increasing the Oregon youth electorate by 7 percent.
• Bus Trips knocked on over 60,000 doors this year, and is sure to have an impact on Oregon's 2009 legislature. This is double the number of doors per targeted district than in 2006. Quothe a razor's edge state rep candidate today: "I wouldn't be in this race if it weren't for the Bus."
• All told, 7 of the 10 candidates given 1000+ knocks of Bus volunteer support are winning their races, with one more too close to call.
• Trick or Vote was a huge success with 35% of the participants indicating that the event was their first political volunteering experience.
• We know The Bus Federation, working in five western states, has helped reach hundreds of thousands of doors with over 10,000 volunteer engagements.
• The 2009 (Oregon State Legilsative) session will see ten members age 35 and under -- the largest cohort of young legislators in state memory. Of the five new young legislators, two serve on the Bus' board of directors and four have volunteered extensively with the organization.
• After hundreds of thousands of Bus Project "Whole Ballot" contacts - the undervote dropped dramatically. Only 3% fewer votes have been tallied in the incredibly close Merkley v. Smith Senate race than in the historic Presidential race. Compare that to a 14% undervote from the top of the ticket in Merkley's tightly-contested primary race.

Young Democrats

• YDA contacted a record 150,000 young voters in eight key states. Thousands of Young Dems mobilized their peers all over the country.
• Over 1,300 paid canvassers, street teams, and volunteers worked to get out the youth vote for Democrats up and down the ballot.
• Our Young Voter Revolution campaigns targeted young voters and members in all 50 states but focused on Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Utah, and Virginia.

Head Count

• Its 2008 voter registration campaign yielded 105,697 registrations, constituting the largest event-based voter registration campaign in the United States.
• The group more than doubled its voter registration total compared to the previous presidential election by registering voters at more than 1,000 concerts and staging extensive online and college-based initiatives. Of all the voters HeadCount registered this year, over half were age 24 or younger, and three-quarters were under the age of 30, establishing the organization as a leader in galvanizing the
  youth vote.
• HeadCount fielded street teams in over 40 cities and sent volunteers on the road with 10 different concert tours.
• HeadCount registered 53,475 of its total voters at live music events.
• HeadCount worked directly with several colleges and fellow nonprofit organizations to register another 28,598 through co-branded activities. A New York City “Street and Subway Canvass Blitz” staged with partner New York Public Interest Research Group netted 10,161 registrations. An additional 15,546 registrations came from colleges and universities who teamed directly with HeadCount to stage voter registration drives on their campuses.
• The highest number of registrations was generated on the Dave Matthews Band tour – 8,420 in total. Dave Matthews Band’s website and email communication also generated an estimated 10,000 additional online registrations, by far the largest of any HeadCount artist or media partner.
• The artist that helped generate the largest number of registrations per concert was Jack Johnson, averaging 257 registrations at each of his solo concerts (even more at festivals).
• “Touring Teams” traveling with bands racked up over 18,000 new registrations, nearly 40 percent of the concert total.
• HeadCount got more than 50,000 concertgoers and music fans to “Pledge to Vote,” creating a massive database used for Get Out the Vote purposes.

Some reading material for your Saturday evening:

• brownsox from Daily Kos interviewed Ashwin Madia, the Democratic House candidate in Minnesota's Third District, this past Wednesday and has video of it. Madia is a 30 year old Iraqi vet and a lawyer -- another young candidate.
• A story in an Appleton, WI newspaper focusing on local youth involvement this election cycle
• The Nation compares both candidates' policies on national service.
• DNC '08: Pundit playtime?
• Young voters energized the Iowa delegation/were energized themselves at the convention this week.
• What are Boomers reading online?
• A profile of Headcount.
• An explanation of both candidates' views with regard to students and college financial aid.
• Finally, a columnist at the Pensacola News Journal observes the Millennials/Gen Xers are ready to "throw the bums out" -- of both parties.

Update: Here is the documentary shown prior to Obama's acceptance speech. Some powerful stuff -- check it out:

First some youthy news:

• Two articles are out today on polling. The Michigan Messenger does a great job analyzing a PEW study on the demographics of cell-only and "cell-mostly" users and how pollsters are dealing with under-represtentation of these demographics in their polling. If that's a little too data-geek for you, Campus Politico has a good "polling 101" story that might be a little more your speed.
• At Tapped, Tim Fernholz questions the effectiveness of a voter registration drive launched this week by the Hip Hop Caucus.
• Matt Zeitlin at PushBack follows up on that post, noting that celebrities are not an effective way to move young voters to the polls.
• Teaming up with SPIN, CMJ, and others, Head Count has launched a 90 day voter registration challenge. They hope to register 100,000 voters by the end of the 90 days. You can watch a video of SPIN at the Warped Tour interviewing an artist about the program here.
• NDN notes Connecticut Democrats are out-registering Republicans among young voters by 4.3 - 1. That registration and turnout advantage might help Democrats defeat Republican Chris Shays in the fall. Shays is the lone Republican congressman in New England.
• South Carolina young Republicans are not feeling the love from John McCain, and Young Republicans nationally are having a tough time drawing young people to the convention.
• Meanwhile, Young Democrats are thriving in delegate-rich Florida.
• Tech President argues that 2008 is a boring year in tech/politics. While 2004 and '06 saw huge paradigm shifts in how we organize, 2008 is all about refining those practices.

Some less-youthy, but very interesting news:

• Democrats are getting ready to spend $20 million to register and GOTV latinos.
• The Nation writes about MoveOn's 10th birthday and how far the organization has come.
• A new study by the RAND Corporation tells us the obvious - to win the war on terror, we need to stop fighting the war on terror.
• Finally, the Washington Post has a front-page story basically calling "liar liar pants on fire" on the McCain campaign for their latest ad attacking Sen. Obama.

So, I'm finally settled back in. Here's the rest of those Quick Hits I didn't get to while at the Austin airport, as well as a few more that have accumulated since.

• The Austin Statesman picked up our little youth caucus, but seemed to miss the point. The caucus was an informal meeting, not a strategy session to construct a master youth plan. And the focus of the discussion - to what extent our youth movement needed to be about GOTV and infrastructure for organizing our peers, or building an ideological consensus - was barely touched on in his piece.
• In this piece by The Washington Post, 29 year old Republican tech strategist David All confirms the complete disconnect between the GOP and Millennials. My favorite line:
  

  David All points to a page on McCain's Web site as more old-fogy branding:

• PEW reports that young voters in this election are at least - if not more - knowledgeable about the candidates' position on Iraq.
• Anderson Cooper's ac360 blog profiles HeadCount and their latest work at the Camp Bisco festival.
• The Virginia Pilot reports that young Viginians (under 25) are registering at twice the rate of their elders. Registration has increased 10% in the last year.
• Rumors abound that Barack Obama is going to show up as a surprise guest at this year's Lollapalooza, which takes place in his hometown of Chicago.
• Young People For just announced the new class of their Front Line Leaders Academy.
• Nine Latino organizations are teaming up to spend $5 million on a nonpartisan voter registration effort targeting 2 million Latinos.
• Finally, Rock the Vote is teaming up with Comcast in its effort to register 2 million new voters this election cycle. I'm not a fan of this partnership. Last year, Comcast was caught blocking internet traffic from peer to peer networks. They are on the wrong side of the Net Neutrality debate.

Hey folks. I'm sure those of you who visit the site regularly notice that there are a few different things around here lately (and for those of you in RSS-land, come see what I'm talking about). I'll have more on what's new around here tomorrow after I complete a few finishing touches tonight. In the meantime, here's some good stuff that didn't get blogged today:

• Larry Lessig's anti-corruption group Change Congress is looking for some tech-savvy kids to help run the operation. Job description is here. This should be right up the alley of FM readers.
• I've been talking for months about how John McCain plays the mainstream cultural media. Well Rock the Vote actually has some stats on it, along with a big BS detector on McCain's attempts to reach youth:
  

  Indeed, John McCain has made more guest appearances on the Daily Show—12 in total—than any other guest of the show ever. According to IMDB, McCain has also made 10 appearances on the “Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” and 8 appearances on the “Late Show with David Letterman.” By comparison, he has appeared on the famed Sunday political talk show “Meet the Press” only 6 times.

  Too bad Obama is massacring McCain on the web. It is just not the 20th Century anymore . . . . Definitely worth a read.

• HeadCount is getting some big media play for their work at Bonnaroo this past weekend. Not in the article is the fact that HeadCount registered 1,100 new voters at the festival and received 2,000 more vote pledges. Great work y'all.
• Music for Democracy, a PAC looking to get the music scene into partisan politics, launched their website this week.
• It's been a big week for culture and politics. The Progressive Book Club also launched their website today.
• The Concord Monitor notes that over two dozen candidates under 35 are on the ballot this year. Looks like the Granite State might get a big youth-infusion in its state house.
• Finally, Marc Ambinder has the goods as to what the 3,600 Obama Fellows are doing with their time.

One of the organizations I'm involved with this year is Head Count - a nonpartisan nonprofit that registers young voters at live music events. They're basically the only group left from 2004 that deploys such a strategy. It's a shame because I think the strategy is useful in reaching people you otherwise wouldn't with traditional tactics. On the other hand, HeadCount is highly efficient and expects to register 100,000 young voters at 1,000 live music events.

They just signed on a number of new artists (not a few of which were once in the MFA sphere):

A diverse array of artists ranging from Jack Johnson and John Mayer to Foo Fighters and Megadeth have joined forces with the nonpartisan voter registration group HeadCount (www.HeadCount.org) to sign up new voters at their concerts this year. My Morning Jacket, Santana, Wilco, Ani DiFranco and The Decemberists have also become aligned with the organization, joining longtime supporters such as Dave Matthews Band, The Allman Brothers Band and members of The Grateful Dead and Phish. HeadCount's army of volunteers will stage voter registration drives at over 1,000 concerts this year, with a goal or registering at least 100,000 voters.

As part of my work with them, I've agreed to blog on their website a few times a month about HeadCount and where it fits in the larger youth movement. Here's my first blog post:

HeadCount operates by partnering with artists to help engage their fanbase and the live music scene. It's a good strategy. Studies show that peer to peer organizing is the most effective way to engage people in the political process, and who are more our peers than those who listen to the same music and live in the same culture as ourselves?

So what does that look like? Here at Head Count, looking from the top down, it means partnering with artists. It means finding a band with a commitment to our democracy and to making the world a better place, and help them and their fans fulfill that commitment at the ballot box. It's an organizing model based around an artist's geographically dispersed fanbase, united by their love of the music and desire to see change.

That's the view from the top down. It's a good model. It's what makes Head Count successful and has registered tens of thousands of voters. But it's not the only model for organizing around live music, and from the bottom up, the live music scene is anything but geographically diverse or based around individual artists. It lives in tight clusters centered around cities and more specifically the music venues within those cities. For me, it used to be the Wetlands Preserve in NYC - a great venue where, before it closed in 2001, the jamband and hip hop scenes mixed with environmental activism. These are the homes of live music for many. They can also be local centers for change.

This is the other model of music activism - using venues as the local focal point for social change - and there are a number of projects across the country doing just that.

Recently, WireTap magazine sat down with some of those groups as the final installment of a nine-part series on cultural activism. Here's a few of those organizations and what they have to say about a compelling question: Why Build A Movement Among Youth-Driven Cultural Spaces?

Shannon Stewart - The Vera Project - Seattle, Washington

I echoed a lot of what had been said, and added something of a social urban planning perspective, "I think about space -- like physical space -- and its role in cultural change and social change. For The Vera Project, I feel like the space was what was holding the possibility for there to be social change within that cultural community."

And of course, it's how you hold and shape the space that matters. In Seattle, aside from producing music, spaces like Vera also tackled mass voter mobilization efforts that changed the course of elections, community responses to sexual assault, strong alliance-building for youth rights and liberation, anti-war protests and anti-globalization organizing. Connecting young people through art -- and in a space that was set up unconventionally -- created a platform for people of different identities and communities to come together and tackle hard issues, alongside of nurturing new sounds, artists and aesthetics.

Lori Roddy: Neutral Zone - Los Angeles

Lori explained how she is trying to understand culture's function in her work, "I think [culture] is sort of a consciousness of the way that people think, the way they understand the place that they live in and the way that they interact with one another. It's the way they express their interaction or the way they sing, the way they write, or the way they perform. It's a way of internalizing and understanding the way things are. And to change that internal hegemonic perception of [culture] is a big piece, I think. Social change then to me is identifying more of the actual policies, practices, and laws. ... With that definition, the Neutral Zone is really functioning more on the cultural change [side]. It's raising the consciousness of young people, [affirming] that they are competent, capable individuals, that they should have ownership. They don't have to wait to be adults."

Gavin Leonard: Elementz - Cincinnati

Gavin went next. "So the crux of it is ... does the organization see itself as doing cultural or social change work? ... Probably, actually, neither. ... Our mission is to inspire and engage. You can't make cultural change unless you have a culture and are connected with people or, like I say to people all the time, that Elementz is this youth center that has street credibility and then pretty much all I do all day is figure out how to define street credibility." Gavin explained that street credibility is what helps an organization like Elementz get connected with young people, helps young people get connected to one another to create their own culture, and also connects them to the power to make change.

Kevin Erickson: Department of Safety - Washington State

Kevin Erickson from the Department of Safety in Anacortes, Washington, added, "Well, the Department of Safety in its founding was sort of operating on a lot of different levels. They wrote manifestos and deployed all this Marxist rhetoric, meanwhile maintaining a radical humility about their actual expectations about what they would be able to accomplish. Now, I think that we're permanently radical by virtue of existing where we exist and by doing the kind of work that we're doing in the place that we're doing it. I think it's indicative of the current state of cultural politics in America today [that] we have left rural areas out and the red states have been defined as cultural wastelands. [So] by putting together [an argument] that, 'No, actually the town you are in is valuable. You and your friends are capable of doing really good things,' it tends to break down that binary between social and cultural by really shortcutting the fundamental dynamic at work."

There is a lot more on the way that culture can bring about change, and the role that a physical space/community out of which to organize plays in that change. Go read the whole piece.