Roots Camp

A few more quick thoughts about Roots Camp this year and some notes from the second youth panel I helped put together.

Roots Camp Overall: I missed Roots Camp 2007, but the 2006 gathering remains one of the best conferences I have ever attended. This year was OK, but it didn't match the energy or productivity of Roots Camp '06. In talking to people, two reasons were consistently offered as the basis for this:

1. The space was too diffuse compared to the NEA building. That means less bumping into people, fewer random conversations and less information exchange when moving between sessions. It took some of the dynamism out of the event.
2. The Obama campaign. I heard different variations on this. Some people suggested that the Obama folks overtook most sessions, creating less chance for conversations about anything other than the campaign. For myself, it seems like we are in a different contextual moment. Like 2006 we are coming off a win, but we were in the opposition in 2006. There was money to be had from donors and a wealth of possibility in terms of what still needed to be done. Our infrastructure was still in the process of building itself. Now, everyone is waiting on Obama. Very few of us have experience at being in power like this, and we're all sort of waiting on the Obama campaign and the inauguration.

Notes from Youth FTW II: In response to some of the criticism about the general, non-specific nature of the first panel, Sebastian Freed and I arranged for a follow up during the final session on Sunday. I think it went fairly well. We asked people to come prepared to talk about 1 thing that we weren't doing that we should be, and 1 thing we could all do to help each other do better.

I've pasted the notes from that session below, but wanted to take time to point out a new thing I learned about: Reverse Canvassing. The concept came from James Hannaway, who worked as a student organizer from the Obama campaign. This is not surprising. James is somebody to look out for and his session on using Facebook to construct a voter file on campus was one of the highlights of my 2006 Roots Camp experience.

Young people are fairly transient and thus the voter file tends to have inaccurate information about where we live and whether we are properly registered. Reverse canvassing is a tactic to help campaigns address that problem. Here are the steps as James explained them:

• Define your population. This can be done by printing out the top 500 youth dense precincts from the VAN, or by running a FOIA request to obtain student directories on local campuses.
• Match these "bad" lists to the Voter File.
• Send volunteers out to canvass those neighborhoods specifically to correct the bad data.
• View this as a registration opportunity as well. Not only are you confirming a person's address and their level of support, but you can reregister them at their correct address on the spot. People respond better to someone with an official list coming to their door and verifying their information.

Notes:

Things We Should Be Doing:

• Get more people long term into organizations and leadership development.
• Community colleges - better organizing on those campuses. Reaching a whole new demographic
• Grassroots organizing on campuses in place through Obama in upcoming election.
• First 100 days pass energy policy and Automatic Registration
• Engage non-college youth, get young people elected
• Non-political engagement. Service learning and other
  non-election engagement.
• CIRCLE: Doing a study on non-college youth. Get it informed by orgs working in this area.
• How can technology help develop offline action.

Best Practices/Ways to Help Each Other:

Structuring a non-college program:

In Pres campaign, hard to structure something outside of what is going on. Can't have separate programs that go into other people's turf. Has to be integrated. Obama campaign gets guff for not doing an 18 - 29 program, but it was successful when the general field campaign also looked at 18 - 29 year olds. Make sure youth appropriate tactics are being used - clubs, bars, etc.

Independent orgs can provide the "extra touch" that gets young people to turn out. But program specific non-colelge stuff in a campaign is hard.

Reach out to youth centers that work with young people - Boys and Girls clubs, YMCA, etc. It's a younger population but you are "priming the pump."

YDA focuses on non-college youth. Campaigns already had the campus youth covered.

Make sure that under 30's are in the Voter File. Going to clubs. Festivals, concerts, book stores, churches, barber shops. "Where you spend your weekend."

Reverse Canvassing - go to neighborhood with transient population. VAN will give top 500 youth precincts. Print out the "bad" list. Specifically go to correct the VAN. Acquire student directories via FOIA. Then match to voter file. Then go door to door and tell people where they are registered. Student directory availability varies state by state. Some don't allow it.

Set expectations for organizers that reflect the difficulties in organizing at community colleges and non-colleges.

Students are older - different population at these colleges and don't self-identify as a student. Typically employed as well. the populations are very different from traditional undergrad.

Finding a professor on campus can help with continuity on the campus.

Should also take into account background of students. Many community college students are less familiar and comfortable with the political process.

Nonpartisan/partisan divide keeps a lot of information from flowing and decreases people's knowledge of their activity options.

Idealist.org, Volunteer Match - Maybe need to create a "Craig's List" for volunteer opportunities appealing to young people . . .

Policy

Make it as much like organizing as possible - concrete tasks that show visible results to those participating.

Partnerships - how will organizations play together? Some people will have policy questions that need to be answered (women in the "green jobs" programs).

Canvassing - day of lobbying coordinated by EAC and Power Shift. How can we shift to doing the same thing. How can it be concrete, effective and coordinated.

I'm down in DC at Roots Camp - a conference for progressive activists and campaign staffers at which the agenda is formed ad-hoc based on audience composition and interest.

About an hour ago we finished off a session called "Youth FTW" - For The Win (or Fuck The What, if you prefer . . .). The session went OK - it was very broad and the general criticism I received was that it wasn't concrete enough w/r/t tactics, what our organizations aren't doing that they should, and how we can all work together smartly and efficiently in the coming years. We're having another session at the end of the day tomorrow where we are going to try to tackle those questions. We're asking members to come prepared to answer these two questions:

1. What is one concrete thing that your org could be doing to move policy and build power for young voters at the policy table?
2. What is one way that other groups could assist your organization in these goals?

Apologies for the sloppy formatting. I'm running short on time and want to get this up quick.

Youth FTW - Young people voted. Now what?

What are the issues people are interested in?

1. How do we use Youth vote energy to move policy?
2. How do we make sure the next step is engaging/fun/etc.?
3. How can the Obama infrastructure work with existing independent organizing?
4. How can we create institutional memory moving forward?
5. How can we move Universal Registration?
6. How do we engage people beginning in High School? Community Colleges?
7. How do you engage young people in off-years?
8. What role did young veterans play in the Obama campaign?
9. How can you get young people involved in local races?
10. How do you move energy away from Obama to issues, races, organizations?
11. What kinds of candidates can engage young people?
12. How can we expand beyond our current youth networks - off campus, etc.?
13. What ARE the issues that will motivate young voters?
14. Should we be "youth activists," or "activists that are young?"
15. How can you build lasting institutions and traditions?
16. How can you connect community service and political engagement?
17. How can we make best use of tech tools?
18. How can we form like voltron?
19. How do we take credit for whatever is next?

Youth Vote History

2002 - youth vote was not on the map. Movement started to start focusing on young voters. Field, Leadership, Communications, Research.
2004 - it works. Record youth turnout. This is when it all started. Not all about Obama. Turnout and partisanship in the works for years.
2008 - Obama and Democrats first candidates to really invest in youth at the Presidential level in decades.
2009 - We're in in new starting point. More in the establishment get that. How can we capitalize on it.

Policy

Election reform - Universal registration, same day registration, early voting
Climate Change/Environment
Reproductive rights and health care
Economy - green jobs to tie it all together with energy.

Models

What models can help us snag youth and get more young people involved?

• Will there be a VISUAL presence of young people as engaged in the media? How can we make that happen?
• How do you get young people to show up at the offices of their district leaders?
• How can young voters be powerful like AARP?
• Energy Action Coalition: Bring 10,000 people to DC in first 100 days to illustrate that young people aren't going away and want movement on policy.
• EDR - can we elect young leaders to advocate for EDR?
• Census - determines representation but many progressive groups are not counted.
• PIRG - students pay a fee, fees are used to hire professional advocates at the state and national levels.
• Need to train more young people to take action on their own behalf. Different levels of engagement other than online action alerts
• MoveOn: tried to target young people, but they never found a way to increase their support. If things worked for younger people, it worked for older people. Not vice versa - no youth house parties.
• We need to work more to find a way to get an "equal" and non-siloed voice at the table. Need to reach out to the broader coalitions at city state and national level. We need to have a strong role at those tables.
• Prop 8 - no young person at upper level of the campaign. If "older" groups won't come to us, we need to start going to them.
• Issues young people care about - NOT "youth issues."
• Need better savvy on the hill, but also in home districts where elected officials all need to go.
• What does a win look like and how can you translate it to engage young people? Need to coordinate a smart series of asks - not just a single "national lobby day."
• We need to figure out what it takes to win and be smarter strategically on policy.
• Shift focus away from being solely on electoral politics - politics to what end? Better transition into issue work - create a cycle between elections and policy.
• What are groups asking people to do right now? What's a tangible volunteer ask post election?
• Stimulus debates - can we make sure it includes provisions for green jobs? Congress emails/calls?
• coordinate campaign to influence Change.gov
• Getting more young people to embed themselves in the state party infrastructure (not just elected office - change the Democratic Party/Silent Revolution)
• Why can't we work together more often on issues? More coordination on what campaigns are running to see how we can support each other.
• Leadership training
• What are we doing FOR young people? What kind of access are we creating? (CPL)
• We have not yet been successful in laying out specific policy requests early on to establish expectations and commitment among supporters and elected officials.
• There is an activism void on Community Campus. Need solid strategies to create new opportunities.
⁃ Video Game Bars
⁃ professors
⁃ all ages clubs
⁃ go where they are
⁃ entertainment vehicle
• Not yet done a good job telling a generational story. How does the budget divide up, who gets pieces of the pie? How can we shift generational power?
• Advocates for Youth - want to talk about opportunities to get young people running for local office (school board, etc.)
• Obama campaign youth vote program ignored broader 18 - 29 year olds.

Capacity

• PIRGs student chapters have connections to professional organizers
• 1/3 - 1/2 of participants have grassroots lobbying arms.
• 1/4 have policy shops
• What is the organizational structure of groups on campus? How can we increase those numbers?
• Leadership programs - 1/3 of room have capacity. Politicorps - Center for Progressive Leadership
• Not enough capacity outside of campuses.

Straw Poll

What will most motivate young people?

Election reform
green jobs/economy
reproductive rights
health care
economy - WINNER
green jobs
climate change

Conference season is upon us as groups debrief from the '08 election and look ahead to 2009. Here's some worth checking out:

• Roots Camp DC: December 13 - 14 at Trinity College. This will be a debrief from campaign staffers and organizers who worked on the '08 election. With no pre-set agenda and no distinction between presenters and listeners, the conference is incredibly organic and free flowing, creating a learning environment that I've never seen matched. Roots Camp DC 2006 was the best conference I've ever attended. I'm hoping 2008 will blow that away. I'll be there. Look for the guy wearing the Future Majority pin.
• Constitutional Convention 2.0: January 9 - 11, Philadelphia, PA. Mobilize.org will sponsor a two day conference where 100 Millennials will recap the 2008 campaign, look ahead to the future of civic engagement, and compete to receive funding for their projects.
• Campus Progress Southern Regional Conference: February 6 - 8, Atlanta, GA. Campus Progress hosts it's first conference in the region for 200 activists, journalists, and bloggers.
• PowerShift 2009: February 27 - March 2nd, Washington, DC. Take part in the second annual summit of the youth climate movement. Climate change and energy policy will probably be the issue around which we see the most youth organizing in 2009. I'll definitely be at Power Shift to get a handle on what that will look like.