Voto
Latino
MISSION
Voto Latino is the leading non-partisan
American Latino youth civic engagement organization in our
nation. Since 2004, Voto Latino’s primary goal has been the civic
engagement of the disenfranchised and the active involvement of Latino
youth in the political process. By leveraging youth,
media, the
latest technology and celebrity voices to promote positive change, Voto
Latino works to empower our community to become an organized American
Latino community on the ground and online, that is actively involved in
civic and social issues affecting our community. Voto Latino is
shaking-up America’s political establishment by bringing thousands of
young Latinos into the process. It is this new generation of young
American Latinos who will shape America’s democracy for generations.
HISTORY & BACKGROUND
Voto Latino was
founded in 2004 by actress Rosario Dawson & Maria Teresa Kumar (a
“go-to” commentator on Latino issues on MSNBC & CNN). We
recognize that Latino youth are the primary ‘influencers’ in their
families and engage them with efforts that include peer-to-peer
contact, media, celebrity voices and the latest technology. Voto Latino
is a leader in using text messaging to engage young people in rapid
response campaigns and to register and vote.
In 2004, Voto Latino launched the
first-ever national voter registration campaign via text
messaging. This innovative approach to youth engagement allowed
young people to text the word “VOTE” to a designated number and receive
information about registering and voting. Radio DJ’s and bloggers
publicized the information, allowing listeners to immediately opt-in
and register via their cell phones. Voto Latino continues to use this
tactic to capture information and have ongoing messaging with our
audience.
Voto Latino took its civic engagement
initiatives to new heights during the 2008 Election season, registering
35,000 first-time Latino voters and touching millions of viewers and
listeners in all 50 states. Voto Latino conservatively estimates that
it leveraged more than $6,000,000 in gratis air time for its radio and
television PSAs via partnerships with major networks like Comcast, Time
Warner Cable, Univision Radio, Entravision, SBS, MTV Tr3s and LATV.
Voto Latino’s “La Pasion de la Decision” parody telenovela PSA series
was the subject of extensive critical acclaim and generated over 10
million online impressions. The spots generated extensive press
interest and were also featured on CNN/Larry King, Extra, Access
Hollywood and E! Entertainment Television.
Voto Latino’s United We Win 2010
mid-term election campaign registered more than 10,500 new youth voters
in just three weeks in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, and
Texas. We spent $13 per newly registered voter versus the industry
average of $35 per voter. 50.11% of our newly-registered community
turned out to vote, according to Catalist matches. Our GOTV program
proved highly effective. We attempted to contact voters 51,830
times through mail, phone, and at the doors, and made 44,361 contacts.
Voto Latino contacted 30,507 newly registered and first time 2008
voters, and successfully identified 2,733 of them to vote. We made
9,241 calls and connected with 5,554 voters who committed to vote, most
of them on Election Day. On Election Day, we placed 5,542 door hangers
with voters’ polling place, election protection number, and our online
election resource page on doors.
Our artist coalition was instrumental in
motivating American Latino youth to participate in the election, and
included such major names as Cameron Diaz, Jessica Alba, Rosario
Dawson, Wilmer Valderrama, Eva Longoria Parker and Jaguares. In
addition to a high profile national PSA campaign that included more
than 10 participating television networks and 75 radio stations, Voto
Latino for the first time launched an integrated ‘on the
ground’ campaign and hired Field Organizers for on-the-ground
voter registration and outreach in California, Arizona, Texas, Florida
and Colorado. The Field Organizers, in tandem with a volunteer corps,
registered voters and distributed United We Win collateral at community
college and college campuses, select high schools, swap meets, sporting
events, festivals, and other locales. In heavily Latino neighborhoods,
volunteer corps also went door to door registering voters. Field
organizers were also instrumental in forging partnerships with local
community groups in order to further the effectiveness of their work.
Our “Be Counted, Represent” Census
initiative ensured that Latinos were counted in the 2010 Census. The Be
Counted Census campaign trended Top 8 globally on Twitter and became a
Top
4 non-profit channel on Youtube, generating 15,000 pledges to fill out
the Census and generating $150 million in federal funding for U.S.
Latino communities. Voto Latino’s Census campaign was also iTunes’ #1
campaign that year in terms of customer acquisition/conversation rate,
with tens of thousands of young people redeeming their free songs
from the Voto Latino/iTunes cards after reading a message about the
Census. We distributed more than 100,000 Voto Latino/iTunes cards
through our on-the-ground networks. Combined, our United We Win and Be
Counted media campaigns in 2010 generated more than $7 million in
gratis air time for radio, online, and television PSAs.
Voto Latino has produced award-winning,
multiple-media ‘on the air’ campaigns headlined by celebrity
voices that encourage young Latinos to register to vote and get
engaged. Voto Latino simultaneously maintains an extensive field staff
and implements integrated ‘on the ground’ campaigns to bolster the
regional success of our multiplatform initiatives at a local level.
INITIATIVES
Voto Latino takes great pride in our
innovative projects that bring together pop culture and politics,
creating unique programming targeting bilingual/English dominant
Latinos and harnessing American Latinos’ voices for large scale,
social change. Each of Voto Latino’s initiatives is meant to capture
user information and create a rapid-response, informed, organized
American Latino community.
As we enter 2012, Voto Latino will take a
very targeted and heightened approach to its mobilization and civic
engagement efforts. Our
voter
registration/mobilization campaign
is a national, multi-platform initiative designed to register and
mobilize tens of thousands of young American Latinos. Voter
registration/mobilization campaign elements include:
Online & TV PSA’s -- In
2012, Voto
Latino will use its award-winning creative team to craft star-studded
PSAs spots that include today’s hottest, most recognized celebrity
voices to educate and mobilize Latino youth to vote. In 2010, Voto
Latino partnered with
Mun2/Telemundo
on a series of national
non-partisan voter registration spots and
MTV to create fifteen
different 30 second celebrity Census Television PSA’s (in English &
Spanish). The 2010 non-partisan voter registration television/online
PSA’s featured
Jessica Alba, Cameron
Diaz, Eva Longoria Parker, Rosario
Dawson, Common, Padma Lakshmi (“Top Chef”),
Wilmer Valderrama and
several others. Voto Latino’s partnerships with cable carriers like
Time-Warner Cable and
Comcast ensured that our television
PSA’s aired
across the country (generating millions of additional television
impressions) on non-Latin networks such as Oxygen, Travel Channel,
Comedy Central, and several other networks.
Text Messaging Initiative
(“Text2Represent”) -- Voto Latino will expand its voter SMS
Text
Messaging initiative allows people to receive information about
registering to vote. Radio DJ’s and bloggers will publicize the
information allowing listeners to immediately opt-in and register via
their cell phones. We will also expanded the program and send targeted
(by state) text messages to tens of thousands of Latino youth to remind
them of voter registration deadlines as well as urge them to vote
during their states’ early voting periods. Voto Latino will also be
customizing key words for partner organizations so that their members
can opt-in for mobile updates.
iTunes Cards -- As part of its
groundbreaking partnership with iTunes/Apple, Voto Latino has created
and licensed a 35 song voting-themed digital compilation featuring
major Latin artists (including Pitbull, Ozomatli & Los Tigres del
Norte). Apple is providing Voto Latino with more 100,000 of the
download cards, which Voto Latino will distribute across the country
via its field staff as well as through partnerships with other
non-profits and more than 80 radio stations.
DJ Online Media Center & Radio
PSA’s
-- Voto Latino’s radio PSAs air on 80 radio stations nationwide. The
stations span multiple genres, including Hip-Hop, Latin Pop, Regional
Mexican, Rock en Español, and American pop. As with our recent
2010 campaign, Voto Latino will create a dedicated website and digital
delivery system for Radio DJ’s where they can easily download more than
15 different celebrity Radio PSAs as mp3’s for immediate radio
broadcast.
Elements of field operations
will
include:
DMV drive-throughs -- On the
last day of
voter registration, we will host drive-through non-partisan voter
registration events at local DMVs. We ran a similar program in
California during the mid-term elections with much success. The event
generated significant radio and TV coverage. Next year we will try to
secure two locales in each of our 20 target cities.
Celebrity drop-ins -- Members of our
artist coalition will spend time in target cities at events hosted by
Voto Latino or partner organizations to generate media coverage and
bolster our on-the-ground registration efforts. Members of our artist
coalition include: Rosario Dawson, Wilmer Valderrama, Pit Bull,
Ozomatli, Eva Longoria, and America Ferrera.
Dorm Storms & Club/Concert Nights --
Field organizers and volunteers will travel to local universities and
do door-to-door canvassing on campus dorms. Voto Latino will also
coordinate with local DJs and partner organizations to promote club
nights in select cities. Voto Latino will also coordinate with bands to
register people to vote at concerts across the country.
Partnerships & Coordination
--
Strategic partnerships, flexible technology and coordination will be
essential to helping us reach our target audience. Elements include:
Graduation
Kits -- Working with our
partners at the National Education Association and American Federation
of Teachers, Voto Latino will be distributing voter kits to graduating
high school students who are turning 18 in the Spring of 2012.
National Voter Registration Day
-- Voto
Latino, along with key partner organizations, is working to create a
National Voter Registration Day in September of 2012. During the
event thousands of volunteers will hit the streets for a massive,
non-partisan voter registration campaign supported by our celebrity
coalition, on-air and online to push the urgency of registration.
Planned Parenthood Promotoras Program
--
The Promotoras Comunitarias provide peer-to-peer educational programs
and reproductive health care and sexuality to members of the Latino
community. Voto Latino will provide Planned Parenthood’s volunteers
with our voter guides and mobile registration tool so they can register
Latinos to vote while providing them with vital information on
reproductive rights.
We will expand our educational efforts
digitally through the use of the
Election
Center:
News
You
Can
Use. In January of 2012, VotoLatino.org will debut The
Election
Center focused on providing our constituents with election resources,
tools and relevant media. The Election Center will be designed to
educate and empower voters to become informed citizens at the polls.
This hub will include: local election calendars, voter lookup, polling
locations, candidate info, and a checklist of what to bring to the
polls on election day. It will also provide infographics, toolkits and
interactive maps that define key issues, their legislative status, and
which elected officials voted for what during past sessions. We will
connect these issues to mobilization tools that will be accessible to
local organizations to help them build long lasting infrastructure that
empowers our communities to create positive change. News You Can Use is
an ongoing means of communicating and educating our target audience and
will remain an active part of Voto Latino’s outreach well beyond the
2012 elections.
At the same time, we will lay the ground
work for action beyond just the 2012 election cycle in several other
key programmatic initiatives.
To build new leaders, we will
institutionalize our 2012
Youth Power
Summit to become an annual event
that trains youth in leadership, media and activism. Our Youth Summit
will reach about 400-500 high performing Latino youth from throughout
the nation and ensure that they have the tools and information to be
active members of their local communities. The Power Summit will
educate, engage
and empower young Latinos from across the country to
create positive change in their communities. At this two-day
summit, to be held in the spring of 2012 at the University of Southern
California, our participants will receive training from public
officials, artists, grassroots organizers and business leaders on new
media, public speaking, activism and community organizing. Voto Latino
will make the Power Summit part of a permanent leadership institute,
allowing young people a direct avenue to leadership positions across
the public, private, and nonprofit sectors.
Additionally, we will continue to be
involved in changing the conversation around Latino political
priorities in mainstream media, particularly as concerns the Latino
vote and perceptions about the U.S. Latino community’s engagement with
politics. Voto Latino’s
ON SERIES
will bring timely conversations
to cross industry leaders about issues that are affecting the fastest
growing demographic of Americans.
ON SERIES: Changing the
Conversation and Voto Latino have been instrumental in not only
getting
American Latinos out and voting but also shaping the conversation in
mainstream media. Its initiatives and outreach have played an important
role in changing the conversation in the media, particularly as
concerns the Latino vote and perceptions about the U.S. Latino
community’s engagement with politics. Voto Latino has established
itself as the “go-to” voice for political analysis about Latino youth,
and will utilize a variety of communications tools to change the
national conversation about American Latinos from one focused on
immigration to one focused on citizenship, civil rights, and shared
nationhood.
RECENT ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Voto Latino has emerged as the leading non-partisan American Latino
youth civic engagement organization in our nation due mainly to our
innovative, multi-platform campaigns that engage young people via
peer-to-peer contact, media, celebrity voices and the latest
technology. Our success these past few years has been
notable and outlined below:
- Our ‘United We Win’ 2010
mid-term election campaign registered more than 10,500 new young voters
in four weeks in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida and Texas.
- Voto Latino's “Be Counted” 2010
Census campaign was iTunes’ #1 campaign in 2010 in terms of customer
acquisition/conversion rate. We distributed more than 100,000 iTunes
cards through our on-the- network.
- Our ‘Be Counted’ Census campaign
trended top 8 globally on Twitter and became a top 4 non-profit channel
on YouTube with more than 500,000 views, generating 15,000 pledges to
fill out the Census and $150 million in federal funding for Latino
communities.
- Voto Latino’s civic engagement
initiatives have won numerous awards, including a Prime Mover grant
(Hunt Alternative Fund), White House EPIC Award, Myspace Impact Award
for Online Organizing (with a $10,000 purse), NAMIC Award for ‘Best In
Ethnic Marketing & Diversity’, Newsweek “Women in Leadership”
Award,
“Ray of Hope” Award from Hispanas Organized Political Equality (HOPE),
an Imagen Foundation Award and the Hispanic Heritage Award for Vision.
Voto Latino was also honored with not one, but two Webby Award Official
Honoree recognitions for its 2008 voter registration campaign. As a
Webby Award honoree, Voto Latino joins the ranks of a group of esteemed
industry leaders including Amazon, Google, iTunes, NY Times and CNN.
- Voto Latino’s innovative approach to
using technology to reach our audience is highly effective and proven,
with our combined potential reach via social media properties,
including celebrity supporters, totaling more than 30,000,000 users
- Additionally, total media impressions
surpasses 183 million, combined television, online, and print including
San Francisco Chronicle, USA Today, and La Opinion to name a few.
- Voto Latino counts on a celebrity
coalition of more than 40 dedicated actors, musicians and celebrities
committed to the empowerment of young Latinos. It’s a group of
highly visible, influencers in our community that are eager to brand
the Voto Latino message!
- All in all, Voto Latino now has the
capacity to reach 55 million Latino households nationwide, united by
the belief that Latino issues are American issues and American issues
are Latino issues!
SHORT TERM GOALS
& OBJECTIVES
- Secure adequate
funding for staffing and general overhead needs so that we can
successfully implement our 2012 non-partisan voter
registration/mobilization campaign (to run through June 2013); Election
Center: News You Can Use media hub (soft launch January 2012);
Inaugural Youth Power Summit and Second Annual Youth Power Summit; and
the continuation of the ON Series.
- Specifically, Voto
Latino’s goal for the coming year is to continue its measured growth
and build to a staff of fifteen so that we have the manpower and
bandwidth to expand our award-winning youth and technology-driven civic
engagement campaigns.
- Specifically, Voto Latino’s goal,
pending full funding, is to register 600,000 Latino youth to vote in
our target states in 2012, with a 60% turnout rate.
- Specifically, Voto Latino’s goal is to
launch its Election Center in the first quarter of 2012 that will serve
as a one stop shop for new and previously registered voters, before,
during, and after the 2012 elections.
- Specifically, Voto Latino’s goal is to
host 400-500 young Latino leaders at their Inaugural Youth Power Summit
in the second quarter of 2012. To be annualized and replicated in April
of 2013.
- Specifically, Voto Latino’s goal is to
host its ON Series this year around the topic of the Latino Vote in
2012 and beyond.
PROGRAMMATIC
GOALS
& OBJECTIVES
Non-partisan voter
registration –
- Register, educate, and empower
approximately 600,000 voters during an 18 month time frame, pending
full funding, across the United States in targeted states. This number
includes a mix of in-person and online registrations nationwide.
- Solidify permanent partnerships with at
least 15 high-profile NGO’s nationwide to ensure that the Voto Latino
message resonates beyond just the election and our own communications
to a broader civic minded and actively engaged audience of leaders
- Generate approximately $10,000,000 in
gratis air time and media visibility for non-partisan voter
registration PSA’s, touching millions of viewers and listeners in all
50 states. Working with our radio and television partnerships with
major networks like Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Univision Radio,
Entravision, SBS, MTV Tr3s and LATV, we are hopeful to attain this goal.
- Generate at least 400 million media
impressions for Voto Latino non-partisan voter
registration/mobilization PSA’s and efforts. Utilizing our best
practices, our goal is to surpass our reach attained in both the 2008
and the 2010 elections.
The Election Center
– News You Can Use
- Register, educate,
and empower online additional voters across the United States who find
the engagement process easier via virtual means and who look for
ongoing guidance and information from Voto Latino.
- Building upon our
highly successful past non-partisan voter registration and civic
engagement initiatives, this information hub will provide ongoing
content and information for the Voto Latino constituent for ongoing
contact and engagement.
- Voto Latino’s
targeted messaging on this news hub will provide content intended to
motivate youth and their families to participate and be involved in
various issues campaigns as they arise during the course of the year,
with the fundamental goal of civic participation serving as the
motivator.
INAUGURAL Youth
Power Summit
- Educate and
empower Latino youth specifically by providing media and communications
trainings with the fundamental goal of developing the leaders of
tomorrow.
- Annualize this
Summit to reach approximately 400-500 young Latinos every year.
Working with our field team and our digital team, Voto Latino will
ensure a truly national distribution of those participating in the
Summit to continue our “on the ground” presence beyond just the
event.
- Summit attendees
will serve as focus group audiences to better understand the Latino
youth vote, their preferences, their trends, their concerns, and their
priorities.
- Second Annual
Youth Summit to take place in April 2013 and to build upon the success
of 2012, providing greater opportunities for civic engagement,
mobilization, registration, civic education and leadership development.
ON Series --
Changing the Conversation
- Help spur positive news stories and
intellectual discussion about American Latino political life on major,
mainstream news networks.
- Host at least one (1) forum and one (1)
event in which American Latino politics can be debated and solutions
sought among experts and community members.
- Help decrease the media’s tone of
alarmism around Latino issues such as immigration.
- Provide thoughtful analysis,
interpretation and commentary on the
status of the Latino social, economic, and political agenda in 2012 and
beyond, specifically its significance for American society.
ed.-rec'd April 2012