Creating Conversations, Branding Your Organization

I'm still working on finishing UnChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity. It's a disorienting read. I expected it to be about how young evangelicals were transforming the political direction of the church with their focus on environmentalism and poverty. Instead, it's a full-throated study of Christianity's negative brand and proposals for fixing it. As such, there's a lot of information about what evangelicals "do wrong" in their attempt to bring new people to the faith, and there is a lot of discussion of new best practices that should be adopted to make Christianity more appealing to young people. Some of those new best practices can be transferred to our work in registering voters.

In a chapter entitled "Get Saved!," the authors note that many young people today view evangelism of the Christian faith as a transactional encounter, not a spiritual one. In other words, evangelists are only interested in the raw numbers - in getting as many converts as they can, not in the quality of the conversion or the concerns/experiences of the individual.

A lot of the times, this is the experience of young people with voter registration and issue-canvassing organizations. It is a transaction, not a conversation. We're interested in the numbers - voters registered, voters turned out. I know that I certainly feel that way when talking to street canvassers. Even if I do sign their petition, very rarely do I walk away with good feelings or any kind of connection to the organization or its cause.

This comes into sharp focus when we encounter someone who is already registered. If you are focused on the numbers, and registering the most new voters, the impulse is to move on and give them as little of your time as possible. This isn't necessarily wrong, but it does have it's own negative consequences.

I was discussing this with the folks at the Oregon Bus Project, who agreed that it was a problem. Because when you give that already registered person short shrift, or when you cut short a conversation with someone you do register, you are doing two things. First, you are devaluing that person's concerns and cutting off potential increased participation by that person. Second, you are sending the message that your organization doesn't really care about them beyond their role in meeting your voter registration goals.

The solution might be as simple as some rewarding those folks with swag, giving them an extra minute of your time, or invitations to a local event like Drinking Liberally where they can have that more substantive conversation (and hopefully become a member of your org). It might even be as simple as something cheesy like a "gold star" rewarding them for already being registered.

We're in the midst of the planning season for the 2008 General Election. It would be good for all progressive organizations to think not only of how they can contact and register the most voters, but how they can make those contacts of a higher quality.