Nonprofits Can Help Turn Out Youth Voters
June 27, 2024
Youth voters are, as a group, historically low-propensity voters. This means that they are not as likely to turn out to vote as older voters. Consequently, political campaigns do not focus on young voters as much as older voters because they know older voters are more likely to turn out. This makes the cost of turning out an older voter cheaper than the cost of turning out a younger. Elections are all about who gets the most votes. Campaigns are going to focus on the cheapest and easiest ways to get there. For that reason, low-propensity voters are largely ignored.
Plenty of political operatives see the value in improving turnout among low-propensity voters, which include not only youth, but voters of color and unmarried women. However, political campaigns are not the vehicle for making this happen. Campaigns are temporary things and singly-focused on winning elections. They are not going to spend a lot of time on hard to reach and mobilize groups. This is where nonprofit organizations come in.
We know nonprofit organizations can improve turnout among their client bases. Turnout rates increase significantly when voters are encouraged to vote by nonprofits they have relationships with.1 This kind of nonprofit engagement has been found to improve turnout rates across all categories of voters, and has been shown to make significant improvements in turnout rates for young voters, voters of color, and low-income voters.2 Once turnout rates improve, campaigns start paying attention. This attention in turn engages voters further and encourages even higher turnout rates, creating a kind of virtuous engagement cycle.3
We know that there are two things that nonprofits can do to increase voter turnout among their clients: get them registered and then remind them to vote with a message that their vote matters and can make a difference. The message that “you matter” works a lot better in turning out low-propensity voters than a policy message. This is probably because low-propensity voters often assume that there vote does not matter, so when a trusted source – like a nonprofit organization that has helped them in the past – contacts them and tells them that they matter and that they can make a difference, it resonates.4
There are many different kinds of nonprofits that work with youth and can increase their voter turnout rates. Some of these are community-based organizing groups. Others have a more national focus on organizing youth. Still others provide information and resources, including financial resources to organizing groups. This year we are seeing another type of nonprofit group working to turn out youth: political action committees (PACs).
A PAC is a partisan nonprofit organization organized under section 527 of the IRS code. While it is a not-for-profit organization, contributions to it are not tax-deductible (like they are for many of the 501(c)(3) organizations that work with youth) and politics is its primary activity (unlike 501(c)(4) organizations that may do some partisan work). Most people do not think of a PAC as a nonprofit organization, but it is.
There are several PACs that have been engaged in youth issues for a few years. Most, like Youth Power PAC and Youth Interest PAC, work to elect young people to office. This year, a group of pro-Biden activists have created Won’t PAC Down, which plans to spend between $20 million and $25 million to turn out young voters for Biden. Pollster John Della Volpe – who runs the Harvard Youth Poll – is leading the research team for Won’t PAC Down. Polling provides valuable information for understanding how to turn out youth voters. Della Volpe starts out with a really good sense of what needs to be done. The PAC has partnered with Hollywood writers and directors to help produce material that will better attract the attention of potential youth voters.
Whether Won’t PAC Down is successful in motivating youth to turn out in the higher numbers they did in the past two elections remains to be seen. For the regular 501(c)(3) nonprofits out there who work regularly and directly with youth year-round, there are many things they can do to help increase turnout among their clients.5 But it can be expensive to do a lot of those things, and there is always the problem of mission-creep and resources when you incorporate too many programs that do not directly relate to your mission. However, there are two things relatively easy and inexpensive things nonprofits can do this year: (1) make sure the youth you work with are registered to vote and (2) remind them to vote with a message that they can make a difference.
I recently learned from the amazing team at Focus For Democracy Action that Census data indicates that about 80% of persons who register to vote in a presidential election year actually go out and vote. This is likely because of all the television, radio, and social media messaging that takes place combined with having just recently having registered. In a sense, new voters in a presidential election year have a GOTV campaign aimed at them from a number of sources. So if you can only do one thing this year, make sure your clients get registered to vote this year.6
But if your nonprofit can do two things, make sure to remind your young clients to vote! Hearing from you that they matter and that they can make a difference by voting is sometimes the only thing you need to do to get them to vote. It will turn out some who otherwise would not have voted. In a close election, that might be enough to actually make a difference.
LeRoux, K., Langer, J., and Plotner, S, “Nonprofit Messaging and the 2020 Election: Findings from a Nonpartisan Get-Out-The-Vote (GOTV) Field Experiment,” Nonprofit Policy Forum (2023) 14(2):157-183. Available here.
Id. at 16.
See note 1.
For suggestions consult this brand new guide I co-wrote for nonprofits to turn out youth voters of color.
Note that we have only seen this phenomenon during a presidential election year.