IssueVoter: to give everyone a voice in their democracy.

How it works: IssueVoter is a nonpartisan, online platform where individuals get alerts about new bills, send opinions to their rep before Congress votes, and track whether s/he represents them. IssueVoter summarizes bills in plain language, along with what both sides are saying, and is the only platform providing a personalized rep scorecard - helping you keep elected officials accountable and be a more informed voter at the next election.

Impact: IssueVoter has sent over a million opinions to Congress from
people across all 435 congressional districts. As a direct result of using
IssueVoter, 94% heard about issues for the first time, 47% were exposed to new viewpoints, 60% took additional forms of civic action, and 30% voted in a
national election.

IssueVoter engages individuals on the issues they care about, provides transparency, and empowers participation in accountable governance. Together, we can create the world we want to live in through a truly representative democracy.

Democracy does not exist without civic engagement. IssueVoter is fighting for equality and change by amplifying people's voices through civic engagement.

But trust in media and government is lower than ever. U.S. political participation has long been stratified by class, gender, and age. And the complexities of legislative process and policy, along with the archaic way most opinions are shared with lawmakers, get in the way of more voices being heard.

• A 2014 Princeton study showed that the wealthy few move policy while average Americans have little power. Only 33% of low-income people are registered to vote and of those, just 40% exercise the right.

• Women voted in higher numbers than men in every presidential election since 1980 but communicate far less, sending 2 million fewer calls and emails to Congress annually. Y

• Young people are America’s largest generation in the electorate with the power to impact election results. Yet in the 2018 midterms, voters ages 18 to 29 only accounted for 13% of voters nationally.
  

“If you don’t vote in the first three elections for which you’re eligible,
you’re less likely to vote for the rest of your life.” – Joshua Tucker NYU
Politics Professor

IssueVoter is catalyzing systemic change, solving for “WHY” whereas many orgs solve the last-minute “HOW to vote”. IssueVoter answers the question, “The election is over, now what?”

IssueVoter serves all constituents and all Members of Congress. IssueVoter can be used regardless of one's age or citizenship (i.e., high school students are constituents too). With a focus on the U.S. currently, IssueVoter's learnings may soon be applied in the 167 representative democracies around the world. 

“Because IssueVoter benefits both the politician and the voter, there is a virtuous cycle of demand met that increases the potential of the platform to reach and keep engaged millions of Americans. That has the chance for large-scale impact on our country’s political system.” – Glenn Nye, Former U.S. Member of Congress

IssueVoter will be the first to personalize the constituent experience and by reaching individuals through personalization, we can create the world we want to live in though democratic representation. 

Who needs it? Everyone. 

What’s hopeful? Civic engagement is at an all-time high. We’re coming off the highest midterm election turnout in more than 50 years. 

IssueVoter solves the major communication and information problems that limit transparency, participation, and accountability. It’s a nonpartisan, online platform with a mission to give everyone a voice by making civic engagement accessible, efficient, and impactful. Individuals use IssueVoter to get alerts about new bills, send opinions to their rep before Congress votes, and track whether s/he represents them. We engage individuals on the issues they care about, provide transparency, and empower participation in accountable governance.

Problem --> Solution

1)     Over 10,000 bills are introduced each session of Congress – we only hear about a handful in the news. Bills are hard to research and understand. --> IssueVoter sends customizable alerts before Congress votes on the issues each user cares about and translates bills into laymen’s terms, with points from both sides.

2)     Communicating with reps still involves snail mail, frustrating calls, or long online forms. There will never be enough staffers or hours in the day to answer the majority of phone calls. There will never be a room big enough to fit even 10% of constituents in a town hall meeting. --> IssueVoter gives everyone a voice in Washington by sending opinions directly to one’s rep’s office – in just one click.

3)     When we vote, we are hiring our elected officials, and we pay their salaries with our tax dollars. Imagine hiring, paying, and promoting someone without seeing any of their work. That’s what we do when we re-elect. --> IssueVoter tracks elected officials’ votes year-round, creating a real-time personalized scorecard with how often each IssueVoter user is represented, keeping politicians accountable and helping voters make informed decisions at election time.    

IssueVoter is building a movement of informed Americans making their voices heard on legislation year-round, resulting in a more representative Congress.

“IssueVoter is not a band-aid for systemic disengagement but rather a solution that addresses the root cause of disengagement. To many, democracy does not feel accessible or understandable and IssueVoter breaks down those barriers.” – Michelle Christensen, Voqal Program Officer

IssueVoter is innovative and unique. We are the only platform that:

• Provides a Personalized scorecard - While advocacy orgs only offer single-issue “scorecards”, often created with self-reported candidate questionnaires, not voting records.

• Addresses a root/systemic cause of disengagement by answering “WHY” vote, while most orgs solve the last-minute “HOW to vote”. 

• Sends opinions from individual constituents, not petitions. Petitions play on 1-time emotional issues, are created for list building, are largely ignored by Congress, and the signer never hears back.

• Provides a clear & impactful call to action – unlike the news - to contact your rep and to do so about a bill that is already being debated.

• Non-partisan organizations and media are increasingly hard to find. But 40% of voters are registered as Independents and almost half of Millennials do not identify with a political party. Being nonpartisan builds trust not only in IssueVoter but also in our government, solving another root cause of disengagement.

IssueVoter opens the lines of communication between constituents and electeds. Former U.S. Member of Congress, Glenn Nye explained, “Because IssueVoter benefits both the politician and the voter, there is a virtuous cycle of demand met that increases the potential of the platform to reach and keep engaged millions of Americans. That has the chance for large-scale impact on our country’s political system. My current work involves studying voter motivations and our research indicates that once voters engage on substantive issues they tend to remain involved."

Technology is integral to our solution, making IssueVoter highly scalable and accessible to impact a large number of people. We're developing more ways to personalize the constituent experience, which has never been done before. 

Multiple channels: It was a conscious decision not be an app first, although we may build one in the future. We want alerts to be accessible, where people already are every day including online, email, and text. So those are the channels we use to send real-time bill alerts. 

Accessibility is engrained in our mission and we also will be translating IssueVoter into Spanish (there are 41 million native Spanish speakers living in the US today) and more languages. 

There is no other organization providing education along with personalized alerts and the rep scorecard based on voting record incorporating multiple issues. At a deeper level, what truly makes IssueVoter innovative is our new end-to-end process (from knowing a bill exists in the first place to sending your opinion to seeing how your rep voted) for solving civic disengagement, one of the root causes of inequality.

For individuals, IssueVoter is delivering new knowledge, driving additional civic actions, increasing communication and changing minds and behavior. IssueVoter has users in all 435 Congressional Districts and has sent over 1 million opinions to Congress. Moreover, our users stay engaged over time and we now send an average of 40,000 opinions to Congress each month. Our engagement rates are 10x those of traditional advocacy.

As a direct result of using IssueVoter:

• 94% heard about legislation for the first time – IssueVoter is a valuable knowledge and education resource.
• 60% felt significantly more connected to their current Congressperson – IssueVoter opens lines of communication.
• 46% were exposed to significantly more new viewpoints – Especially important amidst increased polarization.
• 59% were inspired to take another form of civic action – IssueVoter is changing habits and making civic engagement a part of people’s daily lives.
• 30% were motivated to vote in a national election – IssueVoter drives voter turnout. In other words, 30% of users would not have voted without IssueVoter.
• 33% changed their voting decision in a national election – IssueVoter empowers informed voting and accountability.

In 1 year, we will engage over 500,000 new individuals.

In 5 years, we will engage over 3 million.

IssueVoter addresses an imbalance in information flow between elected officials and the people they represent and is moving the focus back on issues.
Without IssueVoter: busy people of all ages (current IssueVoter users include ages 13 to 87), ethnicities (reflective of the U.S. population), genders, and geographies (users in all 435 districts) simply don’t make their voices heard; the million opinions we’ve sent to Congress would have never been sent; and the potential to create the world we want to live in through a truly representative democracy loses a valuable resource.
After the 2016 election we heard from so many people. "I don't know what to do next." "How can I be involved with politics?" "How do I make my voice heard?"
IssueVoter is here to amplify people's voices and to bring light into the typically muddled and confusing world of legislation and Congress.

IssueVoter has grown solely through word-of-mouth, and this year has started to form partnerships with a handful of both national and local organizations.
IssueVoter will activate over three million individuals on the issues they care about. In order to do that, our ambitions include:

• Partnering with over 100 organizations by the end of 2021

• Building our community and expanding “Community Conversations”, which brings together people who voted on opposite sides of bills to practice active listening and civil discourse

• Launching a 24-part video series to reach young people, bringing to life the voices of a generation, and 

• Offering our free lesson plan to thousands of high school teachers across the country. 

1) Partnering with organizations: We're excited to meet organizations who want to activate their audience/members through IssueVoter. We want to be able to work with more, including Colleges and Universities and even companies who value giving their employees and customers a voice on the issues they care about.

2) International expansion: our solution has potential to scale massively across the US and globally, and it would be great to explore the global opportunity through Solve.