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New Project Gets Businesses to 'Promote the Vote'
New Project Gets Businesses to 'Promote the Vote'
Published 07-27-04
Submitted by Voteworks
Voteworks: Businesses Promote the Vote is a non-partisan effort to encourage and support business leaders to take an active role in getting their employees, customers, vendors, business peers and local community members registered to vote, inspired to volunteer, educated on issues and candidates and, most importantly, turned out on Election Day 2004. Voteworks is the largest attempt ever to mobilize socially conscious businesses behind a voter participation campaign.
"Business leaders are uniquely positioned to educate, motivate and inspire in a non-partisan way,'" said Jeffrey Hollender, CEO of Seventh Generation in Burlington, Vt., and author of What Matters Most. "Our company sees tremendous value in reaching out to all our stakeholders to encourage them to get involved and get others involved in this year's election."
Through the website, www.voteworks.org, businesses can find information, resources and examples of what others are doing. The tools can be customized to fit a company's brand, audience or business environment. Voteworks even has assembled a team of volunteers to help businesses design projects that best meet their needs.
"As a business owner, I feel a responsibility to my community and country to do what I can to get more Americans participating in our democracy," said Diane Warren, owner of Katzinger's Delicatessen in Columbus, Ohio. "The tools and resources Voteworks offers will enable me to easily launch a voter participation program at my business."
An increasing number of businesses recognize that voter projects not only affirm or enhance their image as a good corporate citizen, but they also build employee morale and create new networks of customers. Companies such as Ben & Jerry's, Stonyfield Farm, Unilever, Patagonia, Match.com, and Working Assets already have announced campaigns for this year, and these projects and many others are featured on the Voteworks website.
In addition, the Voteworks tool kit gives businesses posters, customized web pages, sample language for company policies, onsite voter registration information and ideas for communicating with employees and customers. There is no cost to businesses.
Voteworks is being launched at a critical time in our democracy. The United States ranks 139th in the world for voter turnout. Voting rates for 18-24 year olds has fallen from 50% to 32% in the last 25 years. One-third of eligible citizens aren't even registered to vote.
"After the 2000 election, we learned that every vote does matter," said Suzanne Biegel, founder of Voteworks. Biegel, a business owner who previously was honored as Entrepreneur and Woman of the Year in Los Angeles, currently is a partner at the marketing agency Music Matters. MusicMatters designs and executes marketing programs blending activism and marketing for top tier clients in the natural and organic industry. Biegel is on leave for the remainder of the year, to focus on voter engagement work.
"Businesses have tremendous impact and reach, and we hope that Voteworks taps into their enormous potential to engage and activate the American people," Biegel added.
Executive Producer Elizabeth Carney of Tribal Code, the creative design group, has partnered with Voteworks, stating, "Voteworks is very much in line with our company's vision of inspiring people, creating positive change and persuading audiences to take action."
Project partners include Working Assets, providing Your Vote Matters online voter registration capability; the state PIRGs' New Voter Project; members of Social Venture Network; the American Small Business Alliance; Co Op America; and a host of volunteers.
Voteworks also is a project of National Voice and is teaming with that organization's "November 2" project that aims to promote a unified focus on voter engagement among hundreds of non-partisan groups and socially responsible businesses.
