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Charities Apply Scientific Approach to Evaluate Get-Out-the-Vote Tactics

By Suzanne Perry

July 31, 2008

If a charity works hard to get a particular group of people to the polls, and those voters turn out in record numbers, should the organization declare success?

Not necessarily, say some election experts. Perhaps those voters were swayed by the issues at stake, or the candidates, or the nice weather.

And even if the charity's efforts did produce more voters, does the group know which of its tactics -- phone calls, door-to-door canvassing, mail -- worked best?

Donors and charities are increasingly asking such questions as they plan voter drives focused on November's presidential contest. Influenced partly by philanthropy's growing interest in measuring results, they are trying to add a dose of science to get-out-the-vote efforts that has been lacking in years past.

"If you don't have that precision, it's very foggy," says Ryan Friedrichs, executive director of State Voices, in Detroit, a new group that will act as a hub for state coalitions representing a total of more than 350 advocacy groups that seek to get voters to the polls.

"Groups don't feel like they can tell their story with accuracy or strength." State Voices will help its partners test their approaches to see which are most cost effective -- and to enable them to get credit when they succeed in turning out voters, he says.

The group will be tapping into a relatively new field that studies voting behavior the way that scientists test the effectiveness of drugs -- by comparing a group that has been the focus of a particular effort with a similar group that has not ...

Source: The Chronicle of Philanthropy
philanthropy.com/premium/articles/v20/i18/18001001.htm

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