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The Advocacy Lab Texting Fellowship

Movement Labs

Movement Labs is awarding peer to peer texting grants worth up to $25,000 each to 12 grassroots organizations working to build power and drive progressive change in marginalized communities. Grants will support organizations throughout an entire legislative session toward identifying 5,000 new supporters and helping to pass critical, time-sensitive legislation; as well as providing training and support to prepare the organizations to incorporate texting into future campaigns.

Each organization will receive: 

  1. Hundreds of thousands of pro-bono text conversations to engage and activate voters, and help identify supporters with a goal of growing your volunteer base by as many as 5,000 people.
  2. Full-service data, tech, operations, and volunteer oversight of your text banks.
  3. Training, coaching, and expert consultations to help your organization plan how to most effectively incorporate texting into your campaign, and prepare you to strategically add texting into future campaigns. Grantees will be encouraged to take advantage of our Movement Text Training program, free for any organization who receives an Advocacy Grant, starting weekly in September.
  4. Access to additional resources: legislative, policy, and organizing guidance; message testing; data and technical support; and research and strategic support to help increase the effectiveness of your campaign; as well as access to additional financial support for organizers to follow up with new supporters.

We will text every likely activist in your geographic area to:

  1. Recruit action takers to drive advocacy forward using petition signatures, calls and emails, event recruitment, citizen lobbying, and more.
  2. Help build people power by engaging the broader community of voters, identifying supporters, and building membership lists.

How we’ve helped partners:

48,755
supporters identified
in 6 target states for future voting rights calls to action.

2,586
calls driven
to support the Gender Recognition Act in New York state. (It passed!)

230
attendees recruited
for a rally urging Senator Sinema to end the Filibuster.

98
hosts recruited
in target states for the nationwide John Lewis Day of Action.

Who should apply?

Movement Labs is committed to investing in the people doing transformative work. We encourage applications by organizations and campaigns led by the people directly impacted by the policies they’re trying to change, and those who don’t have the funding or capacity to run text banks themselves — including but not limited to Black, indigenous, BIPOC, LGBTQ+, immigrant, disabled, and formerly incarcerated people. Some questions we will consider include:

  • Do you have a path to victory for a specific campaign?
  • Are you working to build community power long term, and are you rooted in the community (led by, run by, and/or beholden to a membership of people directly impacted by the policies you’re trying to change)?
  • Do you have a small staff or budget with limited capacity to text bank, but want to add text banking to your organization’s toolkit now and in the future?
  • What is your capacity to follow up with supportive leads via phone, text banking, or in another capacity to turn them into participating members?
  • Would this grant increase the capacity and strength of your campaign and/or your organization?

Deadline

The 2021 application is closed – meet the 2021 Fellows!

Important Dates

To further the leadership development and strategic effectiveness of your campaign, each grantee is required to attend at least one virtual training and strategy session. Below are important dates.

  • August 29 – Application Submission Deadline
  • Beginning of October – Grantees Announced
  • October – Training & strategy sessions begin. Grantees will be encouraged to take advantage of our Movement Text Training program, free for any organization who receives an Advocacy Grant, starting weekly in September.

FAQ

Please contact us at advocacyteam@movementlabs.com with any questions not answered here.

This is an advocacy grant, to help organizations with any policy/legislative goals they have. It wouldn’t include texting for GOTV or voter registration, however for any grantees who want to add those texts on top of their advocacy outreach, they could be paid for separately at a discounted rate, and reaching out to supporters we identify through this grant will make your GOTV outreach more efficient.

We’re looking to support any organizations working to advocate for their community toward a specific attainable goal (legislative or otherwise) in 2021 or 2022. This can be at the local, state or federal level, anywhere in the US including DC and PR. If it’s outside of these parameters and you can convince us that texting will still help you make a tangible change for your community through advocacy we’ll consider creative ideas as well!

If your campaign is already in full swing, we are prepared to start supporting you as soon as the grant begins in early fall, or if you’re in early planning phases you can wait to text until your campaign kicks off. We know that some organizations are preparing for the 2022 legislative cycle and want to support them in incorporating texting into their entire campaign, from the outreach, education and basebuilding that might be happening now, to the trainings, events, and direct advocacy that will happen in the new year.

Hundreds of thousands of texts will go a long way for a smaller grassroots organization building out a base, or to pass local or state legislation where even a few calls makes a huge difference. On the national level it won’t go as far, but we’re open to being convinced that it will help you move your campaign to the next level. When applying for a national campaign, please give us an understanding of a how this grant will help you specifically and strategically. Which specific reps do you need to flip and why? How will a beta test allow you to get the funding or test your strategy and what would that beta test entail? Where do you need to build a base to organize regular actions? How else would this grant help you in a specific and targeted strategy?

Depending on where you are in your campaign you may qualify for our Advocacy Texting Grant (during the base building, movement building, petition gathering phases, etc), whereas this grant doesn’t include texting for GOTV work. If your campaign straddles these two worlds, you would be eligible for the strategy sessions, research support, and trainings included in the grant; the free texts would cover your base building work, and if you wanted to do GOTV texting we could connect you with our sales team and support you with a discounted rate.

C3 and C4 are both fine. On a case by case basis we’ll consider supporting non-profits who aren’t yet certified as well.

Yes! You’re welcome to apply if you’ve already taken advantage of one of our grants in the past, or if you’re currently also applying for our Black August grant.

No, we’re offering free texting; technical, research, strategic and volunteer support; and access to our Movement Text Training program. We will offer a small cash stipend to any grantees who want to pay organizers to follow up with the support leads we identify.

We reach out cold to people in the public voter rolls. We provide the contact info for anyone who responded positively to you after the fact so you can follow up with them for future organizing efforts. We do not keep or use this data; we are not a base building organization. We never ask for your membership lists.

If you are doing advocacy work for a grassroots organization that doesn’t have the funding or staffing to text, you are likely eligible. If after reading our description and FAQ you still aren’t sure if you are eligible, please still apply because from time to time we do pro-bono work and if you’re in our applicants list we’ll be able to reach out to you when capacity allows.

We can support partisan or non-partisan work.

Small enough that you can’t afford and/or don’t have the capacity to text. Large enough that you can take advantage of an influx of new supporters to your campaign and/or organization.

We’re not providing grants to large national organizations (or their affiliates) who already have texting capabilities, but if you are a local affiliate of a national organization and are working on a local campaign or in coalition with other organizations, we encourage you to apply for the coalition or the campaign. If you still aren’t sure if you are eligible, please still apply because from time to time we do pro-bono work and if you’re in our applicants list we’ll be able to reach out to you when capacity allows.

Yes! For your texting, we can do everything from pulling the lists and drafting the scripts to recruiting, training, and overseeing the volunteers who have these conversations with voters on your behalf. Want to be involved in that? No problem, you can be involved as you like. You can draft the script, your volunteers can send the texts, but it’s not necessary - if you’re at capacity we got you. The bonus beyond texting is everything else included in the grant, from research and strategy support to training.

Apply for a Movement Labs Advocacy Grant