SWIM AND PARTNERS UPDATES
SWIM IS PART OF THE NEW GRASSROOTS COLLABORATION PROJECT!
From now until November, The Grassroots Connector, part of the Grassroots Collaborative Project, will connect organizers coast-to-coast. Sharing tactics, advice, and inspiration, we will forge a tight coalition to defeat MAGA and make America blue again! Since launching on February 1, we have soared from 150 to 1,000 subscribers! You can sign up, too, to get in the loop with our collective best practices & resources - because no one likes to recreate the wheel! We are in it to win it!
SWIM BI-MONTHLY MEMBER MEETING
The next bi-monthly Member Meeting will be March 26 at 7pm. We will hear from Rep. Carrie Rheingan from MI for Single Payer as well an update on the National Popular Vote Initiative with Rebeka Warren. You can register here!
At last month's meeting, we heard from Hank Mayers from Michiganders for Fair and Transparent Elections. If you would like to support their initiative, you can access their form to send to your representatives here.
SIGN UP NOW FOR A OUR MARCH BRIEFING WITH SENATOR DEBBIE STABENOW'S STAFF
Thursday, March 7 at 6:00 pm ET we welcome Terry Campbell from Senator Debbie Stabenow's office! She'll update us on the happenings in Washington DC that affect us here in Michigan. If you'd like to submit questions, please email us in advance at info@statewideindivisiblemi.com. Register for the meeting here!
CALLS TO ACTION
ARE YOU ITCHING TO WRITE TO VOTERS? WE GOT YOU, BOO.
SWIM AND FIELD TEAM 6 PROTECT THE HOUSE PROJECT
SWIM and Field Team 6 have put together a comprehensive program to protect our position in the state legislature. We will be working hard to get as many voters who share our values, registered and voting ! Join us for the first phase of this exciting program. There are several ways in which you can help with this. Pick your preferred interaction and sign up.
MICHIGAN TEXT BANKING: March 4 6p-8p ET --TEXT BANK PROMOTION link.
POSTCARDS AND PIE: Mar 17th (St. Patrick’s Day) 6p – 8p ET - POSTCARD PROMOTION link.
Volunteers are responsible for bringing their own postcards and postage.
After registering on Mobilize, we recommend participants do the following. If they don’t, no problem, we will cover it at the event. To start writing postcards for our Michigan House Districts, volunteers will need to set up an account on Field Team 6 site in order to access the list of unregistered voters. Volunteers will need to create an account on the Field Team 6 Partner Site to access the addresses for our target districts. Create an account using this link. Use this link to watch their video.
RESOURCES:
Link to FT6: Field Team 6
Link to Registration guide “Voter Drive In A Box” to set up in person voter registration drives in your area
Link to FT6 Store - POSTCARDS
Postcards to Voters Etsy Store
FLIP THE US HOUSE IN 2024 WITH POSTCARD WRITING!
Activate America is dedicated to mobilizing voters to elect Democrats in the House and Senate through post-carding, phone banking, texting, and canvassing opportunities. Right now, the organization is focusing on flipping 11 House seats in California and New York, all of which President Biden won in the 2020 presidential election. Click here to join Activate America in writing postcards to voters in these critical districts, and work towards flipping the House back to Democratic control in 2024.
POSTCARDS TO VOTERS
Postcards to Voters are friendly, handwritten reminders from volunteers to targeted voters, giving Democrats a winning edge in key races from coast to coast. Sign up and they'll send you an email with instructions. Next, become an approved writer by writing a practice postcard and email a photo to them. Once you're approved, they'll send you the information on how to obtain addresses for the campaign you've chosen. Learn more about them by clicking here.
VOTE FORWARDWe all know how important it is to get "souls to the polls"! Vote Forward's data shows that letters can boost voter turnout by as much as 3.4% This is BIG! Want to become a writer? Sign up here.
OTHER WAYS TO TAKE ACTION
FIELD TEAM 6 IS STANDING BY TO HELP TRAIN VOLUNTEERS TO RUN IN-PERSON VOTER REGISTRATION DRIVES
Want to save the world? We do. How do we do that? We partner with Field Team 6 and contact unregistered, likely democrats to get them to vote in the November 2024 election. Field Team 6 data currently shows that there are 442,006 likely democrats who don't vote in the State of Michigan! Over the next couple of weeks and months, FT6 volunteers will be text banking, phone banking, postcarding and emailing these likely dems in an effort to get them registered to vote. Sign up here to get involved - other FT6 dates and events are posted on SWIM's website. Find one and take part in dramatically improving odds for Democrats in 2024!
HAVE A QUESTION FOR OUR SENATOR?Kevin Hrit, Outreach Director for Senator Gary Peters invited and introduced the Peters regional staff members. Use this list to find the contact person for your area.
ACT ON CLIMATE WITH OUR PARTNERS!
ENCOURAGE OUR LEGISLATORS TO VOTE YES FOR JOSEPH GOFFMAN FOR THE OFFICE OF AIR AND RADIATION AT THE EPA
This action is so easy! Text SIGN PUVPRL to 50409 and Resistbot will do the rest. If you'd like to know more, check it out here.
MICHIGAN CLIMATE ACTION NETWORK!
MiCAN's Community Voices Series is intended to draw diverse participants to amplify local climate work, connect members and groups, and support each other's actions. View past meeting recordings showcasing the climate actions of Grand Rapids and White Lake communities—you are invited to riff from their tried-and-true approach to action!
Know some young social-savvy climate activists? MiCAN is looking for a participants in their new CLIMATE INFLUENCER COHORT (with generous support from the Midwest Building Decarbonization Coalition). MiCAN will mentor sets of three diverse storytellers to become messengers creating climate, culture, and decarbonization content. The first cohort just began, but they are searching for a second cohort to start a 12-week paid program in March. Full eligibility requirements are listed here: Climate Influencer Cohort invitation form.
RESOURCES TO AMPLIFY YOUR MESSAGING
HAVE SOME NEEDS OR IDEAS YOU NEED HELP WITH? DON'T OVERLOOK OUR TERRIFIC REGIONAL LIAISON FOR INDIVISIBLE NATIONAL- SCOTT ICKES!
We are fortunate to have a hard-working, engaged activist like Scott Ickes from Indivisible National working on our behalf. Scott is a master at finding resources for local leaders to help them amp up their game! Not sure what you want? Scott can help there, too - he is full of ideas and puts his activism history to work so we can all level up! He puts no expectations on you, he's just here to help - don't overlook him! Reach out at scott@indivisible.org.
PARTNER TOOL KITS
USING THE POWER OF SOCIAL MEDIA TO AMPLIFY GOOD NEWS
We are listing wonderful resources below where you can pick up memes to spiff up your messages. Many of SWIM's partners have wonderful .gifs that you can use for free in your newsletters and social media posts:
Into Action Labs allows you to download and add your own message(s).
MI Right to Read offers this toolkit of graphics.
Demcast Michigan also has rich, sharable content.
Field Team 6 takes the fear out of posting on social media with this fun video explaining simple step-by-step simple instructions to social storming - at whatever level you want to dive into! FT6 also has a Field Team 6 Current Storm page with prepared posts that can be one-click shared across many platforms.
Indivisible's Trainings-to-Go include materials such as slides, handouts, or discussion questions, as well as facilitation notes/directions for the person leading the space. Start with a pilot batch of 3 Trainings-to-Go: Recruitment 101, Indivisible 101, and Tools for Building Inclusive Groups - and will add more in 2024. These are located in the Support Hub along with lots of other support for you! If you have questions or suggestions, please email training@indivisible.org!
NOT SURE HOW TO PHRASE MESSAGING OUR VALUES? CHECK THIS OUT:
We Make The Future and ASO Communications (Anat Shenkar-Osorio) offer this Guide to Messaging Our Freedoms, providing sample messages for a wide range of issues from our freedom to vote to our freedom to be our true selves. And here is a link to her latest toolkit: From the Indictments to the Courts: Freedom Over Fascism Toolkit!
STAY CURRENT ON SWIM ACTIVITIES AND
PARTNERS' EVENTS
Here are some ways to share them with your network:
Visit the Website often: www.statewideindivisiblemi.com.
New events are being posted regularly; bookmark the page! The new website is designed to be a central repository of the resources and network partners that we’ve amassed since 2016. We also want you, as members, to be able to add your own announcements about your successes and events. Have news to share? Let us know by using the "Comment" link at the top of the homepage, or click here!
Follow us on Facebook!
The SWIM private group is now open to all interested members. Simply go to the page, answer a few simple questions and you are in. This is a great way to keep current on events and issues in between newsletters. This page will be the sole Facebook page for SWIM going forward as the SWIM public page has been archived, so join the group today!
Help us build our social media presence and impact by following SWIM on Twitter (X) @SWIMIndivisible and Instagram StateWideIndivisibleMichigan !
If you are familiar with social media platforms like Threads, Mastodon, WhatsApp, TikTok, Tribel, Post, etc. please contact SWIM CORE member & resident social media maven Vickie Gutowski at info@statewideindivisiblemi.com to help expand our outreach!