PWN Kicks Off Organizing for Power: Road to 2020 Electoral Organizing Effort with a Five-Day Intensive Bootcamp

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Contact: communications(at)pwn-usa.org

Positive Women’s Network – USA Kicks Off Organizing for Power: Road to 2020 Electoral Organizing Effort with a Five-Day Intensive Bootcamp

Eleven teams from ten states, all led by women and people of trans experience living with HIV, are convening in Atlanta for hands-on training in skills they need to expand, educate, and mobilize the electorate in their communities.

October 28, Atlanta: Almost exactly one year before the extremely consequential 2020 election, eleven teams led by women and people of trans experience living with HIV, predominantly people of color, have landed in Atlanta to kick off Organizing for Power: Road to 2020 (OFP), a groundbreaking new electoral organizing strategy. Hailing from ten states—Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Texas—the teams will participate in an intensive, five-day electoral organizing bootcamp. OFP 2020 will train teams to leverage their organizing power to expand the electorate in their communities, while educating, organizing, and mobilizing voters on issues that impact the HIV community. The effort, led by Positive Women’s Network – USA (PWN), a national membership body of women and trans folks living with HIV, is changing the narrative on what it looks like for people living with HIV to organize for real, concrete change while building long-term power for their communities.

“When PWN announced Organizing for Power 2020, we formed H-Town Power [Houston’s OFP team]. It was the perfect opportunity for us to continue shifting attention to the issues – locally, statewide, and nationally,” explained Crystal Townsend. “It’s very important to educate our constituents about what’s at stake for low-income communities and make sure they know what’s on the ballot; to tell people who have felonies that if they are not on parole or probation in Texas, they have the right to vote; and to encourage people to pledge to vote, to vote early, and to resist and fight back against voter suppression efforts. These are the kinds of changes we want to see as a result of our work between now and the 2020 election.”

The bootcamp builds off work that PWN members led in 2018, registering over 1000 voters in 5 states, and reaching over 10,000 voters through phone-banking, door-knocking, and distribution of educational literature.

The five-day, intensive training is designed specifically to give OFP teams the concrete skills and knowledge they need to register, engage, and activate voters far too often overlooked or written off by traditional get-out-the-vote (GOTV) efforts. Bootcamp participants will learn how to create a successful integrated voter engagement plan; how to register voters; how to talk to voters and potential voters in underserved communities about the importance of voting and how to connect elections to the issues that matter most in their day-to-day lives; how to use the latest technology, like peer-to-peer texting and canvassing apps to reach and engage voters on those issues; and how to evaluate their efforts and adjust their strategies and tactics accordingly. Women Engaged–a social justice nonprofit that takes an innovative, hands-on learning approach to advancing women’s human rights, youth empowerment and civic engagement efforts in Georgia—will be training bootcamp participants on canvassing and phone-banking; the OFP teams will hit the phones and streets Tuesday afternoon to put what they’ve learned into practice.

“Our team knows that when we organize people living with HIV and allies in a concerted effort to encourage others in civic engagement, educating on our values and how these values relate to the issues, and running get-out-the-vote campaigns, we really do make a difference in all of our communities,” said Michelle Kohler of Pennsylvania. “We did voter engagement work in 2018 and had great results, learned a lot, and educated our community on voting to make a difference. There are currently direct attacks on our freedoms, and we must have a sense of urgency. We would like to see more people get active in the community and be passionate about doing our civic duty in voting and encouraging others to vote, especially in areas of historically low voter turnout. We’re excited to learn and practice new skills that will help us increase voter turnout and participation of people in our communities.”

The OFP bootcamp will also mark the official launch of PWN’s new 501(c)(4) organization, Vote Positive USA, which will provide the flexibility to more directly engage candidates and support those who are committed to championing the issues of people living with HIV and their communities.