Volunteers Needed To Get This Shift Going
It’s time to go all out. It’s time to do whatever we can to hold this democracy together. Democracy is at risk, with a serious threat of failure.
Shift the Country is calling for volunteers to ramp up as much shift as we can prior to the November election. We intend to help energize the majority of US voters. You in?
Short Version
Sign up to volunteer. Thanks! Also this is going to be some unique volunteering because we're going to follow the 5 Things and invent new action as we go. We're going to totally do amazing shift. FAST.
Longer Version
Shift the Country is recruiting all kinds of volunteers in various roles so we can scale up this shift super fast. The idea is to energize the majority of voters to VOTE by November 2022.
We do that in as many ways as possible. We're combining organizing methods + science + synergy + big vision + big energy to catalyze action, activity, ruckus, kerfuffle, change, motivation, hope, and belief. We can create a phenomenon to help energize the majority.
Our unique approach follows 5 Things that help make shift happen. Most of the volunteer sign-ups here relate to those 5 Things. A few volunteering choices relate to critical parts of society.
Soon you'll get tailored announcements about upcoming events & activities related to your interest area(s). This Substack email/blog will also send out major announcements about what we’re up to.
The plan here is to get a bunch of people together in specific ways and for specific things in late August, do big brainstorming and scheming, find ways to make the big plans work, and then to go about doing them through the rest of the fall 'til the election. FAST. We intend to like hyper-scale this shift; if that is a word.
Rough schedule:
STARTING MID-AUGUST: This shift really kicks off with brainstorming & scheming webinar workshops starting August 16 and going through election day 2022.
LATE AUGUST / EARLY SEPTEMBER: We'll do the brainstorming & scheming in the different volunteer action areas and according to the 5 Things through late August / early September.
SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER: We implement all the things we come up with. For example... in August we could work on solid, realistic ways to pressure businesses to support democracy (or women's right, or gun responsibility, etc.); get the technology to help us collect data fast and make it available; and mount a major pressure campaign by mid-September.
RAMP THIS SHIFT UP THROUGH ELECTION DAY: Throughout it all we follow the 5 Things approach to build synergy and tipping points. We iterate, expand, evolve, and grow. Like wildfire.
The Shift the Country approach is fusion + synergy + big vision + leveraging the power of the people.
We can all collectively do these 5 things to catalyze big shift:
Thing 1: Create A Phenomenon of Action, Advocacy, & Energy
Thing 2: Build Power By Taking Connecting & Coalitions To New Levels
Thing 3: Involve Businesses Through Partnerships & Pressure
Thing 4: Champion Vision, Values, & Moral Courage
Thing 5: Spread This Shift Everywhere, & Drive The Narrative.
Join us. We’re re-inventing politics and the art of the possible.
It’s going to be a wild ride. The work we’re going to do together will be tough and challenging and difficult. It’s also going to be amazing and brilliant and spectacular. Because it can be, and because we’re going to make it be that way.
“Light up the darkness.” - Bob Marley.
We're Doing Volunteering Differently
This Shift the Country volunteer experience is likely to be unusual, a little (or a lot) fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants, fast-evolving, and unpredictable.
We're going to need everyone to bring their big brains, their creativity, their people skillzzz, their tech know-how, their networking savvy, their persistence, their solidarity, and their teamwork capacity.
Plus we’ll need stuff like hope, and the belief that we can put this country on a different path than the dangerous and unstable one we've been on.
It's time to go big, to go all out, and to do whatever we can to hold this democracy together.
The stakes are incredible. We cannot let this democracy fail.
Please pass this along, sign up to volunteer, send us contributions so we can do more of this shift, and standby for the related events starting August 16.