What would make a 100,000 strong membership organization even stronger?  That’s the question our good friends at EMILY’s List asked us leading up to an exciting and closely watched mid-term election.  EMILY’s List, a leading organization in electing pro-choice Democratic women candidates to federal and statewide office, has spent 25 years building itself into a fundraising powerhouse and a national force in shaping election outcomes.  This year, it redoubled its commitment to match that power with strength on the ground.  grassroots solutions was honored to help EMILY’s List begin to build a new program for the 2010 election and beyond – Team EMILY – that provides their members with opportunities to volunteer on behalf of the impressive roster of women candidates that are endorsed and backed by the organization.

grassroots solutions worked as an integral part of the WOMEN VOTE! program at EMILY’s List, which anchored the organization’s get-out-the-vote efforts.  We partnered with EMILY’s List staff and leadership to design and develop the Team EMILY program – from concept to planning to targeting – and we provided hands-on organizing support to get it off the ground and running in the final six weeks of the election cycle.  In all, grassroots solutions helped to coordinate Team EMILY volunteers on the ground in nine states, managed four national call-in nights for Team EMILY volunteers utilizing advanced predictive dialing technology (supporting Barbara Boxer, Patty Murray, Alex Sink, Julia Lassa, and Ann McLane Kuster), and managed a telephone town hall with EMILY’s List President Stephanie Schriock that attracted 15,000 participants.  The results were impressive – Team EMILY members made a total of 121,155 calls and spoke to 23,484 targeted (and potential drop-off) Democratic women voters.

While EMILY’s List’s scorecard showed mixed results on November 3, Team EMILY did help re-elect key women Senators Patty Murray and Barbara Boxer.  EMILY’s List sees Team EMILY as a new wellspring of people power, and we look forward to working together in the future to sustain and build on the great start that this powerful new army of volunteers made this fall.