Campuses are submitting more - and better - action plans this election cycle

Early 2024 trends are encouraging, but questions remain

Every federal election cycle the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge supports campuses in developing and implementing nonpartisan democratic engagement action plans, providing resources and guidance for the drafting of said plans and then offering feedback to campuses that submit their plans by certain pre-designated opportunities. 

An analysis of the 2024 cycle’s early action plan submissions, which were submitted in December, reveals some striking trends: Namely, that more campuses than ever have submitted action plans at this point in the election cycle, and the action plans they’re submitting are stronger, on average, than action plans from previous cycles.

Early action plan submissions by the numbers

A total of 237 campuses submitted plans by ALL IN’s early submission opportunity, more than four times as many submissions as the same opportunity during the 2022 election cycle, and nearly 100 more than the equivalent time in 2020, the last presidential election cycle. The campuses in question have approximately three million total students - a number made all the more meaningful by the fact that these submissions come from a cohort that is not only larger, but more representative of the national population, than past cycles. 

Compared to 2020, community college and Minority-Serving Institution submissions have each more than doubled, with 52 and 53 action plans, respectively. Hispanic-Serving Institution submissions have increased as well, from 15 in 2020 to 40 so far this cycle, while five Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have submitted so far this cycle - up from just 1 in 2020. Importantly, each of these increases outpace the overall growth of submissions, meaning the institution types mentioned above occupy a greater portion of the total cohort of submissions than in past cycles - 37% in 2024 compared to 24% in both 2022 and 2020.

Action planning experience and commitment matter.

In general, the earlier campuses joined ALL IN, the more likely they were to submit by this opportunity - lending more examples to a trend we noted last year that the action planning process becomes more sustainable (and effective) over time. Institutional commitment matters a great deal as well, as evidenced by the fact that 73% of early submissions in 2024 come from campuses whose presidents have signed on to ALL IN’s presidents’ commitment to full student voter participation. 

There aren’t just more action plans this year. They’re better, too.

In 2018, members of the Students Learn Students Vote Coalition created the Strengthening American Democracy Guide (SADG) and Rubric to assess the quality of action plans based on nine action planning sections. Now in its 4th edition, ALL IN trained over 50 individuals from campuses and nonprofit organizations to use the rubric to assess action plans. Since 2018, the average action plan score has increased from 19.6 to 28.7 points out of 36 possible points. Additionally, the gap in scores between 4-year institutions and community colleges and MSIs has closed so far in 2024.

In 2022, ALL IN created the Highly Established Action Plan Seal to recognize institutions that developed action plans that earned 31.5 or more points. 121 institutions earned the seal in 2022. Through ALL IN’s first of three submission opportunities, 93 institutions, five times more than at this point in 2022, have already earned the seal in 2024 including 37 institutions earning the seal for the first time.

This makes sense given the resources at campuses’ disposal. In fact, improvements so far track closely with more use of support mechanisms. Action plan reviewers indicated that 97% of the 237 action plans fully or partially used the Strengthening American Democracy Guide when developing their action plan, up from 90% in 2022, 81% in 2020, and 28% in 2018 when the SADG was first published.

For institutions that had submitted a 2022 action plan to ALL IN and have already submitted a 2024 action plan, 83% indicated that they used action plan feedback from their 2022 action plan received from ALL IN to prepare their action plan in 2024. 

90% of campuses that didn’t submit a 2022 action plan shared that they used the custom-made, pre-populated action plan template based on the SADG that ALL IN shared with them last fall. Additionally, the SLSV Coalition’s Action Plan Working Group has continued its virtual Action Plan Workshop Series for a second year, offering multiple workshops for five different action planning sessions. The Action Planning Working Group has helped to streamline messaging, webinars, and support offered by nonprofit partners to campuses.

Survey responses offer a roadmap for further improvements.

This cycle ALL IN asked campuses to complete a brief survey to submit alongside their action plans for the first time, revealing new insights into the composition of this cycle’s action plans. Among other things, the survey responses offer a snapshot into the typical composition of nonpartisan campus voting coalitions, broken down by stakeholder type. A majority of coalitions from all campus types surveyed include students, student affairs staff, student organizations, faculty, nonprofit organizations, and representatives from the office of the president or chancellor. However, other campus and community personnel, including residence life, academic affairs staff, local election officials and university athletic departments, vary widely and are not consistently included in action plans. 

Viewed in the context of growing evidence that a diverse coalition with multiple layers of accountability is an effective way to grow strategic capacity, these survey responses represent important potential avenues for improvement in action planning and nonpartisan student voter engagement. While there are potential drawbacks to involving too many stakeholders without clearly defining roles and responsibilities, intentional and strategic engagement offers the highest potential for effective action planning. 

In addition to a variety of stakeholders, campuses surveyed demonstrated they understand the need to account for turnover. 75% of respondents self-reported having a campus voting coalition leadership succession plan - a vital aspect of nonpartisan student voter engagement given the high turnover rate in higher education professions and the inherent student turnover at institutions of higher education. However, according to assessment by ALL IN’s action plan reviewers, only 48% of action plan submissions met ALL IN standards for a satisfactory succession plan, which is up from 31% in 2022 but still considerably lower than the self-reported figure. Understanding the reasons for the gap between these numbers and working toward a unified understanding of what constitutes a leadership succession plan - as well as their necessity - is key to the long term institutionalization of nonpartisan student democratic engagement.

What questions remain?

Early submission rates are on a blistering pace, but is that indicative of more campuses submitting overall? Or just submitting earlier? Both are good but mean different things.

A majority of the growth in action plan submissions this early in the cycle is a result of campuses already engaged in the action planning process submitting earlier. 148 of the 237 submissions (62%) came from a campus that submitted their 2024 action plan earlier than their 2022 action plan. 37 action plans (16%) came from campuses submitting their first action plan ever or since the 2020 cycle. Engaged campuses submitting action plans earlier is a big win, and more work and resources will be needed to not only bring new campuses into the action planning process, but in a way that enables them to submit action plans early.

ALL IN identified a variety of possible explanations for the surge in early action plan submissions, including intentionally focused messaging on the December 15 submission opportunity coupled with a de-emphasis of subsequent submission opportunities. In September 2023, ALL IN sent every participating campus either their 2022 action plan feedback report or their custom action planning template,  and conducted more outreach solely focused on action planning than in past cycles.

Communities of Practice have some of the highest submission percentages of any ALL IN campuses. Is that sustainable?

ALL IN now has 232 campuses in a Community of Practice (CoP) and each is led by a CoP Fellow. These institutions submitted early action plans at a higher rate than all campuses. In addition to action plan submissions, CoP campuses are taking more program actions with ALL IN, which shows growing evidence that more support, resources, and a cohort model are resulting in MSIs and community colleges increasing their democratic engagement efforts with ALL IN. While not definitive, this points toward some sustainability of CoP upticks thus far in the cycle. 

The Upshot: What does this mean for student voter engagement, in 2024 and beyond?

Democratic engagement action planning has been fundamental to efforts over the past several election cycles to institutionalize nonpartisan democratic engagement and student voter engagement on college campuses throughout the US, so the increased volume and quality of action plans thus far in the election cycle is undoubtedly a sign that things are continuing to move in the right direction. However, understanding the full impact of quality action plans will require us to look beyond just voting rates in 2024 to factors that may be harder to quantify but are more indicative of the level to which voter engagement efforts have permeated a given campus culture. Seeing how action plans are implemented and the resources required to do so will help paint a fuller picture throughout the remainder of the year.