When does action planning for 100% voting work?

The movement for 100% student voting uses community level action plans as the basic building blocks of our movement. A new literature review provides clues about when and how action planning works.

This fall, many of the leading student voting organizations in America are all promoting a joint action planning curriculum to local partners. Why is this strategy such a powerful tool that builds power for both local and national partners?

If you spend much time around the movement for 100% student voting, you’ll notice that we care a lot about the action plans campuses develop to improve civic learning, democratic engagement, and voter participation. Nearly 1,500 action plans of this type have been developed since 2016. More than 900 campuses enrolling nearly 10 million students have committed to making one in 2022.

The Votes and Ballots simulation has been a powerful tool for making action planning impactful. The way it engages local leaders in “if-then” scenario planning is a best practice according to action planning research. For more, read “Playing Games to Make Serious Strategy” from 100% Democracy.

Coalition partners have come together to vigorously debate and make a shared action planning guide. We have made simulations based on that guide. We have made rubrics to assess action plans and give awards to the best action plans and so so so much more to support campuses in developing great action plans.

Rishi Shah of MaryPIRG and student leaders from across Maryland went to the Maryland State House to advocate for the Student and Military Voter Empowerment Act.

Even policymakers are enthusiastic - Maryland and California now require most colleges to develop campus voting action plans. The Maryland bill was even introduced by a legislator who was inspired by his own experience as professor developing the University of Maryland’s plan with the TerpsVote Coalition. Similar provisions were included in the voting rights bill that passed the U.S House earlier this year.

The movement for 100% student voting focuses intensely on action plans because action plans have proven to be an enormously useful tool for building power. The action planning process provides needed structure for local leaders who are committed to 100% student voting but need guidance about how to pursue these goals. Action planning makes it much easier for non-profit partners to work together to support local leaders. Action planning enables philanthropic partners to invest in existing local efforts rather than spending more to impose something lower quality from outside the community. The expert “ground truth” consensus of practitioners and community partners in the movement is that action planning works.

Jay A. Perman, MD @JayPerman

.@Univ_System_MD's place among the most civically engaged systems in the U.S.—as recognized by @allintovote—is no accident. @UofMaryland's @noveyator, Mike Hanmer & @AmyMeli (@cdceumd @GVPTUMD) show how essential action plans are to our goal: 100% voting.

thefulcrum.usOPINION: How ‘action planning’ can help campuses achieve 100 percent student votingThe movement for 100 percent student voting has built a culture around action planning on college campuses across the country. Developing such documented plans that define strategies and measure results is critical to success.

A new literature review from our colleague Amy Meli at the Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement at the University of Maryland brings some insights from academic literature into the vibrant conversation about action planning happening among practitioners. She look at studies from a variety of disciplines including industrial and organizational psychology, social work, and public health to answer a critical question facing the movement for 100% student voting. What can the academic literature tell us about when and how action planning for campus voting works?

Scenario planning is good

Meli highlights several studies that show that “if-then” planning - exercises where participants pre-determine a response to a specific stimuli - is particularly effective. This is an important insight as campus voting plans often require local leaders to navigate uncertainty about the political, legal, and public health contexts in which students will be voting. Research suggest that movement tools like Votes and Ballots that allow campuses to immerse themselves in potential future scenarios and think through what they would do should be particularly effective.

Students from Drew University pose with their trophy and mascot after winning the New Jersey Ballot Bowl. Tying opportunities for recognition to the action planning process strengthens both self efficacy and accountability in research backed ways. Programs like the Voter Friendly Campus Designation, ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge, and over 20 state and local voting challenges all use this strategy to great effect..

Self-efficacy matters

Organizers in the movement for 100% student voting are always managing the tension between inspiring local leaders to to be more ambitious and demoralizing them with unachievable dreams. Strategies to manage these tensions are baked into the design recognition programs like the Voter Friendly Campus Designation and the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge. These programs both recognize incremental progress, don’t shame low performers as “losers” of a competition, and create “ladders of recognition” that enable local leaders to set a goal of reaching the next achievable “rung.” Meli’s review that validates this overall approach.

As Herb Kelleher of Southwest Airlines memorably put it, institution level planning can sometimes impede action. Meli’s literature review suggests this is a real danger to the movement for 100% student voting. She suggests that we address these through increase use of evaluation and accountability strategies,

Group and institutional planning can be a double edged sword

Meli’s review does contain several elements that should be cause for some concern, reflection, and adjustment in the movement for 100% student voting. Movement organizers have hyper focused on institution and group action planning processes as a fundamental movement building block. This focus has permeated local campus cultures, non-profit programming plans, funding metrics, and even public policy.

But the academic literature suggests that action planning in group and institutional settings might not always lead to progress towards our 100% student voting movement goals. Action planning can be an effective way to build consensus around shared goals across an institution. But an action planning process can also be used by institutional leadership to delay action. And in worst case scenarios institutional efforts can suppress organic leadership emerging around an issue in different parts of the institution. These risks is particularly acute when action planning is not paired with sufficient evaluation and accountability mechanisms.

The movement for 100% student voting already has some safeguards against these dangers in place. There are evaluation and accountability mechanisms built into the current planning rubric. Recognition programs use data from NSLVE to determine which campuses get certain kinds of recognition. The Voter Friendly Campus Designation in withheld from campuses that don’t submit a post election report of activities. These types of measures all help.

Meli’s literature review suggests that our movement should double down on these evaluation and accountability efforts. It can feel counterintuitive to spend substantial resources on evaluation and accountability work that occurs after Election Day. But the academic literature suggests that all the action planning work that happens in communities before Election Day will be much more effective if movement organizers provide a supportive structure for evaluation and accountability afterwards. It just takes a little bit of discipline and focus from coalition leaders and philanthropic partners to sustain the focus on the action planning process after Election Day.

The upshot? Use action planning thoughtfully!

Amy Meli’s review of the action planning literature makes important contributions to the movement for 100% student voting. It validates core assumptions and anecdotal evidence about the power of “if-then” planning tools and goal setting that strengthens self efficacy. But it also challenges movement leaders to focus more intensely on evaluation and accountability to ensure that the planning process does not inadvertently impede progress and stifle grassroots efforts. These concerns take on greater significance as policy makers have begun including action planning requirements for campus voting programs in various pieces of state and national legislation and regulatory actions. By using action planning thoughtfully and incorporating insights from academic literature, the movement for 100% student voting can continue to reap the benefits of action planning while mitigating some of the risks that come with using group and institutional planning as a foundational building block for the movement.

Sam Novey is a Visiting Fellow at the SNF Agora Institute and a Consulting Community Scholar the Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement at the University of Maryland.

Mike Hanmer is a Professor in the Department of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland and Research Director for the Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement.