Nonprofits on the defensive after getting out the vote

On a Saturday in the growing Latino immigrant community of Westbury, things weren’t going well for Rodman Serrano. He had struck out all day.

Serrano was tasked with knocking on 50 doors a day as a part-time worker for the Long Island Civic Engagement Table’s get-out-the-vote effort leading up to the elections. Most doors he rapped on responded to the 22-year-old with silence. But after wearily marking voter after voter “not home” that Saturday, one young man his age opened the door.

"He said that when he's voting, he's voting for his parents – which is the same thing I'm doing.”

Serrano noted that neither of their parents are citizens, and added, "he gives me hope."

In spite of the election of Donald Trump, who is considered by many to be racist and anti-immigrant, nonprofits targeting immigrant and minority communities say that after a months-long get-out-the-vote effort, they are weary but hopeful about their continued efforts to mobilize these voters.

A coalition of organizations turned out large numbers of immigrant, working-class voters in communities of color in New York this election cycle. Many said they believed they met their lofty outreach goals, but the result of the presidential election shocked many nonprofit organizers. They have quickly pivoted to defending their communities and hoping that one silver lining that may emerge is the further mobilization of groups often perceived as unlikely voters.

Get-out-the-vote efforts are at least as old as Thomas Jefferson’s political campaigns, which stressed voting as the duty of every citizen, said Donald Green, a professor of political science at Columbia University and author of the book “Get Out The Vote: How to Increase Voter Turnout.” New methods have emerged with new technologies, but essentially the goal is the same: boost voter turnout in your constituency.

Immigrant communities have a reputation as difficult to mobilize, because they are viewed as “low-propensity” voters with weak party allegiances, Green said. But inaction can breed even more isolation and political powerlessness.

“If you don't vote,” Green said, “campaigns are less likely to target you for persuasive messages thereafter. And that means that you're even less likely to be engaged.”

But it seems the country’s largest immigrant group, people from Latin America, turned out in droves to cast ballots. Compared with the last presidential election, polling group Latino Decisions reported an estimated 2 million to 3.5 million more Latinos voted this November. They say the numbers were driven by a so-called “Trump Bump” – or fear of a Donald Trump victory.

New York nonprofits engaged in get-out-the-vote efforts said they saw evidence of that bump, too.

“With our partners at the Long Island Civic Engagement Table, we were able to submit more than 8,000 complete (new) voter registration forms – that’s a large number,” said Daniel Altschuler, director of civic engagement at Make the Road New York. “It’s one of the highest numbers we’ve ever recorded and we saw tremendous enthusiasm among folks to register.”

Gabriella Castillo, who heads the Long Island Civic Engagement Table, said that the coalition was proud to have far exceeded their original goal to register 2,500 new voters and has managed to reach 20,000 voters of color in door-to-door canvassing. “Something that was different was that many voters were concerned and were anxious to make sure they were voting, specifically in the presidential,” said Castillo.

Altschuler acknowledged that while some of the early metrics for success may appear low in the face of overall demographics – 20,000 immigrants reached out of the estimated 500,000 on Long Island – the groups have done well with what resources they have.

“This was not a year where there were more resources available,” Altschuler said. “There was not a dramatic infusion of resources, particularly not in New York, which at the presidential level is not a swing state.”

Nonetheless, in New York City, Louisa Hackett, through her organization Community Votes, trained nonprofit direct-service providers on running a nonpartisan voter mobilization campaign and saw increased engagement.

"It's the first time I know that these large multi-service social service agencies have joined in (in the New York City area),” Hackett said. A 2014 report argued that such nonprofits are uniquely able to reach those least-likely to be courted by politicians those in poor, immigrant and minority communities.

Five organizations – Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation, Global Kids, Good Shepherd Services, Jacob A. Riis Neighborhood Settlement and Phipps Neighborhoods – were trained by Community Votes to run door-to-door get-out-the-vote efforts or phone banks to encourage minority voters to cast their ballots on election day. The groups got 955 people to pledge to vote and called 2,300 to remind them to vote.

Not until next spring will definitive statistics be available on voter turnout based on government records reporting which registered voters cast a ballot, groups said. These numbers are the common standard for measuring success in get-out-the-vote efforts.

However, voters’ feelings about the election results are already apparent. While every charitable nonprofit contacted by New York Nonprofit Media stressed that their voter mobilization efforts were nonpartisan as required by law, several nonprofit leaders said the common reaction to the results of the presidential election was dismay.

“This is the darkest of days for our community. A demagogue who has consistently vilified our families has won the nation's highest office,” Javier H. Valdés, Make the Road New York’s co-executive director, wrote in a press release the day after the election. “Today is a time when we find support and strength in one another. Tomorrow, we begin the hard work of advancing our movement of resistance to the anti-immigrant and anti-working family platform that Mr. Trump has put forth. And we rededicate ourselves to the long march to defeat hate and exclusion.”

"There was a lot of shock and tears and mourning” following the election of Trump, Hackett said. But she echoed Valdés’ spirit of defiance and rededication. “We've got to get back on the horse and try harder.”

Make the Road New York organized a march through midtown Manhattan the Sunday following the election that drew thousands of immigrants and their allies, who carried banners reading “Here to Stay” and “Undocumented and Unafraid.”

But after the rallies and protests subsided, nonprofits worried that the election result might discourage first-time voters and depress future turnout in the immigrant community.

Despite a sense of gloom surrounding the results, nonprofit organizers are still hopeful their communities will be galvanized to become more engaged. If they are, it would make sense, Green said.

“It’s easier to get people to engage in political conduct when they are angry or disappointed,” Green said. “People want to have their voices heard when they’re in the minority.”

Serrano, who ultimately knocked on more than 600 doors on Long Island, seems to embody that sentiment.

”I don't feel like all the work I did went to waste,” he said. “I think I actually helped to spark a little bit of change in communities that people have never reached out to.”

"Regardless of who won the election,” Serrano said, “our community is going to be fighting and I think that that has created a lot of hope in me."

This article was updated to correct the name of Phipps Houses to Phipps Neighborhoods.