About us
We enable grassroots volunteers to play a leading role in testing and scaling innovative, high-impact tactics that encourage fellow Americans to vote.
What we do
Every cycle, Vote Forward runs numerous RCTs (randomized controlled trials) to test the effectiveness of our voter turnout programs. Then, in our continued pursuit of innovation and commitment to transparency, we share our learnings with our volunteers and supporters, peer organizations, and the public.
The majority of our voter contact campaigns are nonpartisan, supporting our core 501c(3) and 501c(4) social-welfare mission, which focuses on mobilizing potential voters in historically marginalized communities—such as people of color, women, and young voters. We also support 501(c)(4) partisan campaigns to encourage likely-Democratic voters to turn out in strategic states and districts.
Since launching in 2017, Vote Forward has been committed to scale, impact, and partnership. We’ve written over 40 million letters to voters with the help of over 285,000 volunteers and numerous nonprofit, political, and corporate partners ranging from Patagonia to Daily Kos to the Milwaukee Bucks and more. Now we’re hard at work developing new and innovative tactics for the upcoming election cycle.
285k+
Volunteers powering this work
40M+
Handwritten letters sent to voters
25+
Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) conducted & publicly shared
Our approach
Volunteer-powered
Volunteers are the heart of this work, and we’re always working to make it even easier for everyone to participate. Letter writing is an accessible tactic available to experienced activists and new volunteers alike. In 2024, more than a quarter of surveyed letter writers had never volunteered for a civic or political cause before joining Vote Forward.
Evidence-driven
We pioneered the discovery that handwritten letters can significantly boost voter turnout—and then massively scaled the tactic while refining it via dozens of RCTs. We’re continuing to build on what works—and working to develop new tactics—by testing rigorously and repeatedly.
Collaborative
We work with other evidence-driven organizations, researchers, and analysts to co-create and execute novel campaigns. We also offer Vote Forward’s platform and programming to nonprofit, political, and corporate groups, helping them track their volunteers’ impact.
Innovative
We’re working to discover which new tactics are most effective through scientific evaluation and analysis. We transparently report the results of our experiments to our volunteers, donors, partners, and the public for their use and adoption across the pro-democracy ecosystem. Together with our community, we’re an engine shaping the future of high-impact voter contact.
Our Partners
Our origin story
Vote Forward began in 2017 as an experiment conducted by Scott Forman in Alabama, where he sent 1,000 letters to engage voters in a special U.S. Senate election. Encouraged by the success of that test, Scott and a small group of friends and colleagues built the first version of our platform to allow volunteers to take easy and effective action in future elections. We’re so proud of how this community has grown over the years—and the impact we’ve achieved together.
As seen in:
Support our work
To make a contribution to Vote Forward, please donate online via ActBlue or contact Jennifer Falkey, Development Program Manager, at jfalkey@votefwd.org.
Want to learn more?
For questions about letters, check out our help site or chat bot. If you are unable to find an answer, you can email help@votefwd.org for support.