Many SURJ NEO members participate in focused working groups. These groups allow the chapter to work on dismantling white supremacy from a number of different angles. They allow us as individuals to engage in the work where we are most passionate and where we feel our particular skills are best put to use.
- Communications
- Fundraising
- Police Use of Force
- On-boarding
- Data/Tech
- Phone banking
Our working groups are at capacity right now. If you’d still like to get involved, here are some initiatives we are putting our energy towards — you can help make a huge difference!
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Seed the Vote
Showing Up for Racial Justice Southeast Ohio is excited to partner with an organization called Seed the Vote, whose mission is to do electoral politics in a new way. Their vision is to support electoral organizing that goes beyond the ballot box and the traditionally transactional nature of voter outreach to actually bring new people into long-haul movements for racial justice and social change. Their efforts are focusing on 3 states that will be key to the ousting Trump: Arizona, Pennsylvania (in which Trump won in 2016 by just 44,000 votes!) and Florida. The organizations they are partnering with, such as Lucha in Arizona, have been doing deep, intentional organizing in their respective states for years.
To support these efforts as well as voter outreach here in Ohio, we are forming a “seed pod”, which is simply a group of people who care about taking action for the November election. In this group, we have a regular schedule of phone banking and trainings to support the campaigns listed above, as well as absentee ballot promotion in Appalachian Ohio.
We will also do check ins every other week that include a short political education component on the importance of getting involved both in elections and longer-term movements. The time commitment for this program is about 6-8 hours per month. No experience with phone banking, elections, or campaigns is necessary.
This group is being organized and focused in southeast Ohio, but it supports national and Ohio-wide efforts, so everyone is encouraged to join us!
To get involved, please email the organizer, Andrea.
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#SwingGeorgiaLeft
Friends: it’s time to stop wringing our hands and start taking action to make sure that we DEFEAT TRUMP this November. Join SURJ as we call white voters in Georgia to make sure that this year, we #swingGeorgialeft and we give white people a long term political home.
We’ve been calling white folks in Georgia for weeks now, and we’ve got more work to do together every Saturday and Thursday up until the election to make sure that Georgia goes blue.
At Saturday phone banks, we’re calling white voters and at Thursday phone banks we’re recruiting callers. Come out for both or either!
We need to narrow a gap of about 55,000 white voters to win Georgia in November. We know it can be done. In the last six weeks we reached 11,000 Georgia voters, and more than 60% have been with us – and thousands of others are persuadable.
You will be given full training on the script, techniques to connect with voters and support on the technology used. Together, with volunteers across the country, we’ll be calling every other Saturday from now until November.
Register for any of the dates by using this form. Click here to find the phone bank calendar.
- Saturday Phone Banks are scheduled 10 am-1:30pm PT/1-4:30 pm ET
- Thursday Phone Banks are scheduled 3-6 pm PT/6-9 pm ET
There will be phone banking opportunities with SURJ Ohio coming up in October where we will need as much volunteer support as we can possibly get! & the best way for people to stay up-to-date with any of our volunteer opportunities is to join our email list or to follow us on social media.