About Vote Forward
We partner with volunteers to take evidence-driven, high-impact actions that strengthen our democracy by building trust in government and increasing voter participation.
What we do
Vote Forward envisions a country where every American receives the support they need to participate in democracy—and where every volunteer can take proven actions to strengthen it.
Every cycle, Vote Forward rigorously measures the effectiveness of our voter turnout and civic engagement programs. In 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 work is nonpartisan, supporting our core 501c(3) and 501c(4) social-welfare mission. We also support 501(c)(4) activities to encourage likely-Democratic voters to turn out in strategic elections.
Since launching in 2017, Vote Forward has been committed to scale, impact, and partnership. We pioneered the use of handwritten letters as an effective voter turnout tactic—writing more than 40 million letters to voters with the help of more than 285,000 volunteers and numerous nonprofit, political, and corporate partners ranging from Patagonia to Daily Kos to the Milwaukee Bucks and more. We’re hard at work developing new and innovative tactics for upcoming elections.
285K+
Volunteers powering this work
40M+
Handwritten letters sent to voters
29
RCTs conducted & shared publicly
Our approach
Volunteer-powered
Volunteers are the heart of this work. We’re always working to make it even easier for everyone to participate. In 2024, more than a quarter of surveyed volunteers had never participated with 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 I conducted in Alabama, where I sent 1,000 letters to engage voters in a special U.S. Senate election. Encouraged by the success of that test, I worked with a small group of friends and colleagues to build the first version of the Vote Forward platform to enable volunteers to take easy and effective action in future elections. I’m so proud of how this team and community have grown over the years—and the impact we’ve achieved together.
Scott Forman
Vote Forward Founder
As seen in:
Support this work
To make a contribution to Vote Forward, please donate online via ActBlue or contact Jennifer Falkey, Development Program Manager, at jfalkey@votefwd.org.
Have more questions?
For questions about volunteer actions, check out our help site. If you are unable to find an answer, you can email help@votefwd.org for support.
