Working Together to Increase Civic Engagement for the 2020 General Election and Beyond
Earlier this spring, The California Endowment, in partnership with the California Primary Care Association (CPCA) and AltaMed Health Services, provided a grant opportunity to six community health centers (CHCs) from across the state with the goal of executing AltaMed’s “My Vote, My Health – Mi Voto, Mi Salud” program. The aim of the program was to involve health center staff and patients in the area of civic engagement by providing them with information and resources on registering to vote and how to vote with an ultimate goal of identifying ten thousand new voters. Each of the six health centers, along with CPCA, was provided with information in order to implement the program through the “My Vote, My Health – Mi Voto, Mi Salud” five-touch model.
The health centers participating in the program included the following:
Golden Valley Health Centers
LifeLong Medical Care
Borrego Community Health
WellSpace Health
Livingston Community Health
Asian Health Services
Additionally, AltaMed Health Services, La Clinica de La Raza and San Ysidro Health continued their engagement in the program from previous election cycles by building upon their successes in engaging new voters.
The program seeks to build and sustain power among low-income communities of color by leveraging the health center infrastructure and role as trusted community anchors and messengers.
As part of this effort, participating health centers were given a toolkit for in-clinic civic engagement outreach as well as health center branded materials. Additionally, virtual trainings were conducted and ongoing technical assistance was provided to the health center participants in order to successfully carry out the program. Finally, CPCA shared this model with the Advocacy Committee, Public Affairs Peer Network, CaliforniaHealth+ Advocates Board, in the Advocates Weekly Update and through a special webinar on Civic Engagement and Voting that included special guest, California Secretary of State Alex Padilla.
Now that the general election is behind us, the program as a whole, will undergo a holistic evaluation to determine the impact on its intended Get Out the Vote (GOTV) outcomes, continuous engagement of communities, and federally qualified health center (FQHC) capacity-building. Furthermore, the evaluation team will measure the campaign’s effectiveness in mobilizing communities between elections to address the social determinants of health. The University of Los Angeles’s Latino Policy & Politics Initiative (UCLA LPPI) will conduct the program evaluation.
The signature piece of the program centers around the 5-Touch Model, which is used to engage new voters. In light of COVID-19, there were some components that would best be utilized in this new environment such as utilizing Public Service Announcements (PSAs), on-hold phone messages, posters, screensavers, buttons and fliers.
The 5-Touch model consists of the following:
Phone Calls
Door-to-Door engagement
Text message outreach
PSA’s and TV commercials
Rides to the polls
Based upon health center feedback, implementation of the program was a success not only within the individual health center network but also throughout the community. Television PSAs and social media engagement proved to be a few of the ways that got the message out to a broader audience in order to educate people on how important it is to participate in the voting process.
Finally, CPCA engaged their own staff and networks on the importance of voting and provided information, resources, and tools that were helpful to first time voters and even seasoned voters leading up to the election.