The Problem
In 2021, a coalition of nonprofit organizations led by America Votes Georgia and Pro Georgia were advocating on multiple voting rights-related issues. At the time, they didn’t have an efficient or streamlined way to coordinate efforts during the state’s short 40-day legislative session. These coalition partners were working in silos and spending countless hours manually tracking bills. They needed to improve communication, amplify group efforts, and save time to focus on advocacy.
The Solution
America Votes Georgia was coordinating the 501(c)(4) table, while Pro Georgia managed the 501(c)(3) group. Working together with Plural they were able to support both groups in transitioning from manually updated, overlapping spreadsheets, to using Plural to track important bills. This allowed the coalition to seamlessly discover, track and collaborate on voting rights and election issues across their organizations.
“Save yourself and your team the time that it takes to run through a bill. Having a tool that can identify changes for you frees up a lot of time to do the most strategic work –advocating on the issue, talking to the legislators, and talking to the community. “
— Ashley Robinson, Deputy State Director, America Votes Georgia
The Outcome
Coalition partners were able to significantly reduce the time they would have spent manually tracking bills and minimize redundancy across organizations. This allowed them to spend more time collaborating on strategies, talking with legislators, and engaging the community. Using Plural’s shared Workspaces and Tags features, coalition partners were able to instantly alert each other, the media, and their constituents that action was needed whenever important legislative updates occurred. By the end of the legislative session year, the coalition was able to stop 50 bills that would have made it harder for citizens in Georgia to vote.
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The Details
Automatic updates and notifications about important bills freed up time so coalition partners could focus on the hard work of advocating on their issues.
Plural’s ability to automatically track any changes in legislation and the ease of use for logging notes from lobbyists, saved countless hours in comparison to working in spreadsheets and email chains. The coalition was able to use that time instead to focus on the hard work of advocating on their issues.
Plural ensured partners, the media, and constituents stayed in the loop and ready to act.
At the end of each day, America Votes Georgia used Plural to populate a newsletter updating partners on all relevant bills. Coalition members also used the Public Tags feature to publish updates on breaking news— alerting media and galvanizing action for supporters.
Tagging bills by issue area kept the coalition organized, allowing coalition partners to easily track all the bills related to a specific topic.
Since the coalition was working on a wide range of intersecting issues, partners needed a way to organize and track legislation related to specific topics. They were able to use tags to track all the bills in any given issue area to help each other stay on top of what was happening and how they could amplify each other’s efforts
Simple to Use
Plural is beautifully designed with intuitive features like Tags, Workspaces, and Alerts that make it easy to work across teams or a coalition.
Built for Collaboration
Plural’s Workspaces allow you to invite anyone to work with you on a public policy strategy, while keeping your internal conversations secure.
The Results
In 2021, voting rights groups in Georgia were playing defense. Dozens of bills were introduced with the goal of making it harder for Georgians to vote. With better coordination, more time to act, and rapid notifications as bills moved through the legislature, the coalition was able to stop 70% of the bills they opposed while building stronger partnerships for the future.
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