Guide for Organizing a Rock the Vote Street Team
Welcome! If you’re reading this guide, it’s because you’re thinking about starting a Rock the
Vote street team.
As a Street Team Leader, you’ll be on the front lines of the
largest young voter registration drive in history, helping to make
our generation’s action in 2008 one for the record books. Rock
the Vote is not messing around this year - we have a goal of
registering 2,000,000 18-29 year olds to vote, three times larger
than any effort we’ve done in the past!
In order to make this happen, we need YOU. You and hundreds
like you across the country are the power in Rock the Vote ’08.
As part of our nationwide network of Street Teams, you’ll be registering young voters on
campuses, at churches, at clubs, in coffee shops, at festivals, and in barbershops, and
recruiting others to build up your team and register even more voters. Teams like this are in
place all across the country. Some have 5 members, some 75; it’s up to you.
The goal of this guide is to give you the tools to start a street team today. Included is:
1) How to sign up
2) The basics on how to start a Rock the Vote street team
3) Tips on how to recruit, train and build your team
4) Info on how to register voters
5) Stuff you’ll need to show the world how much you kick a**
We are building THE dynamic political force of this year’s election and of the future of social
change. It's happening today, and we want YOU to participate. This is our time, this is our
movement – a movement that fights for our future and our NOW by bringing people into the
political process and forcing those in power to pay attention to us and the issues we care about.
© 2008 Rock the Vote
www.rockthevote.com
STEP 1: SIGN UP NOW
You can organize your own Rock the Vote Street Team, or you can find out what’s going
on in your area at http://www.rockthevote.com/act-out/start-a-street-team…but first you have
to sign up.
⇒ Log onto http://www.rockthevote.com/act-out/start-a-street-team/ to sign up and get
official use of our logo, access to Rock the Vote merchandise, and information on
how to register voters and how to plug into other Rock the Vote efforts.
STEP 2: KNOW THE BASICS
1) Our Street Team program is self-organized and self-managed – by you. That said, Rock
the Vote’s website will offer a host of tools for you. These include trainings, ways to
communicate with other Street Teams and volunteers, and places to post pictures, video
and successes to share with the world. So make sure to check it often.
2) Rock the Vote’s mission is to engage and build the political power of young people in
order to achieve progressive change in our country. Rock the Vote uses music, popular
culture and new technologies to engage and incite young people to register and vote in
every election. And we give people like you the tools to identify, learn about, and take
action on the issues that affect your life, and leverage your power in the political process.
With you we are creative, effective, and controlled by nobody’s agenda but our own – we
tell it like it is and pride ourselves on being a trusted source for information on politics.
With you we’ll empower the 44 million young people in America who want to step up,
claim their voice in the political process, and change the way politics is done.
3) One thing that is very important for you to remember is that Rock the Vote is a non-profit,
non-partisan organization with a 501(c)3 IRS tax status. As a Rock the Vote Street
Team member, you absolutely must conduct your activities in a strictly
nonpartisan manner. That means your activities cannot be coordinated with or
endorse any political party or candidate. (It is true, however, that a nonpartisan
organization can have an opinion on issues.)
STEP 3: BUILD YOUR TEAM
After you sign up at rockthevote.com comes the fun part. There is no doubt that you can be a
Rock the Vote activist just by yourself. You can get our online voter registration tool and put it
on your blog, MySpace page, Facebook page, and website (we encourage this regardless), or
grab forms and go out and register voters. But it can be much more fun if you’re registering
voters with your friends - and you get a lot more done too!
© 2008 Rock the Vote
www.rockthevote.com
Here are some suggestions on how to start building your team:
1. Ask your people
Your friends, family and neighbors can be your first recruits. Talk to them, tell them what you’re
doing, and encourage them to help you out.
2. Ask everyone
Go to the people. Find some events where good people might show up – concerts, fair,
festivals, on campus – and put up a table with Rock the Vote posters. When people walk by,
ask them if they want to volunteer with Rock the Vote (and make sure they get registered, too!).
Tell people about your cause and what you’re doing…you’ll find people are just as psyched to
get involved as you are. If they’re interested, get their name and contact info, and plug them
into an event or action right away.
TIP: As you do registration events throughout the year, make sure to keep asking everyone if
they want to volunteer. That way, you can continue to build your team.
3. Work with everyone
Go on tour in your community. Schools are a great way to build your team and register voters.
Get in touch with an official in a particular high school or college and ask if you can do a
presentation to a class or – better yet – the full school during an assembly. You can register
voters and recruit volunteers at the same time!
Connect with other groups. Get in touch with the young activists in your community by finding
their groups. Try finding these groups through a community calendar, local newspaper, or
college website. You might find that the local environmental group or the community service
organization was already thinking about registering voters and voila! you can join up and make
double the impact.
TIP: When new people want to join your team, get in touch right away and plug them in by
giving them something to do. Also remember to have them sign up on www.RocktheVote.com
to officially register.
4. Make your presence known.
Post flyers in places that people are hanging out – music stores, cafes, etc. If you are on a
campus, put flyers EVERYWHERE—inside classrooms, dinning halls, dorms, student centers,
and even in the hands of your professors! Place a classified ad in your alternative weekly or
school newspaper. Check out www.rockthevote.com for downloadable flyers to print out and
use.
© 2008 Rock the Vote
www.rockthevote.com
STEP 4: RECRUIT, TRAIN, and BUILD YOUR STREET TEAM
Once you have people, you need to make them a team. Here’s how:
1. Stay in touch (meet regularly)
After you’ve found people to join you, get together to keep it going!
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Email/call your team on a regular basis to let them know what’s going on in the area and
give them volunteer opportunities.
Ask for ideas! Get your Team to brainstorm upcoming events where you can do registration,
and then help you set them up.
You probably have everything you need with the people around you—find out and use them!
You could have a world–class illustrator who can design your flyer, or maybe one of your
volunteers works on the school paper and can write an article on Rock the Vote.
Hang out on a regular basis and have fun with it. You’ll create a team that will go onto the
front lines with you and create a real social change this year!
Remember: Diversity is incredibly important for Rock the Vote’s Street Teams. Our movement
is all about unity through diversity. That means our Teams have diverse members and we make
a real effort to register and engage young people of color and other communities that have been
historically disenfranchised. So, connect with other non-partisan organizations that engage a
diverse population.
Go to events, shows, etc that attract a diverse audience. Attend
community festivals surrounding Cinco De Mayo, Chinese New Year, and Martin Luther King
Holiday, etc.
2. Show ‘em the ropes
Everyone in your Team should be familiar with the mission of Rock the Vote and our status as a
nonpartisan organization. Remember, Rock the Vote’s mission is to engage and build the
political power of young people in order to achieve progressive change in our country.
Really, registering voters is pretty easy - an overview is available at www.rockthevote.com. But
although it’s not complicated, make sure to read the overview and get familiar with the ins and
outs so we can avoid having someone we register go to the polls on Election Day and not be
able to vote because their forms were not filled out correctly. So take the time to learn how to
register voters (check out all the training at www.RocktheVote.com and see step 5 below) and
then walk through the following information at your meetings and with every new member:
 How to fill out the registration form
 How to answer questions or comments about registration such as - “I just go to school
here” or “I just moved”
 What to do with the forms when they are completed
© 2008 Rock the Vote
www.rockthevote.com
Keep coming back to the volunteer page at www.RocktheVote.com for more tips and tools to
make this effort smooth.
STEP 5: REGISTER SOME VOTERS
Voter registration is one of the MOST important things you can to do get people out to vote this
year. 82% of young people who are registered to vote, do vote, according to Census data from
the 2004 presidential election. That’s huge.
Get the gear and be everywhere:
Rock the Vote has made all the tools to register voters easy.
Voter registration kits:
You can pick up voter registration forms from your local county registrar
or Secretary of State’s office. Or you can print a national form at
www.rockthevote.com. Also at www.rockthevote.com, you a batch of
RTV gear (buttons, t-shirts, etc) for a nominal cost—simply go to the
store at www.rockthevote.com to get yours today. Be visible with RTV
gear.
Online voter registration:
Rock the Vote has an unbelievably simple online voter registration tool that you can use on your
website, blog, Facebook page—anywhere and everywhere to register voters. You can
download the tool at www.rockthevote.com/partners. All your friends have to do is “print it and
sign it, lick it and mail it.” Sometimes it’s easier to register voters online than to use the paper
forms – you can set a computer and printer on campus or at an event, or do a class
presentation in a computer lab.
Downloads: Go to our website to get the flyers, posters, door hangers, and other documents
that you would need to get your peers together in a team and working like one.
Find the People:
ASK EVERYONE to register to vote! You never know who’s going to need to register, just
moved and needs to re-register, or forgot to do so at the DMV. Here are a few ideas on where
to go to find people (but you know where people hang out, just think about where you hang and
go there).
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At school: Set up a table or just grab a clipboard and canvass a common area. Hit the
crowd before and after sporting events. Contact different organizations, add voter
registration to their list of scheduled activities, and tag along. Set up a table, get a bunch of
volunteers, and do a big drive during major campus events such as orientation,
homecoming, etc.
© 2008 Rock the Vote
www.rockthevote.com
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At work: Post flyers in your own area if you have one and use common areas too, break
rooms, copy rooms, all over.
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At events: If there is an art fair, Halloween festival, 4th of July parade, etc…canvass the
crowd with a clipboard and voter registration forms. Go to diverse events. Engage people.
Ask everyone to register and to join your team as well.
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Hangouts: Local clubs and concert venues, coffee houses, movie houses and record stores
are great places to register people.
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Door-to-Door: Wear Rock the Vote gear and canvass a neighborhood or dorm door to door.
Find out when local organizations are doing voter registration in other neighborhoods and
partner up with them.
When you’ve found people be sure to keep them in the loop:
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Get Emails and Cell Phone numbers: Carry around a separate sign-up sheet for Rock the
Vote’s email and text list. Register people to vote and sign them up for that list, too. If
someone says they are already registered, encourage them to sign up for the email list as
well.
Remember: Be yourself, ask everyone, and have fun.
WHAT TO DO WITH THE FORMS
STEP 6: SHOW US YOUR STUFF (& REPORT ONLINE)
We have huge voter registration goals in 2008 and you’re a part of the effort to hit them. We
want to highlight all the great work that you all are doing and our central field team wants to
report back to everyone at Rock the Vote Headquarters about how much you all are kicking
Rock the Vote a** this cycle. Tell us how it’s going. Go to www.RocktheVote.com and upload
pictures, video and stories, tell us how many people you registered, tips on what made your
effort a success—we want to hear from YOU!
So there you have it…
Hopefully this manual gives you the tools you need in order to get started as a Rock the Vote
Street Team activist. Pretty simple, sign-up at www.RocktheVote.com, grab your friends,
register some voters, change the world. Not bad for a day’s work.
If there’s something that you think we’re missing or a document or flyer you’ve created that you
think others could use, send it along…we might just use it!
Also on www.RocktheVote.com
© 2008 Rock the Vote
www.rockthevote.com
 Online sign ups and contests
 Access to the RTV gear
 Connection to other Rock the Voters in your area organizing street teams
 Photo/video/story gallery of your work
 Activity report to track what’s going on
 Voter-registration manual
 Training on Voter Registration
 Volunteer sign-up sheet
 Email/Text sign-up sheet
 Street Team recruitment flyer
 Street Team recruitment email
 Voter Registration Posters to hang up
 Online voter registration tool
 Banner ads for online voter registration
 Your download here – send us something you’ve designed, we might share it with all!
Many thanks to our sponsor and partner, Comcast.
© 2008 Rock the Vote
www.rockthevote.com