Hi Swing Left!

I’m Libby, the Head of Operations at Swing Left. I keep all the trains running for our organization by hiring staff, managing the budget, and making sure everyone has what they need as they work to transform our government.

Ethan emailed you last week about our goal to raise $500,000 by January 1st. I wanted to fill you in on where that number comes from.

As our teams plan for 2020, I’ve taken a hard look at our budget and what we need to run the programs to flip the White House, Senate, and state houses next November—and right now, we need to raise $500,000.

Thanks to generous grassroots donors across the country, we’ve already raised $208,277 for Swing Left this December! This is a really fantastic start, but we still have a long way to go to hit our goal.

Donate to Swing Left today—your donation will help us hire critical staff members, support voter contact programs in 12 Super States, and build effective technology to help volunteers get involved from anywhere.

When you donate to Swing Left, the majority of your donation helps pay for our programs, not office space or fancy snacks (as a remote organization, we actually have neither). In fact, 88% of our budget goes to programs, while only 12% goes to operational costs.

I’m proud of that ratio—it means we can put the majority of our dollars towards our electoral work. Here are just two of the places your dollars can make an impact:

-- On technology, as we continue to build a strong tech infrastructure to support the volunteer and donor mobilization programs needed to flip Republican Senate seats. In 2020, we’re operating a bigger and better version of the voter contact and fundraising model we used to flip the House in 2018. To fund the team of developers, data scientists, and operational staff needed to run the Action Finder technology, export programs to get volunteers canvassing in Super States, and digital coordination with campaigns, it’s going to cost $510,000.

-- On our field program, where it costs around $144,500 to fund organizing efforts on the ground in a single Super State. One organizer can start a dozen volunteer groups that immediately begin engaging voters—and later work with the campaigns to help train their volunteers, run staging locations at canvassing events, and more in the lead up to Election Day. To win in 2020, our field team needs to ramp up organizing efforts on the ground in all 12 Super States.

Programs like these could make a huge difference in 2020. But if we can’t raise $500,000 by the end of the month, we’re going to have to make some really hard choices about which programs we fund in 2020, and which ones we don’t.

If you choose to make a donation today, know that your dollars will be well spent. Every program we run, tool we build, and project we tackle is data-driven, strategic, and tailor-made to help anyone make the biggest impact they can in the most important races of 2020. So please, make a donation to Swing Left today and help us raise the $500,000 we need to keep going strong!

Thanks for your support,

Libby Buechler
Head of Operations
Swing Left