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Hey, I'm Jon
And I'm Becky.
And this is the We Are For Good Podcast.
Nonprofits are faced with more challenges to accomplish their missions and the growing pressure to do more, raise more and be more for the causes that improve our world.
We're here to learn with you from some of the best in the industry, bringing the most innovative ideas, inspirational stories, all to create an impact uprising.
So welcome to the good community. We're nonprofit professionals, philanthropists, world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.
So let's get started. Becky, what's happening?
Have you heard that we're in an election year? Have you seen any media around that, or any noise? If you are in the United States, we are in the throes of a major presidential election. We are all actively watching, and I think, really curious about, you know, voter campaigns, registration, activation. How are people getting involved? You know, I love that. Today we're going to go through engagement campaigns, and specifically in engaging and activating younger generations with a true goat of democratic engagement. We have got Tappan Vickery here. She's a senior director of programming and strategy over at head count. If you don't know about head count, push pause right now and go immediately to at least one of their social channels, if not their website. We first became aware of this incredible organization through someone in our community. Christina Raines, Hi Christina, but we've just come to really fall in love with the activation component of this incredible organization. Let me give you a little bit of background on tap, and she's a veteran organizer with two decades of nonprofit experience. She's worked in civic engagement, she's worked in environment and social justice, and she started volunteering with head count. These stories just really moved my heart when people start as volunteers and then move into formal roles, and she started in their inaugural year. So she's worked in all kinds of roles, including like developing leadership, recruitment and training, managing voter education and developing all these strategic partnerships for just a myriad of programs. And now she leads head counts democracy protection work, which we're going to double click on that with this deep expertise in state and federal election policy and its impact on voter turnout. So right now, in her current role, Tappan has led the development and integration of new voter engagement campaigns, and they're bridging these traditional field programs with digital tools and infrastructure. They're putting all of it together, and the results are extraordinary. So she's coming in from Richmond, Virginia, and we're so excited to have you in our house. Welcome. Tappan.
Thank you so much. I really appreciate the invitation and a chance to tell our story.
Well, we're we're so curious about specifically Gen Z, and it really feels like you all have figured out some of the secret sauce here. So but before we go into it, we want to get to know you. You're totally on brand today, wearing your vote shirt. Where did this like heart for democracy, for social justice. Where did it come from? Tell us about little Tappan growing up 100%
for my mom. I know that's a cliche to say, but my mom was super involved in the Civil Rights Movement in Atlanta, and she worked alongside the Poor People's Campaign and other initiatives, and so when I was growing up, you know, voting, participating, paying attention to our democracy, understanding local politics, it was just baked into my DNA. I was going to public meetings and participating with my mom for as long she was a single mom, so I really did go everywhere with her, and I was alongside her every step of the way. So that really grounded me in our belief in participation and belief in our democracy, and also that it's super fluid, you know, it's an evolution of thought, it's an experiment, and we have to do the work to keep it going. And then in college, I was a philosophy major, which also has a lot to do with the foundation of democracy and the roots behind it, and I got kind of heady on the philosophy side around like what this means for community and thought and individualism, and it's definitely been just a part. Part of who I am. Ever since then,
oh my gosh, we have to honor your mom. What's her name?
Her name is Isabella Thomas Hindson. She lives in Alabama, and she votes at her senior center every election, and she knocks on doors and makes phone calls and is still incredibly impactful in her work. Look
at the ripple Isabella.
She's gotta be just so proud of the work that you're doing. And I mean, this is what it's about. It's about everybody matters. That's a core value at we are for good, which is one of the reasons we wanted to have this conversation. Because we love how your organization shows up. I mean, obviously it's about engaging people in democracy and doing the steps to get registered, to make sure that you're heard and counted, but you also do it in really cool venues, because we talk about the power of media, and we talk about the power of influence and even our love of music here. And I feel like y'all bring all those together at headcount. So I want to, you know, toss it over to you to say, give us a little bit of context about this mission. If this is a new mission to you, tell us a little bit about what you'll do, how you show up in the work that you do.
Yeah, I think it's probably a moment to tell a little bit of the origin story. So head count was started 20 years ago, and it was started by a musician and a fan. And I think that that's a really powerful way to think about our origin, because that is still the power behind head count, it's our fans who are volunteers and become voters, and it's also the musicians who give us the opportunity to be at their events and lend us their voices and their platforms to promote non partisan civic engagement. We started because this, the other thing I would say is that we were like a ground up movement. Mark Brownstein, our co founder, is a musician, a working musician, and Andy Bernstein was, you know, a fan and his friend as well. But it wasn't like we had a top down build. We were definitely ground up. And I think that's really unique and different than a lot of the culture led organizations that kind of have, you know, very notable, famous people come in and drive civic engagement from the beginning, like we were a groundswell before Facebook. If it's worth,
yeah, it shows that it was even harder in my it was,
I think it's actually, if I remember correctly, on the social network, I'm pretty sure that Facebook started on campus the same year that we started, but it wasn't like a public facing thing, yet. Interesting. But so they the organization started because they looked around, you know, the size of a club room, and thought, if all of the people in this room had voted in Florida, we would have a completely different situation. And they were thinking about the 2000 election. And, you know, if you think about it, you're in like a 500 person club room, 1500 person and it was a really powerful moment. And, you know, we mobilized, and we're all like a lot of the founding members of organ that were volunteers and regional coordinators and team leaders were part of the live music community. It was a network of live music professionals that got us into the venues, set us up with tables like made sure we had the supplies that we needed our our event and volunteer management system is all built on that language and that ethos, and it's like very much like true to our roots and true to our experience, that we come from The music space and from the culture space.
Well, I just have to commend you as a you know, all of us probably, in some way, love some portion of music, and you all are literally out there at concerts, at festivals, at community events, like anywhere where you're translating that power of music and culture into action. And I'm like, going back in my brain to like, 2000 was that the hanging chads here? But I do think that there is something to this concept of grassroots ground up, and what has happened since that time. I want you to talk to happen a little bit about the impact of and we, we call these, like, the rippling effect of one to one, a human to human, and compounding over, you know, I'm thinking Fleetwood Mac like I'm out at the Fleetwood Mac concert. I'm like, trying to get people, you know, signed up for to vote, or whatever, whatever we want them to do to get awareness in. And all of a sudden, it's like the ripple, ripple, ripple starts to happen. And we're, you know, 20 plus years forward, talk to us about your impact, like what has been unlocked through how you started. And honestly, I'm, I'm thinking about these new voter engagement campaigns that you're here to talk about, and we want to know how you're going to build them. So listeners stay tuned for that too.
So, you know, head count is built on a peer to peer model. So it's exactly what you're talking about. We call it fan to fan, but it's, you know, we are connecting in a culture first way. Okay, and the ripple effect is from people connecting on culture and then introducing the idea of participation. So if somebody is already going to be a voter, they're already registered, they're already super passionate, like we will probably talk to them. Maybe we'll update their address and become a trusted resource for them. But we're not making them participants. The people who we are turning into participants are the folks who are really turned off by the noise, by political jargon, bipartisanship, and because we connect with them culture first, we're able to like, create a dialog where it's a safe space to ask questions. There's already trust, there's already respect in our conversation. And these are the conversations that we have in the back of the club. And these are also the conversations that we have online or that we have, like in app notifications like these are the conversations that are created because of the culture first dialog. So that's like, the most powerful part of it. Since we started in and 22,004, we've registered over a million voters. This year, we hope to register over half a million, which is like kind of crazy, if you think about
today, we're at like,
that's the power of our new digital programs, what we started doing, and I know we're going to get into this more later, but we started in 2020 when all of a sudden we were predominantly a field based organization, and we had to pivot very quickly to figure out how to make an impact when there were no concerts or festivals. And we developed a tool, a program called good to vote with a several partners, and that is basically using a voter registration status check to drive a sweepstakes entry for a once in a lifetime experience with the artist of your choice. And then if you
if that is off, really
good. Yeah. And so then once in the artist promote set to their channels, right with because we do have a partnership model in that respect. And then once you check your status, if you need to register to vote, you have the opportunity to do so, but it doesn't have anything to do with your ability to participate in the sweepstakes that alone has driven like, a complete like change in our entire structure as an organization, and how many people were able to mobilize, but it hasn't devalued that peer to peer moment in the back of the club at all that is still like the most powerful thing that we can do. And when you're at our show and an artist is on the stage and they announce that you're there or it's on their social media, prep for the show, can't wait to see you tonight. Stop by the head count booth, like, then your voter engagement is actually tied to your love of the band and to your love of the experience. And that's also very powerful. You
were dropping some serious wisdom, like, there's some values you can extrapolate from this for whatever you're working on. I mean, the power of the peer to peer and the power of how we work deals when we talk about, like these influencers, and it was one of the trends we lifted this year, like how we can tap creators to grow our influence. It's like, this is what it's about, finding natural, organic ways for people that share the values, and they can share that in an authentic way that obviously galvanizes their supporters behind it too. So cool.
And I think I want to add another like trend that I was thinking of. You have really figured out how to engage dimensionally. And it's not just like you're you're there on the ground and with your clipboard, you know, which is what I'm picturing in my head, which may be a very 90s version of,
I know, we're still there. Okay, great. One 10% the way to go,
yeah, the way that you are meeting people, you know, in whatever platform they want to do their peer to peer, or if where they're showing up digitally, or where they're showing up in person, is really an interesting how you've built the nexus of what you're doing at the hub, and you just kind of have these spokes coming out, and the way you're listening and being so organic, I feel very much not just the culture first, but like the human first too, which I want to compliment you on.
Well, thank you. It's an interesting path, right? Because especially with, you know, we've been late Gen Xers Millennials now we're in Gen Z, and think about all the way Tech has changed and all the way your experience has changed during that period. So those spokes that you just described like they're never stagnant. We are constantly innovating and moving and developing more spokes because we have to in order to be to be relevant. I got an email today with somebody who is like, maybe I can put you in my Roblox game, or, you know, all these cool things and like, I don't know if we'll be able to make it work, but I think it's a great opportunity to test and and that is a lot, I think, especially when talking about philanthropy, you know, having support to do broad based testing to figure out what works is really important for us as well, because it's like, we can't. Always like, be like we are right now, like, all powers go execution. You know, less than 100 days for the until the election. Like, sometimes we have to actually test and innovate and have the opportunity to grow and adjust based on what the market and young voters need. But the one other thing I wanted to
talk much like living our values over here, we're just eating our popcorn. It's great. Oh,
thank you. I was gonna say the other thing, the other legacy behind head count, in addition to our voter registration number and the literal millions of people that go to our website and use our better education resources, is our 60,000 volunteers across the country. Whoa, you're active. It's pretty amazing. We're active in 36 states, and these people, we call them, the life blood of head count, but it's absolutely true, they're the ones who donate their time and talent to go out and do these voter registration drives, and because we are able to provide that like in person experience, a lot of times, artists are really excited to work with us, because they know they're giving something so personal to their fans, and it would not be possible with other volunteers. So they're they're also a big family, no question. I
don't know if it's early menopause, but I just got like, heat coming into me when you said 60,000 volunteers, I'm trying to figure out, like, how big is your organization? How many people on staff?
They're like 22 people on full time staff,
22 people managing 60,000 volunteers. That is extraordinary. Yeah,
we, I will tell you our field team, which is a small team for does most of that volunteer management, although many of us lean in on it, and we have this incredible field director who started with us a year ago. Chris talent is his name, and he's like, volunteer first, and you have to have somebody in that role who's like, this is the volunteers experience. How do we make this better? How do we make this easier? How do we grow with our volunteers? There's
experience again, that word keeps coming up with people who really believe in your mission. It's not just a one and done. It is total experience.
We could talk all day, because there's so many things that head count is doing that that clearly, I think a lot of our listeners today could be like, Oh, I could see how that applies to what I'm trying to build over here, whether that's an event or a volunteer group or maybe a fundraising campaign. But we wanted to dive into specifically how you run the new voter engagement campaigns, and so you're joining us in the middle of the how it's built series. Thank you, allegiance and pursuant group for giving us really the runway to create this series. But it's all about, you know, breaking down the steps. Because since our listeners are representing a lot of different organizations, could you kind of share with us, really, some of your steps to your mindsets, maybe that inform the work that you do? So we can all take and learn from the way that you all build these really incredible campaigns. I want to read something about from your mission. It says we reach young people where they already are to inform and empower. So Tappan I would love for you to walk us through your strategy for engaging and activating younger generations so our listeners could learn from that. Well,
we touched on some of it a little bit already. Some of it is opportunistic. So headcount is a partnership based model, and because of that, we really like to innovate with our partners, to figure out how to reach their audiences. So we work really hand in hand, like we have a standard suite of things that we offer if people want things turn key, but we also deeply work to find the right messaging and the right messenger for certain demographics. So for example, I'll use Spotify as one of our favorite partners in Premier campaigns. We have a deeply integrated relationship with their social impact team. But it doesn't just lead to like an in app notification or Spotify saying, hey, everybody registered to vote. Spotify takes time to segment their listeners, look at their podcasts and figure out who would be the best messenger to also drive traffic and drive creation around users for us. And so it's never like a one and done. They say, now it's like, like, it used to be three marketing, three, three contacts for marketing. Then they said seven. Now they say it's like 100 because of how people consume things all the time. But we really like to think about it as an immersive experience. So if we are in a fandom, we want you to be immersed with knowing that head count is a trusted resource, and to do that, we have to get to know the fandom. So perhaps our volunteers bring a fandom forward and say, Hey, this is an awesome opportunity for you and for head count, like, let me tell you what I know about this fandom. Then we have our Artist Relations team or our partnerships team kind of vet out what opportunities there are for us to engage. And then we look at the voter engagement path for that fandom. Is it going to be text based? It's really not email based anymore, because nobody's reading their email, as I'm sure many of your listeners have been dealing with lately. And then it could also be on social media platforms. It could be in a private. Messaging platform. It can be at a live event, it can be on a podcast. All of these things are like this sort of immersive fandom experience that lead to us being a trusted resource for people to register to vote with us. So that's how we kind of look at new campaigns and new opportunities, and the media that we're using to reach new fans and new voters is based on that fandom and that talent or partners needs, and what we know about their demographic is that helpful? Did I answer your question all the way?
It's not only helpful, I'm obsessed with it like I hope people really listen to what you just said there, because I think the data component is everything. I think the segmentation and understanding what we call like behaviors, and the way that people move within, not just like within your world, but like, how are they moving in social media? How are they moving digitally? How are they interacting? What are are they lurking? Are they actively engaging? And I'm really geeked out about the fact that you have a journey built into text that's very text specific. And I'm like, Who else out there has that missions? If you do ping us, we want to know about it, like DMS. And I think that they're sort of, I would, I would, maybe five years ago, call those unorthodox channels, but now I think they are the channels because of what exactly you said, which is email has just become so overwhelming. I'm looking at my inbox right now. I have 7826 in there, and it's like, okay, I'm clearly not getting to everything, and so I'm skimming, but I'm going to look at my text I'm going to look at my DMs every single day. And so are most Gen Z ers, you know, and that is the way we move. And so I want to dig into this campaign just a little bit, because you and your team have helped lead the development and sort of this integration of these new voter engagement campaigns, and they're taking that traditional field program and then bridging it with these new digital tools, which is really cool. So you've got the best of both worlds. Walk us through that playbook. You know, we're in the how it's built series. We kind of want to step 123, talk to us about some of those hallmarks, and, like, talk to us about the impact of that, because I do think that there is very much a translatable way for how missions can take this playbook and integrate it. We're coming to you in August, September. So this is prime time for year end, and I think if you're willing to try some stuff, this is going to be an epic playbook. So just want to hand you the mic to happen? Yeah.
So for us, I'll go again in the way back machine for a second. The first time we did a full digital field partnership integration was with Ariana Grande in 2019 and it changed everything for us. It was like an aha moment. So I wish I could say that this is like I knew that. We all knew that this was coming, but we didn't. It was because Ari's team really pushed us to new levels, and that's when I give credit to our partnership model. It's really, you know, it's off of key learnings like that. And through that, we realized that, like really small tokens can be, whether it's a digital or physical token that really celebrate someone taking action can really, really drive actions and create community and longevity from your mission. And so we started on that tour. It was like a little badge that you received that was digital, and you could post on your social media like you did something cool on the sweet affiliation.
And then, yeah, now what we do more often is, I mentioned the sweepstakes entries earlier, but in the field also, we give people, if they take a digital action which builds our list, and as opposed to just voter registration, we never take people's information off of voter registration forms, like it's a privacy policy issue for us, so we always want to drive A secondary action to where they are opting in and are becoming a part of our community. And that's where we give little vote pins, or we might have stickers or buttons or something along those lines that are very small tokens, or digital tokens as well, that create like community and buzz and create movement. And it shows like, you know, I'll give an example. One of our product partners was on a flight to Europe, and saw somebody with our vote pin in the line checking into the plane. Had a huge conversation, and just like, you know, random, happen, chance meeting, but it was about that community, and then you're talking about the elections, and then you're talking about democracy and participation, or maybe you want to volunteer. And so those tokens have really changed how we are able to engage fans and also build our list. Through continued like list segmentation and also talking to people responsibly, we're able to turn out the vote, which is something I want to talk about a little bit here too, because we start with like this acquisition plan. Uh around taking a digital action, a status check, an election alert, whatever. But then the acquisition plan is to build our get out the vote strategy. And not only do you become a part of the head count family for that get out the vote strategy, but you also we talked to you through the fandom. So if you came into us through a Billie Eilish concert or sweepstakes, we're going to talk to you as a Billie Eilish fan through Election Day. And that's an incredibly powerful movement builder, because you never break that fan to fan connection. And I think that sometimes you do acquisition strategies, and then you dump into something generic, and you lose that moment, that target moment, where you have given a token, where you become a part of a community, and it becomes, it becomes very generic. So using that messaging to stay on the path of being connected, I think, as a national organization, is really, really important to our to our users journey and our voters turn out,
are y'all paying attention to this one? I mean, this episode, Tappan what you're bringing to bear. It's threading in, like that personalized donor journey experience. We just dropped an episode, a replay. We talk about the power of that, but what a natural, organic way. You know, I think it's easy for us, because that's the easiest way to do it, to just put everybody in one file, but you're thinking about, how are we actually taking care of these people? So they do become believers in what we're doing, and want to take the next step when it's time for that. So I, I love that I'm putting together, like a Billie Eilish playlist in my head of like, what you could be sending them to, kind of queue up for the vote or something, which would be really fun. So, I mean, you talked a little bit about the volunteers. We had to give space to talk about there's volunteers are crucial for your mission. Tell us how y'all activate and engage those volunteers?
Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, the most typical thing is that we bring them out to concerts, festivals and community events. Our events that are ticketed have limited volunteer spaces because the artist has given us, like anywhere from four to 12 tickets to their event for us to bring our volunteers in. And in those instances, like we can sometimes have like, for example, we're out with Olivia Rodrigo right now. We can have like, two or 300 people sign up for each show, and we're not able to accommodate all of them, but we prioritize volunteers that sign up, have signed up and not gotten an opportunity to go to a show we noted in our in our database, so that then we prioritize them for the next show, so you're hopefully not going to wind up signing up and not getting out to an event. Community events are often not ticketed, and especially around like national voter registration day or some of the large scale days where we do, like we run hundreds of volunteers around that week, we definitely ask people to come out in mass on those days, and then they also get prioritization for the ticketed spots. So that's one of the things that we do. Our digital options for volunteers are limited. We do some around Geo TV, and we we've really thought about how to build in digital volunteering and to be more inclusive, because it is a physical offer, you know, physical, physical act to go work at a show. We don't have the staff capacity to do that at scale right now, but doesn't mean that we won't ever and we have done some partnership digital volunteer opportunities with voteriders and other organizations where they do have the staff and that is their primary model. So we're able to bridge between other non partisan groups. We have a leadership path for volunteers as well. So you start as a field volunteer, then there are team leaders, and those are kind of like our local organizers in each city. So we have 160 team leaders that organize all the events, and we never run an event without a team leader or a staff member there. They're trained in election law for all the states and how to stay legally compliant. So that's the next level. And what's really cool if you become a team leader, is that if you're interested in nonprofit work or music industry work, and it's a credible networking and career building opportunity for you to get exposed, it is a pretty high level volunteer job. We have, I believe, eight regional coordinators, which are kind of the next tier of volunteers. So those regional coordinators oversee, usually anywhere from like five to six states, where they, you know, are the next point of contact and the main liaison between our office and the team leaders for making sure all the resources get out. Also, if there's like, a crazy change in election law or things like that, we need to make sure that we're mobilized and kind of have, if you think about a an old school phone tree, it's very much like that, because those laws can go into effect like almost immediately other ways that we engage our volunteers. So as I mentioned earlier, we started off as an all volunteer organization and with music industry professionals who really advised head count and regular volunteers. I was never a music industry professional, to be fair, but I was just a fan, but have advised head count and been at the forefront of decisions and growth over the years. Members, and so we have two volunteer committees. One is a racial justice and inclusion committee, and then we also have a pride committee, and those, both of those committees are centered on focusing our work and making sure that we are like being I don't want to say accountable, but visible, if that makes any more sense, so there's transparency, and then we're also continuing to make decisions and ensure that their volunteer voices and our decision making process. So those are sort of the different ways you can volunteer.
Tepan, I just, I'm amazed that what 22 staff can accomplish, like, truly, like we we're talking about, like, 1.3 plus million voters registered to date, and in a time that I don't think is overstating the most important time ever in this generation's history where we need people to step out and vote, whichever way you're voting. We need people to be an active part of democracy. And the way that you've done it with such equity, and you've done it with expansiveness, with such a lean team, is really quite extraordinary, and the fact that you're thinking about belonging, and not just because it's good for business, because it is, because you're going to you're going to be able to attract more people to come over and talk to you if they feel seen, but also it's the right thing to do, and That's the basis of democracy. Is everybody feeling like they have a place and a voice in this work. And so I want to just have you, like, talk to us about some pro tips, like, what have you learned when you look back? I mean, you've been with this organization, really, since the inception. Talk about some of these lessons learned that you would share with listeners today that are the non negotiables that can be tried and true that you've seen over the last 20 years, or if you have seen something specifically in the last year that has really gotten traction, we really want to know what that is.
Well, my number one pro tip is that you always want to be someone who wants like people want to work with you. You want to be a good partner, and so even if you wind up not doing something together, you want everyone to walk away feeling like, Oh, that was that's someone I want to work with down the line. So I think that that's a great place to start, and it can be hard, because I think especially in the nonprofit space, we all need something from somebody, and it's hard to ask for, it's hard to demand, it's hard to walk away, because you're just hopeful that you're gonna get whatever it is you need, and you know you have to stay true to what your capacity is and also what your mission is, and respect yourself and your team when you walk away, but always walk away with A positive spin. And a lot of times we don't have to walk away, because we are able to have a positive spin and find creative ways to get to yes. So I think that that, you know, that's, that's my number one playbook when I think about how to interact in this space. The other thing I'd say is that head count has gone through growing pains, and I think that's something that a lot of organizations go through. We were, we were like five to six staff for a really long time, and some contractors. Our scale was significantly lower, as I mentioned at the top, we've registered over a million voters to date, but this year, we're trying to register half a million, and that has to do with our digital programs and because but we have to scale our staff, and we also had to scale, like our databases, and scale all of these other things that you know we didn't expect, we didn't know was going to happen. So I think taking time to assess, and sometimes when you see an opportunity, you have to dig in and go for it 110% but then make sure that you take time to build capacity to support programs and growth. I am so that is another thing, the growing pains of a teenage organization. Now we're, I guess we're 20. We're not really teenagers anymore, and I think that being nimble for opportunity, because our work is based on culture, but also the democratic climate, there have been some incredible opportunities over the past several years that have mobilized young voters that you could never have predicted. In 2018 we had march for our lives. You know, the 2020 election. There were so many things that happened in 2020 from the movement for black lives to covid and everything else that we could have never predicted. In 22 we had access to abortion, which we'll continue. Need to affect this year. And so I think understanding your target demographic and how current events are shaping their experience is essential. And I don't know how much time we have, but I did want to talk about this in Gen Z for a moment. If you think about young voters who are our targets. They have had an incredible, remembered existence. They've known natural disasters almost every year. In fact, 89% of the country, that's like densely populated has been impacted by a natural disaster over the past decade. So they are keenly aware of climate. They've known incredible economic upheaval and back and forth. They have only really known a Trump candidate or presidency. So it's totally normalized for them, and this political climate and polarization is very normalized for them. They have also had to deal with school shootings and school shooting drills and mass and they're dealing with like insecurity and economic crisis around housing, education, etc, so, like, they're coming at it the whole thing from a perspective that's like, super different than it was for me when I was their age around the 2000 election, and it will be in 20 years for the next generation that all aside, they are totally driven to create long term, lasting change. And voting is not necessarily the thing that pops up in their mind because it takes too long, they're much more like likely to volunteer, they're more likely to demonstrate, they're more likely to post on social media or try to create buzz. But they you know, we're working really hard on voting being a solution, and it's a challenge for us, and this is what we're bridging when we talk about knowing your market is that they want something to happen now that's a permanent solution. They want lasting, real change, and that is very hard to deliver through the democratic process. At the very least, it's going to take four years to get there. Often, it takes eight or 12 to get to a permanent solution at a federal level, locally, it's easier to get there. So you know, I think that that is part of our challenge, and one of the things that we're working on really hard when we're talking about education and mobilization, we can make voting cool because we're working with X, Y, Z, artist, but we also have to make you trust in the process and trust that change is coming. And that's a that's part of the education narrative that we build in on the back end, and it's part of our get out the vote programs that turn people out to vote following that initial entry point
Tappan gets it. Yeah. I mean, we've had some episodes where we've showered the love on Gen Z that, I think that there is some core tenets that this is the generation that wants to change the world. They're doing it in a different way. But we're so here for it, the authenticity, and a lot of the things that you point to are like, that's who you want to be powering your Yeah, that kind of, that kind of heartbeat. I also am over here thinking, I mean, you've kept sharing that you've gotten a million people to register to vote. And it's just not like a one day get out and vote kind of thing. It's like, what does that do getting somebody engaged at an early age in realizing and believing that they can shape through this action, ongoing process? And so it's just such a cool ripple. Love hearing your story, love seeing the intention behind it. So much to glean from this. And so, you know, we celebrate philanthropy every day on this podcast, we love what it does within each of us. Is really the reason we ask this question. Because I want to, you know, invite you to take us back to a moment of your story. Tappan that philanthropy has just moved you. You've seen an act of kindness or generosity that's just touched you and it stuck with you to this day.
I had the opportunity when I lived in Raleigh to participate in a giving circle. And the concept of it was to put philanthropy within everyone's reach. It was all women. It was called the beehive collective, and we all gave half a percent of our income and funded startups, often working with led by or working with women and women's issues in Raleigh, North Carolina, and it was one of the most powerful experiences of my life. But I started that work, and I learned about them because I was the beneficiary of one of their grants with a former employer. And it was the moment, and I think we've all had that moment where there was a grant that showed you what was possible for your organization. And this wasn't a huge grant, it was $20,000
collected huge a lot of missions. Yeah, it is, and it
was to promote public transit and smart growth, a ballot initiative. But. I was working with a smart growth org at the time, but it was, it was the moment where it's like, we actually have the resources to do this and do it the right way. And it was so empowering. Because I think as nonprofits, so often we're just like, how are we going to do it? How can we get people to give us stuff? Like, how much time is this going to take for me to do it the right way, because I can't hire extra help, or I can't get the intern in, or whatever. And it's it was amazing. Similarly with head count, and y'all may know this story from Christina, I was not there, but when the Grateful Dead played some concerts, if you want, a little while ago, that was when they first kind of came back together for what eventually became dead and CO we were able to auction off a signed guitar, and that actually changed the financial landscape of headcount. Gave us resources to have, like a secure staff and to do higher level programming at a national level, started our investment in digital technology and digital programs, and it was from that one guitar. Now Christina does it all the time, and we continue to have like the dead community supporting us and keeping us going in the off years when nobody wants to give us money otherwise, because they're not thinking about elections. But like you know, that moment changed us forever. And so for me, I feel like being and I know you all know this, but being in the space like those one that one grant, that one donor, that moment where you went from scraping by. This is a mission I believe in, but I don't know how long it's going to last too this is going to work. Those are the moments that have moved me. Total
magic moment. And I know Ben and Jerry's is one of your corporate sponsors, because I saw them on your website, and I really hope they did the cherry they served Cherry Garcia at that event. It would have been such a missed opportunity had they not. I
actually can't remember if Ben and Jerry's was there with us, but they are going to be hosting our volunteers at the fish festival in about a week, about 10 days, where we'll be scooping out fish food and registering voters.
Thank you for telling those stories, because I even the giving circle one, there's something magical that happens when we don't just allow one person to take care of the whole thing, when we all feel the collective, compounding nature of impact in whatever we're able to give. There's community in that. There's, there's joy in that. And I want to assume, I don't, I don't want to put these words in your mouth, but you felt great about that to the point where you probably met new friends and like minded friends and that. And you probably wanted to give to something similar in the same way. And I do think that just diversifying and looking at our work in different ways can be the thing. It can be the thing. And community is business. Jon, you say this all the time. We need to get that mindset of community as business. It's a crucial part of our business. I feel like it's been in the DNA of head count since the beginning, and I just commend you, my new friend. So we wrap it up with a one good thing all of our conversations, we want to distill it down to like, what's one thing that somebody could take away today a piece of advice, maybe it's a quote or something you live by. What do you want to leave with our community today?
The one good thing that I will leave you with is that your vote always matters, whether it's at the top of the ballot or the bottom of the ballot, that your voice matters to me and it matters to our democracy no matter what you believe or where you are, what you know your voice matters,
yeah, my friend, what a perfect way to end this episode, and I just love the winding nature Not only of your story, but also of this conversation, like, how there is something that all of us have to offer, like, that's the beauty of democracy. You know, it's like, we don't necessarily always have to agree on everything, but we all have something to learn from each other, and that's been this conversation. Everyone listening. I hope you leaned in, because head count your work Tappan is just so beautiful. Christina got a shout out. What you're doing is really important. Thank you for doing this work and thank you for being here
today. Tell people how they can connect with you. Tell them, like, where do you hang out on socials? Specifically, if they want to connect with you, Tappan, or if they want to get involved in head count, like, where's the best way to connect?
Yeah, absolutely so at headcount org is our organizational social personally, you can find me on LinkedIn with my name, Tappan, T, A, P, P, A, N, Vickery, V, I, C, K, E, R, Y, and also headcount.org/events is a great way to see how you can get involved what we have going on. And if you want to come out and. The world. We also have headcount.org/good, to vote, which is where we have all of the listings for our fun, sweepstakes, which includes some relational organizing prompts if you want to share them with friends. So check both of those things out.
Okay, y'all, I gotta put a hard, hard emphasis on this as we're ending. If you have not registered to vote, go now I don't know how many days we have left until election. Are we less than 100
we're less than 100 and I can't believe I didn't end with that. That's okay,
because your deadline is really dependent on whatever your state statute is, but it's usually 30 days ish, they start
on October 4 this year, so you should register before October 4, 10
for over and out. You need to have that done. Yeah, need your vote in this I even picked up a pen, if you can see me and like I'm pointing, getting very emphatic that every vote is going to matter. If you are someone who thinks, well, what could, what could my one little vote do? That's exactly how head count started. Two individuals have grown this movement to 1.3 million new voters. We want you to be the change. Grab a friend. Please vote. We need everyone in this Tappan. You are just as extraordinary as our friend Christina. We love watching head count. Thanks for coming in here and teaching so much on how it's built, rooting for literally everything that you're doing in the next 90 days and beyond.
