With the 2018 Midterm Elections approaching, we realized the need to harness grassroots political enthusiasm to get out the vote and help people elect public officials whose values reflect theirs. It was important to us to create a resource for people looking to get involved with electoral politics—possibly for the first time. So we created a new tool in-house at Purpose to solve this problem.
Many Americans are looking for ways to get involved in changing the power structure in Washington. The big idea behind Crush the Midterms is to help voters channel their energy into a plan that was able to help progressive candidates win across the nation on Election Day — November 6th.
In short, Crush the Midterms is a mobile-optimized, web based digital tool that empowers politically energized Americans to make individualized plans to win November’s midterm elections. It is the first online platform that puts the power in the hands of voters to create and execute their own campaign plans for the 2018 elections. It provides users with concrete actions on how to spend their time, money, and other resources to support the most impactful campaigns and organizations, and creates a sense of accountability for people, while increasing the likelihood that individuals will follow through on their commitments.
When creating the visual identity, it was important to consider what elements would grab our audience’s attention and get them excited to create a plan. In positioning our audience to be protectors of democracy, and drawing inspiration from the verbal identity that features unique and dynamic words like “Crush”, the identity evolved into a comic book-inspired theme which granted users superpowers that would help them win the fight.
After plenty of user research on what aspects of organizing to include in our tool, we iterated on the UX of the question flow to get the conversion rate as high as possible. Both the UX and UI focused on the ease of use, and ease of completion of the plan creation process, as well as on the ease of sharing your personalized plan on social networks. The focus of the process was on mobile experience, ease of use, and conversion optimization.
How does it work? Each user inputs data directly into the online platform via a series of questions — including their location, availability, preferred causes, desired level of commitment, and special skills. Crush the Midterms then utilizes this data using a specialized algorithm, to create a step-by-step actionable and personalized plan from now until Election Day. Crush the Midterms creates a unique, personalized plan of action for each of its users from the day the plan is created through Election Day, using the data collected by the user. It syncs directly with users’ calendars, ensuring that planned actions fit into their daily lives, and assisting them in keeping themselves accountable for the actions they plan and the goals they set. The tool integrates seamlessly with Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, and other native calendar apps on mobile devices.
The personalized plan page begins with revealing your personal superpower – your most effective organizing asset. It then details your full plan below, in a format that lets you see the full overview and dates first, and then toggle open the sections to delve deeper into the details to get information on candidates and ways to volunteer.Â
Crush the Midterms got featured in several relevant publications nationwide, such as Betches, Wired, Politico, MTV News, Daily Kos, Dame Magazine and Upworthy, among others. In addition, it got retweeted by several big-name influencers, such as Piper Perabo and most importantly, by Secretary Hillary Clinton herself.
By the time of the election, Crush the Midterms generated detailed activism plans for tens of thousands of Americans that helped them donate, volunteer, activate their friends and most importantly, vote. The Crush the Midterms tool yielded over 150K hours per month of volunteer hours, had 5-10 mins of average engagement with the tool, and nearly 50% conversion rate to plan.
for Equity & Evidence