Tatenda Musapatike  0:00  
You're taking care of your elderly grandmother who, you know is not able to walk or drive. Therefore, it's hard for her to vote on election day. But she got a mail in ballot and it can be dropped off at a drop box, you're dropping off your own, you go pick up your grandmother's, and then you drop it off in the ballot box. That is ballot harvesting and in many states are trying to make that illegal.

Omkari Williams  0:39  
Hello, and welcome to Stepping Into Truth, the podcast where we have conversations on social justice and how we all get free. I'm your host Omkari Williams, and I'm really happy that you're here with me today. Over my years coaching people who want to make the world a better place, one of the things I've noticed is that a lot of people feel like activism might just be for people who were famous. But I'm here to tell you that that is not the case. We need all hands on deck, we need the contribution that only you can make. And I hope that these podcast episodes inspire you to step out and find your way of making a positive difference in the world. 

Omkari Williams  1:18  
Today's guest, Tatenda Musapatike, has spent over a decade working on digital programs and in tech to support progressive causes. She was most recently a senior advisor at ACRONYM where she built a $12.5 million program from the ground up to expand the electorate working to reach register and mobilize Black and Latino voters across eight states in the 2020 general election and the Georgia Senate runoff elections. Before ACRONYM, Tatenda was the Client Solutions Manager for democratic politics at Facebook where she supported progressive leaning nonprofits in their platform strategies. And she is now the founder of Voter Formation Project. It is my great pleasure to welcome Tatenda to the podcast. 

Omkari Williams  2:07  
Hi, Tatenda. How are you today? 

Tatenda Musapatike  2:09  
I'm good. How are you? 

Omkari Williams  2:10  
I am doing really well. I'm so glad that you're here for this conversation, because I've been very curious. And the first thing I've been really curious about is you had this very successful career at two different companies. But the most recent one was ACRONYM. And I'm curious as to what made you decide to leave ACRONYM and start Voters Formation Project? What was the impetus? What was the thing that made you say, I have to do this?

Tatenda Musapatike  2:39  
I would say there were a few different factors actually looking back at that period of time when I was trying to decide what I wanted next. One thing I knew that I was really, really interested in was expanding leadership. I feel like I'm a notoriously terrible person to manage. I don't like rules. I don't like following instructions that don't seem to have a reason, I push back and ask a lot of questions, I produce, I finish my work well. But I also am not the easiest about it, especially if I find that I'm not understanding why I'm doing something or why I have to do something a certain way. And so that was one piece, right? Like thinking through okay, what do I want next for myself? This whole being managed thing does not make me happy, it does not serve me well. 

Tatenda Musapatike  3:27  
The other thing is knowing that we had so much work that we were doing that I believed in that was really exciting to me. But I thought that there was more that could be done. And knowing that I was running a C3 nonpartisan program within an organization that was a political organizations had a different tax status, that actually made it a bit more difficult to do. And so I thought to myself, how could I still pursue these aims that I'm really passionate about, but still, at the same time have this personal growth I'm looking for. And since I've been able to fundraise, I was encouraged by a number of my peers and friends to just start my own thing. I've always wanted to be in charge of something. In fact, when I met my best friend 10 years ago, she asked me what I wanted to do. And I said, "run shit". She was like, what? I was like, I don't know. She's been so fantastic in reminding me. Like remember that time like 10 - 11 years ago, you just told me you wanted to run shit and left it at that? So I thought it was time.

Omkari Williams  4:19  
Okay, well, now you're running shit. So this is good.

Tatenda Musapatike  4:22  
Yeah. 

Omkari Williams  4:23  
And the shit that you're running is your organization works to reach underrepresented communities, minority communities, and get them registered to vote and, I think as importantly, energized to vote. And your mission, in short, is to drive up participation in the democratic process for communities that have been kept from easily being able to participate in elections. And you say that you're changing the way that this registration and mobilization of minority voters happens. What is what you're doing different from traditional ways of engaging voters.

Tatenda Musapatike  5:02  
Sure. So I would put it in a number of different ways. So I think one of the first ways is that if you look at traditional means of voter registration, it typically has happened in the field. So meaning person to person communication, someone comes up to you with a clipboard, or someone you know, is trying to get people to register to vote. So you go to an event or whatnot, right? In person activities. And we saw a lot of that go away with COVID. And then the second means is mail. So a number of folks may receive mail from certain organizations that include a voter registration form and a return envelope and encourage you to fill out the form and send it back. Those are very efficient and great means of registering people, especially people of color, however, now that we have online voter registration portals, and now that we see more people spending time with online communications, I believe that it's imperative that we start to unpack how it is that we can use all of these new communication tools or improved communication tools, not only to get people to ultimately register to vote, but to start to shift their attitudes. 

Tatenda Musapatike  6:04  
So I would say in the last 10 to 12 years, you started to see more people trying to get communities of all stripes to register to go online through their portals, there are, you know, a number of problems that make this not as efficient as in person or mail registration. However, with those programs, there's always been a focus on just getting people to fill out a form. And those programs have only existed, you know, in September or October of an election year. You have not seen sustained communication to communities of color about civic participation, that tried to persuade people who otherwise would not participate in the process to vote to actually begin to consider voting as something positive. Something as good for their communities. We don't see that kind of work happening online. And we especially don't see that work happening online uniquely, for people of color, using treatments and advertisements that represent or include those communities. 

Tatenda Musapatike  6:58  
You typically see this work coming from a candidate who's only trying to get people to vote for that candidate, right? We don't see a lot of mass communication that's just positive about voting. And so this just doesn't make sense to me fundamentally, the way that people market anything, is through a targeted marketing funnel, where you talk to people over a long period of time and introduce them to the concept and try and persuade them that what you want them to buy is good, and then ultimately ask them to buy it. But we don't see that same kind of process replicated online for civic engagement. And especially as we're seeing so many negative forces speaking online about participation, and we're seeing so many encroachments on just even the existence of these communities in their value, that I find it even more important now that we are communicating to folks about civic participation and engagement. And that it is good for our society, and that we are trying to include all people as opposed to just the people most likely to register or the people who will get a candidate to 50 plus one. It just doesn't make sense to me if we're going to say that, you know, we care about democracy, and we care about communities of color voting well, then we need to  spend the time to speak to them year round.

Omkari Williams  8:04  
Yeah, I mean, I couldn't agree more, especially when you look at the assaults that are currently happening on voting rights, specifically for communities of color. I mean, let's be honest, all of the attacks that are happening, these are not happening in communities where you have a largely affluent white demographic, these are happening in communities where it is largely people of color, largely people who are lower income. And it's very clear what the motivation is. It's just how do we get ourselves past these hurdles that are being thrown up all the time? And your organization just turned one year old? Congratulations. Happy birthday. 

Tatenda Musapatike  8:50  
Oh, thank you. 

Omkari Williams  8:52  
Yeah, it's great. And in your first year, you actually focused on local elections in Texas and statewide elections in Virginia. And between those two states, you engaged with more than 3.4 million people. And this was through your video ads, which ran in both Spanish and English. And I'm wondering what your main targets in 2022 are? I mean, obviously, it seems like Texas should definitely be up there. Georgia should definitely be up there. But what are your main targets?

Tatenda Musapatike  9:23  
Yeah, so we kind of have a scaled tier of targets that we're looking at. So we know that we are going to be working in Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and Pennsylvania. Those are our core four states that we are currently fundraising for and should we get the funding to permit we want to add a number of states to that map we would include Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Texas, Florida. All of these states generally fulfill our mission where we know that when people of color and other underrepresented communities, show up to the polls it can change outcomes. We are nonpartisan but we also know that these communities are not being fully represented, therefore, we don't have a representative democracy. And that is the problem. And even just increasing participation by half a percent or 1% in many of these communities changes outcomes, not just for Senate or not just for House, but at the local level, too. Which can be even more impactful, actually, definitely more impactful than folks winning at the Senate or the House or even the presidential level. 

Tatenda Musapatike  10:22  
So that's the goal for us, but of the states, you know, they kind of fall into two tiers, there are ones where they have a number of elections happening. So think, Senate midterms, that would be the case for Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Florida, etc. But then there are also states, where we want to make a long term play where we know that there's very little national attention being played and very little digital work happening that can help support many of the folks who are working on the ground and helping to change folks minds. And so in states like Louisiana, and Mississippi, where folks, you know, tend to think Oh, those are states that always vote one way like that's, that's not the case at all at the local level. And when you see participation from these communities, it changes the outcomes at the gubernatorial level, at the city level, and you start to see that that impacts people's communities strongly, but we don't pay as much attention to those states, I would also add Kentucky to that, I don't think I put that in our list. And so these are states that we consider they're extremely voter suppressed. But just because you know, at the national level, you you may not see changes and who's represented that doesn't mean that participation can't have immense consequences for the people who live in those smaller communities. So we're really excited to start to do work at some of those states, which I would actually put as more important for us above some of these other like Senate contests and whatnot.

Omkari Williams  11:34  
Yeah, it. It's interesting that you say that, because a friend of mine lives in Louisiana, she lives in New Orleans, and New Orleans is reliably a progressive city. And the local elections there really do make a difference in the lives of the people of New Orleans. And I think that that's true across the board. And people don't necessarily pay enough attention to how much it matters, who's on your school board. How much it matters, who's on your city council. How much it matters, who's in various local level seats. And I think that putting attention there, and just really highlighting the importance of local races is really important. And you all do a lot of that, correct?

Tatenda Musapatike  12:24  
Yes, so we are super excited, because one of the things that we like to do is to really start to have people begin to dig into the elections through using technology so people can learn their partnerships that we have, or through connecting them with field groups and people who work on the ground. You know, here's who might be on the ballot, or here's what could be at stake in these elections. And the thing that I almost get frustrated about is that, especially for groups like mine, that are national groups, so groups that raise lots of money to play in state elections across the country, is that we can often lose sight of what it is that the organizers on the ground might be needing or what they are working towards. 

Tatenda Musapatike  13:07  
And so we try and do our best to help support many of the field groups in our states, whether it be through doing digital trainings for their operatives that can learn more about how they can run their digital programs more efficiently. Or whether it be through learning from them, what messages are working in their communities, what do these audiences care about? How can we think more constructively about building messages that aren't necessarily built on polls that have some kind of qualitative aspect to it. That way, we're a little bit closer to the community and can test things that might work. So we not only think about these elections, and how our work could make a difference. But we also like to take a lot more of a localized approach and a lot more of a person to person approach, as opposed to like, numbers and messages and percentages and whatnot, because that just seems to be the more almost humane way of doing it. And also like not for nothing polling against people of color that's really good as hard to come by anyway. So I tend to trust more what people who work in those communities say their communities care about and try and work backwards. That way we're building messages that are locally relevant, but also culturally competent.

Omkari Williams  14:11  
I really appreciate that. Because I completely agree that if you want to know what is actually happening in a community, then talk to the people in the community. People will tell pollsters, if they even answer, they will tell pollsters often what they think the pollster wants to hear. And that's not necessarily what they actually think. But if you are down on the ground, talk to the people there. Talk to the people who have been there the whole time doing the work, making the connections, those are the people who know what's important, and also know who do you need to reach out to? So I think that that strategy, I mean, it makes sense on so many levels and it's been proven out so many times and yet so often it still gets ignored. So I appreciate that you all are really focusing on that. 

Omkari Williams  14:58  
So okay, I have to to ask you this question, because you used to work at Facebook. And I admit to having a hate/hate relationship with Facebook. I think the company's done a great deal of harm to our democracy in the name of making money. And now your organization is actually being harmed by some of Facebook's practices. And without getting into the weeds on data, can you talk about what's happening with Facebook suppressing delivery of certain information to people who have iOS or Apple devices and what that means for your company, and what that means that any company has that kind of power to really impact what information people are getting.

Tatenda Musapatike  15:48  
I have so many complex thoughts about Facebook and having been employed there. And having worked there, especially working there in the political space when I did, which was 2015 to 2019. So at this point, though, and many of your listeners may know, the Facebook stock tanked recently. 

Omkari Williams  16:05  
Yes, it did.

Tatenda Musapatike  16:07  
It tanked, because they were seeing a lot less revenue generated from partners. And that's due to Apple's privacy measures that they implemented. So I want to say it was mid last year, Apple implemented a privacy measure for people who have iOS devices that basically allows you to say, I do or do not want you to share my data in apps or data from Safari or on my phone with app providers. So this impacts not just Facebook, but Snap and other advertisers who were allowing advertisers to use a thing called pixels. Pixels allowed for advertisers to get information about what you were doing on their website, and send it back to the app makers so they could tie the actions that you took or the things you purchased on pages with pixels back to an advertising campaign. But then those companies could then use that information about you to have a good sense of what you were likely to purchase what you were likely to engage with off the app. 

Tatenda Musapatike  17:05  
So since Apple did that, the Facebook algorithm, I don't know, whether deliberately or learned, I don't know, decided to just not to deliver certain types of ads, that would not get a signal back from offline activity, which meant that you drastically reduced the number of people who were able to see your content, one, to interact with your content. In our case, you know, we did pixel websites so that we could know were people registering to vote through our site. And it has just dramatically changed the way in which any advertiser does direct response marketing and direct response marketing is anything where you're trying to get an email address a purchase from a consumer, whether it be within the Facebook app through many of their tools, or whether it be on their website. 

Tatenda Musapatike  17:52  
So I like to use the example because it's very relevant to my life of like shoes on Amazon or Nordstrom, they follow you around forever. And that's because of the pixel activity like, you feel like you put a shoe in your cart, and you see it everywhere. And you're like, do I really want the shoes right? And that is allowed to happen through pixels. But now you're seeing so much less of that because of these privacy measures. I think many of these companies are working furiously to try and figure out how is it that we can still attribute offline or off app activity in a privacy safe way. That way, they don't hemorrhage any more money. As an advertiser, it certainly can be frustrating, because we now have to reformulate how we do things and what the costs are. As a human being I think it's great for everyone to have privacy controls and to understand how their data is being used. So I have many conflicting and complex feelings and emotions about all of it. But it just dramatically changes how, how it is that we can do this work. And it requires people and by people, I mean strategists like myself to be not just flexible, but creative, in how it is that we can get people to interact with our content off the sites or on the site so that people are registering. And we're able to measure how well our programs are working.

Omkari Williams  19:07  
I really see the challenge. And I see the challenge, not just from the tech side, but also just from the human side of yes, as you said, people are entitled to privacy. Although I think that we've gotten so accustomed to not having any that it's a little bit surprising when people actually decide to reclaim some of their privacy. But it's really important that you are able to engage with people and people are able to engage with you so I can see the challenge and I understand how this could be really, you know, sort of one of those. I hate this, but I really like this kind of things for you. Yeah, it's life in the 21st century is a lot more complicated than it was before. 

Omkari Williams  19:54  
So I've been reading your blog and you did this fascinating. series on barriers to access, meaning barriers to access to voting, where you looked at some of the obstacles that people are facing in trying to vote. And a fact that I did not know was that Native Americans were not legally eligible to vote in every state in the United States until 1962, which is jaw dropping. I mean, that's 60 years ago, until 60 years ago, Native Americans were not eligible to vote in every state in this country. So people whose country was stolen from them and pushed into tiny corners of undesirable land, did not even have the right to vote everywhere until 60 years ago. Would you speak about some of the other groups that are facing obstacles and what the Voter Formation Project is doing to address those obstacles?

Tatenda Musapatike  20:56  
Gosh, there's so many groups, I think, you know, many people may be familiar with kind of the different racial barriers, just because it's just something that you used to learn more frequently. Now, this whole CRT thing. I'm like, I don't even know what they're teaching in schools, but like, It's wild.

Omkari Williams  21:10  
Yeah, don't get me started.

Tatenda Musapatike  21:13  
We learned that, you know, African Americans were disenfranchised from voting for years and years, whether it be through de jure barriers, meaning through law, or whether it was just like de facto because of Jim Crow. So we had a whole series of laws that prohibited African Americans from voting and then said, you can vote with constitutional amendments, but then people still couldn't vote because of different restrictions, or just getting killed on the way to vote. But if you think about other communities, that you may not necessarily, you know, draw throughlines like, oh, wow, this community is disadvantaged. I would say one of them is the disability community. There are so many things that are happening now that can really impact how it is that disabled people are able to vote. And I think one of the most insidious ones is like this idea of ballot harvesting. It seems like this very nefarious thing where someone's like harvesting boats out of the ground, and like they're growing up on trees, and they're just dropping them in ballot boxes. 

Tatenda Musapatike  22:07  
No, like, the idea of ballot harvesting is a menacing term to describe someone dropping off someone else's ballot for them. If you're taking care of your elderly grandmother, who is not able to walk or drive, therefore, it's hard for her to vote on election day. But she got a mail in ballot and it can be dropped off at a drop box, you're dropping off your own, you go pick up your grandmother's, and then you drop it off in the ballot box. That is ballot harvesting, and in many states are trying to make that illegal. But if you don't necessarily have mobility, but you're still an American citizen, you should be able to vote quite easily. And it is not that insane for someone to think like oh, let me just have a caretaker drop off my ballot for me. I think this is one of the ones where it makes sense to any reasonable human, that you should be able to do that for your friends and family. Right? But this is one where it's just so simple, and yet being made illegal in many, many states, by using rhetoric, that seems scary. 

Tatenda Musapatike  22:07  
Another type of access issue is just in rural communities. How far away from a polling place do you live? And for some people, they live ours, especially Native communities, rural communities live hours away from polling places. So what would be the next best thing to be able to use your mail-in ballot but if you are restricting, or taking away mail-in ballot access, you're then saying to folks who do not have mobility and do not have quick access to a voting or polling place, that they have to be grossly inconvenienced in order to exercise their rights as Americans. 

Tatenda Musapatike  23:40  
I think another one that people don't often think of, is the working class. If you are forced to vote on election day, but you don't have the ability to take off, you should not have to choose between exercising your right as an American, and being able to make your rent or being able to feed your family. There should be multiple days available where people are able to vote, or people should be able to drop off their ballots by mail. That way that they can go to their jobs, and still participate in civic engagement. So there's so many different ways that a lot of these different laws are taking things that we rationally understand make sense, they aren't scary, they aren't crazy. It's just the realities of being a living, working human being in this country, that it should not be difficult to vote. And I think that's one of the things that are often used against these communities. It's the ideas that like, if you don't vote, you are unpatriotic but many folks can't vote because they have all of these different barriers. But the very barriers themselves aren't addressed in why it is that folks aren't voting, so it's almost that people are who don't vote or demeaned upon for not doing it when in fact, we aren't allowing them to exercise their rights because as a society, we just have not prioritized all of these different communities and how they think. We have started to think but like the standard is being an upper to middle class privilege person who's able to just go to the polls on the work day and not think about it, when that's actually the minority of people in this country, that is not the normal experience of everyone at all. So it just doesn't make sense. And there's just so many different communities and throughlines that you can draw to just different ways that folks make it harder to vote.

Omkari Williams  25:21  
And then you add in, you could be disabled, you can be a person of color, and you can live in a rural area. So you've just added layer upon layer of complexity and challenge to participating in the process. And I think that often we we sort of ignore the intersections of obstacles that really drive down participation. Because if you have to overcome distance and disability, and the fact that people are trying to keep you from the polling place because you're a person of color, yeah, then it might seem like, you know, why should I bother? It can be really easy to just say, this is more than I'm willing to take on. And at that point, what's being hurt is democracy itself. And so I really appreciate that you all are looking at those barriers to access and addressing those issues as much as you can. 

Omkari Williams  26:21  
So let me ask you, given that, since HR 1, with the John Lewis Voting Act, failed to get enough votes to pass thanks to senators Sinema and Manchin, your work is going to be a lot more challenging because that HR 1 would have opened up access, basically restored access to essentially what it was, and it's now an taken out some of the obstacles that are being put in place by state legislators. What plans do you the Voter Formation Project have in light of that defeat?

Tatenda Musapatike  27:01  
Yes, so our general approach to many of this in including the barriers that we talked about earlier, is to try and give people as much information as possible about how it is that they can vote. We do not effectively lobby any kind of governmental bodies, but rather, we seek to empower people with the information that they need in order to make the decision about how it is they can vote. And a lot of places you find that the reasons that people don't vote are often due to confusion. Aside from the barriers, right, like if someone has access, and they want to vote, many people just don't have the information on how to do it. It's complex. It can change from county to county, never mind state to state. And if you have moved or in some cases, even if you don't move, but polling places moved, it's so complicated. 

Tatenda Musapatike  27:44  
And so we try and reach folks who are new voters, or people we call infrequent voters, so people who don't vote, every election or even every presidential election. We try and reach those people to help give them the tools that they need and connect them to folks on the ground to say, Hey, if you have questions about where you can vote, here, put in your address, you can make a plan, you can pick what times you can vote and give them all the information that they need. Because in light of the fact that states are making it harder and looking to succeed at doing the best that they can to help suppress these audiences, then we need to arm them with information. And helping people get to the access to the information, and then doing our best to connect them with resources to make sure that they can vote is where we feel that we are most able to have an impact on expanding the electorate.

Omkari Williams  28:29  
Yes, and I'm just thinking back a few years to the gubernatorial election in Georgia where 100,000 plus people were purged from the voting rolls and didn't even know it until for many of them, they went to vote and we're told no, you can't. And just how insidious it can be and how challenging it is. And you know, that you you have someone who took off time from their hourly paid job to go vote to then be told, Oh, you're not a legal voter anymore. And it's a real obstacle for people. And so arming people with information is so important so that people know what to do ahead of time. And they can prepare and they can make a plan. And they can figure out how it is they're going to do what they need to do on election day or in early voting time. So I really appreciate that you all are putting some focus on that, because I think it's incredibly important. I think that most Americans don't have a clear understanding of this process because it is not standardized. And it is not necessarily simple. So giving them that feels incredibly important to me. So let me ask you this. This is a little bit of a turn of direction here. But when I was looking at your website, you have a James Baldwin, quote on there, and it's a quote I particularly love and it says, "American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it". What made you choose those words of Baldwin's in particular?

Tatenda Musapatike  30:16  
I love this question. No one's ever asked me that before. And I have it at the bottom of many of our fundraising materials, decks, and also the website. I love this quote, because it's just... I read it and I felt that it was just rooted in so much truth. The history of this country has only been told from one perspective for hundreds of years, even though the history of this country is dependent on millions of bodies that we'll never know about. And that is something that I think is so hard to reconcile with how it is that we view our civic engagement. And how it is that we think about the past of this country, when I start to think about history of my family are immigrants, and my parents are Zimbabwean immigrants and they came here in the 80s. And one moment in particular stands out for me is that they were studying for their citizenship tests. I think I was probably like 12. It was shortly after 911. And I happen to know the answers to most of the questions. And they were shocked, because they were like, many of our colleagues don't know the answers to these questions when we're studying. And you know, they're American. 

Tatenda Musapatike  31:26  
And it just dawned on me that if someone were to come to me to take that test, now, I don't know if I would still know the answers. I just happened to be in a history class, and I was a good student. So I remember things. Like the things that we are taught and have been taught in school do not match the millions and millions of bodies and people and work and effort and, and, frankly, sacrifice, not even sacrifices, in some cases, things were pillaged from these folks that this country was built on. Whether it be slavery, whether it be Native lands, you know, whether it be the work of women that's been completely ignored or rewritten. We just won't ever know the totality of the story. And we won't know the totality of the story from all these different people. And yet, we're pursuing this enterprise that requires us to think about every person in our democracy in order to live up to the standards that were set. Right? And I just love this quote, because I think it forces you to really think about what is our history? And where are we trying to go? And if we're trying to build this democracy that requires every voice to truly live up to its ideals? Are we capable without knowing the true history? I don't think we are, but like we at least have to try. So I just love this quote, I think you can just get lost in thinking about it for forever.

Omkari Williams  32:43  
I agree. It's just, there's so many layers here. And I appreciate how much Baldwin looks at the opposites. You know, he says more beautiful and more terrible. And that is so true. And it's a truth that we often sort of gloss over. Because we want to look at all the ways America is exceptional, and not look at all the ways in which America has not lived up to its ideals. So I really appreciate that you have that quote in your pages, because I think it's something that we all need to engage with. Those words, and what Baldwin is saying there, and it's just such a beautiful, beautiful quote. So thank you for that. That made me really happy when I saw it. Thank you. So I want to ask you, just like two more questions, because our time is getting short. My first question is, what is your goal? If you could just wave a magic wand and change things? What's the thing you would change first?

Tatenda Musapatike  33:57  
Like in terms of the organization, or in terms of just like America,

Omkari Williams  34:01  
In terms of America, and how and how your organization interacts with America. 

Tatenda Musapatike  34:06  
I would say the biggest goal is to register and mobilize as many people as we can. I mean, you're never going to get to 100% participation, even with compulsory voting. But if we can help expand the electorate meaningfully by two to three percentage points, that would be incredible impact. Like my wildest dreams impact level. It's really hard work that we do. It's expensive work that we do. And that would just be tremendous, because it seems like such a small number Oh, 2 to 3%. But that changes elections, as we've seen, the last bit is not insignificant. It's also really hard to you know, move elections by one percentage point even so that would just be incredible. And then the secondary thing which we haven't talked much about, but it's actually really near and dear to my heart is how people work. I care immensely about changing the framework for how it is that organizations who do civic or political work or digital work operate. It is a generally toxic and inhumane and just terrible industry. And the biggest success for me would be to own and operate an organization that when I was 22 years old, would have been proud to and could have thrived in, and felt respected, and felt compensated in, and felt that I was able to grow in. There are far too few environments like that. And I think that even though I had some amazing, amazing managers and mentors, that enough, isn't enough for most folks, especially people of color in this space. If you don't have an entire organization committed to the cause of, of treating people with equity, and dignity, and respect and growth, it's not going to happen. And so being able to run an organization where the people who work at it can thrive in both their personal and professional lives is a really big and important thing to me.

Omkari Williams  36:04  
That's a really interesting point, because I don't think that most people understand just how deeply toxic working in politics and political organizations can be. Having done it myself, it's, I often joke that I'm now trying to atone for my time working in politics, because I'm pretty sure I'm going to hell for that. And it shouldn't be like that, because everyone, I'm not going to say everyone, but the majority of people who go into politics across the political spectrum, they start with an ideal in mind. They start with the intention of making things better, whatever that looks like for them. And we can disagree on what better looks like. But I think we have to give each other credit for good intentions, that then mostly go terribly awry. And we wind up in the situation that we're currently in, where things are just, it's chaos out there. And so I appreciate that, you are thinking about that, and trying to change that culture, because I think changing that culture, from the ground up is going to be really necessary to making a difference in the larger framework of how politics goes, how people engage in their political careers, how the public engages with politicians. So thank you for that. I think that's a very worthy, very worthy goal.

Tatenda Musapatike  37:36  
I'm very convinced that as much as activism and unionizing like, fantastic, we all need, like, I love this movement. I love seeing folks activate in that way. But for me, I realized one of the better ways to impact that and to be able to kind of impose this viewpoint or make it a conversation point is to build an organization that can act as a light pool to help move the Overton Window towards treating people well, to move it so that you know, people are excited to work at Voter Formation Project. They want to come and do their work there. And they, they thrive there, and they stay as long as they can, until now they have people leave jobs for all kinds of reasons. But I want people to leave jobs because I can't pay a private sector wage like that is what I want. Not because you know, they are burnt out, they are tired, they are sacrificing their relationships, their families, their livelihood, their rent, their food, like this is all crazy the way that folks have been working. I want, I tell myself regularly like, you know what stop, you need to sleep, we're not doing the whole Capitol Hill, let's all like stay up as much as possible and like, maybe do drugs to support that and then like, drink our sorrows away. Like, I don't want that for you. I want you to be healthy and how that looks for you. And that means you need to go to sleep. And that may mean that you need to stop working at four. And that's okay. Because I know that you care about this work, and you'll get it done. And so trusting people and being able to push it so that if I am out here saying this is the narrative of Voter Formation Project, we do the best work in this space and we treat everyone with respect and we care about our employees, what's your excuse for not? That is the best way that I think that I can have an impact on this space and on the movement.

Omkari Williams  39:09  
So that's what we're doing. Cool. Yeah, Sign me up. That is absolutely such a healthier way to approach all of this. And just also in general, I mean, that's how work should be no matter what job you're doing. That's how work should be. And I think we need to rebalance because we've gotten way off the deep end on people sacrificing or just frying themselves to a crisp. That's not ultimately sustainable or helpful. So I think your goal is excellent. My last question is for you to give people who are listening and think, oh, you know, I really appreciate what Voter Formation Project is doing. I would like to be able to help support their mission in some way, whether that means actually working with you in some capacity or just supporting you, what are three actions that people could take to advance your intentions? 

Tatenda Musapatike  40:13  
Great. So I have a couple of different levels, I think one would just be to learn more about our work. Please visit our Twitter @voterformation, or go to our website, voterformationproject.org. And just learn more. I think following our blog is a great way to just start to get involved. I think the second way is that if people would like to financially contribute, we have an a link on our Twitter, and on our website, where people are able to give to us if they would like. Most of our support comes from larger organizations, foundations, but if people feel compelled, they're more than welcome to. But I think the bigger thing that I would ask, which seems indirect, but actually is quite direct, is that if you care a lot about this work, find a local organization where you can volunteer, we work with a lot of organizations in states that, you know, directly have volunteers who either can text voters, or go in the field with voters. And a lot of the work we do is in support of that. And so I would say if you, you know, are really moved by the work that we do get involved in your local community so that you can help talk to people who don't vote and get more folks registered and involved in the process.

Omkari Williams  41:18  
Yeah, I completely agree. I think that one of the things we've learned, especially during the pandemic, is how important local organizations are, they fill in gaps that cannot be filled by any other kind of organization, because they're there and they see the need, they know what needs to happen. So thank you. Those are excellent suggestions. And they will be in the Episode Notes so that people can refer back to them. Tatenda, this has been so lovely, thank you for this conversation and for the work that you and your team are doing. Really wishing all of you all the best this year. I know you've got a lot of big, big challenges ahead. And I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that you're able to overcome them and just spread out and do more of the work you've been doing.

Tatenda Musapatike  42:10  
Thank you so much. This has been a great conversation. I really enjoyed it. Thank you for having me.

Omkari Williams  42:15  
Oh, yeah, absolutely. 

Omkari Williams  42:17  
Voting is the cornerstone of our democracy and the efforts to disenfranchise voters to make voting harder for people all work against having a truly democratic system of government. This fight is central to all the other fights we are having. If you can vote, please be sure you do and not just in big elections, school boards have tremendous power from mask mandates to banning books and to what can or can't be taught in school. If you've been deprived of your right to vote or know someone who has see what can be done. Lastly, don't assume that you are still registered because you voted in the last election, check. People are being purged from voting rolls for no legitimate reason at an alarming rate. Make no mistake, we are in an intense fight to determine the direction of this country and voting rights are key to this battle. If you can take any or all of Tatenda's suggested action steps, please do. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back with another episode of Stepping Into Truth very soon.