How March For Our Lives used CREDO funding to turn out the youth vote in 2020

This month marks a sad and tragic milestone: The third anniversary of the mass shooting massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL when a gunman murdered 14 students and three staff members.

Out of this tragedy sprung the largest youth-led mobilization to protest against gun violence and the creation of March For Our Lives, which harnesses the power of young people across the country to fight for sensible gun violence prevention policies that save lives.Last May, CREDO members donated $51,944 to MFOL which helped the organization drive record-breaking young voter turnout — and huge victories — across key battleground states. This funding from CREDO, which was powered by our customers who use our products every day, came at a critical time in MFOL’s infrastructure-building and growth phase and helped provide stability during a challenging year.

“Thank you for believing in our youth-led movement to save lives! CREDO members enable us to mobilize our 250+ chapters nationwide and ensure gun violence is front of mind for lawmakers and Americans from all walks of life until we end this epidemic.” – Alexis Confer, Executive Director, March for Our Lives

The donation in part helped the organization set out to catalyze a movement of young voters to turn out in record numbers — just like it did in 2018. 

And it was a great success: Young people defied predictions and played a decisive role in the 2020 election. Specifically, young voters of color drove the results, and the young people of MFOL were at the forefront of national efforts to get out the vote. As part of those efforts, MFOL launched Our Power 2020 last March, its campaign to drive record youth turnout and continue gun violence prevention advocacy through grassroots direct action. Our Power engaged all of MFOL chapters but was heavily focused on nine priority states: AZ, CO, FL, MI, TX, WI, GA, PA, NC. Here’s how they helped drive what was potentially the highest youth voter turnout in history:

• Over 780,000 text messages sent to young voters through our peer-to-peer program in the final 10 days.
• More than 800,000 calls made to young voters in the final 10 days.
• Engaged over 1,700 volunteers in a GOTV program.
• At least 2.8 million people reached in key states by MFOL’s digital ad program 
• In August, MFOL released Our Power: Next Time which garnered over 1 million views organically within 48 hours of being released, and in the final GOTV stretch, they released The Power Of Our Vote driving viewers to make a plan to vote. 
• MFOL also worked with its chapters, local artists, and national/local partners (including UWD, CJAF, Sunrise, Dream Defenders, NextGen, Voto Latino, LCV) for Our Power in the States to host digital rallies and on-the-ground art interventions in major cities in each of our 9 key states.
• March for Our Lives Florida worked for the last two years to get Precinct 538 at the University of Central Florida to a 100% turnout rate (yes, you read that right!).
• Built an infrastructure for 300 chapters to do organizing work on the ground in their communities on issues most important to them.
• Held countless zoom rallies, phone banks, and text banks.

As MFOL continues its gun violence prevention work in 2021, it looks to continue building on these successes to organize and advocate to move funding from police budgets to community-based violence intervention programs proven to reduce gun violence. The organization has also recently launched a process to further refine its gun violence prevention policy platform and identify where they can have the most lifesaving impact in the coming year.

We hope you’ll follow the incredible and inspiring work by the great leaders and activists at March For Our Lives in 2021. You can follow them on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, or sign up for text or email updates on their website.