by Paul D. Lehrman
The Grassroots Connector is a free, lively, richly-featured, all-volunteer newsletter that aims to do just what its name says: tell grassroots organizations across the country what each other is doing, and share ideas and resources. It launched in February on Substack, an online platform that allows content creators to develop a subscription-based audience, kicking off with a guest essay by Beto O’Rourke. Today its 2,800 subscribers and 7,100 followers contribute to nearly 50,000 page views per month.
It started with the Grassroots Collaboration Project.
Susan Labandibar, co-lead of the Swing Blue Alliance in Cambridge, Massachusetts, envisioned the newsletter following the first meetings of the Grassroots Collaboration Project (GCP). The GCP is an advocacy organization designed to represent the shared interests of leaders of grassroots pro-democracy groups, and publishes a directory of them. “I thought that the leaders of these groups would appreciate a publication that was about them,” says Labandibar.
“At first it was just me. I created the Substack and published the first few issues. I wanted to get a feel for how the Substack would work. It’s a bit complicated to get the hang of the mechanics and I was curious as to who would sign up. Then came the organizing work; I had to recruit volunteers to write and edit, and put together an Editorial Board. I feel extremely grateful that so many of the people I asked stepped up and said yes.”
The board now consists of six volunteers, including Labandibar and co-leads Martha Merson, an education researcher and pickleball enthusiast; and Bruce Watson, the author of five books and creator of his own online magazine, The Attic. “We meet once a week to review stories and plan out the next week,” says Labandibar. “We have been doing three issues a week, and have dropped back to two during the summer.”
“This is different from Swing Left and Indivisible in that we are not recruiting these leaders to undertake campaigns,” she explains. “We share information about grassroots leaders — their initiatives, innovative approaches, and their tactics. We also write about people and organizations that they would want to know about. Finally, we keep it light with some humor and interesting videos.”
The newsletter offers practical, ‘how-to’ suggestions for activists.
The newsletter covers a wide range of topics of interest to organizers and volunteers alike, including how to reach reluctant voters, how to improve email responses, how to get the young and the disabled to register and vote, how to talk to Republicans, best practices for postcard mailings, and even how to raise money, as well as reporting on successful campaigns to elect progressive candidates and initiatives.
Recent articles include “Anti-Trump Burnout? We Respond to The New York Times,” “How a Vegas Garage Helped Swing Nevada Blue,” “The Tom Suozzi Campaign — A Model for Grassroots Collaboration,” “One Michigan County — 670 Organizers and Counting,” a review of the book “The Age of Junk Politics,” and a satirical “Campaign-English Dictionary.” There are also editorial cartoons, podcasts, and videos, and links to other progressive online resources like Simon Rosenberg’s “Hopium Chronicles,” David Pepper’s “Pepperspectives,” and Thom Hartmann’s radio and TV program.
“A newsletter about our grassroots movement is not a new idea for me,” says Labandibar. “I subscribe to 50 or more newsletters from all-volunteer grassroots groups. It has been a source of inspiration to see people stepping up across the country to help people in their communities take action to defend our democracy and win elections for Democrats.”
Martha Merson adds, “We are so pleased to amplify the great work that volunteer grassroots groups undertake in their communities, in consequential local, statewide, and federal elections. Thanks to the creativity of the grassroots movement, we are not going to run out of interesting material anytime soon.”
Paul Lehrman writes for The Grassroots Connector and other publications.
