Common Sense Action Launches the First Annual Campus-Movement Competition
Ann Arbor, MI – Common Sense Action officially launched the CSA Campus Challenge. Twenty-five chapters will compete to build the Common Sense Action movement on their campuses, and they will begin to introduce the Agenda for Generational Equity (AGE) – CSA’s Millennial policy agenda – to electoral candidates. The competition will run for two months from February 3rd to April 1st, 2014.
“After researching, negotiating, and finalizing the national Agenda for Generational Equity, the Campus Challenge gives CSA chapters an opportunity to build the Common Sense Action movement and mobilize a nationwide network of Millennials who want to address the problems threatening our future,” said Common Sense Action Chief Executive Officer and co-founder Sam Gilman.
“With the CSA Campus Challenge, we ‘gameified’ campus organizing and movement building. We want the Challenge to be fun,” adds CSA co-founder and Chief Action Officer Andrew Kaplan, ”Through a healthy mix of collaboration and competition, CSA has created a structure that incentivizes our chapters to begin growing the CSA movement exponentially.”
The competition has three goals 1) to increase millennial voter empowerment 2) to foster a candidate education program and 3) to broaden its community by increasing its network and advocating on the behalf of CSA. The voter empowerment goal’s purpose is to challenge Common Sense Action members to get their community involved in grassroots politics, candidate education will be achieved by chapter leaders engaging politicians with a questionnaire, and network building will help CSA garner national support.
Chapter’s will be evaluated and scored based on their success in six essential activities: the candidate education questionnaire, voter empowerment by gathering signatures endorsing CSA’s Agenda for Generational Equity (AGE), social media engagement, events hosted, media attention, and collaboration with other chapters.
AGE addresses a wide range of policy issues that uniquely impact the Millennial generation, including entitlement reform, investing in education, workforce development and infrastructure, and repairing America’s broken political system through greater civic engagement. The Agenda was designed form a truly bipartisan standpoint, utilizing valuable policy recommendations from both sides of the aisle.
Chapters are expected to achieve the core requirements, with the ability to be awarded silver or gold status if they go above and beyond the minimum requirements for each section of the scorecard. There will also be a grand prize awarded to the highest achieving chapter based on the amount of silver and gold benchmarks achieved.
Chapter leaders will submit a weekly scorecard and participate in leadership development calls to help the chapter leaders develop essential marketing and grassroots organizing skills needed to be successful in the competition. The national board will track the competition’s progress and keep participants motivated. The leadership calls will involve discussions on social media strategies, campus organizing, and leadership development.
Raina Sheth, Vice President of Communications for CSA at UofM is “looking forward to engaging our large student body in a national grassroots bipartisan movement.” She also “cannot wait to connect student organizations through press releases, social media and campus-wide events.”
Potential prizes CSA chapters can earn include: dinner with a Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) senior fellow, CSA and BPC gear, priority status for future BPC and CSA internships, a one year subscription to Netflix or Spotify Premium, and other exciting opportunities.
To follow the competition’s progress like the Common Sense Action national Facebook page and Twitter. You can also check out the blogs chapters will be writing throughout the competition, and more information on AGE at www.CommonSenseAction.org.
The following chapters are participating in the Campus Challenge: Arizona State University, Boston University, Brown University, Claremont McKenna College, College of William and Mary, George Washington University, Hofstra University, Lafayette College, Louisiana State University, Loyola University, Ohio State University, Swarthmore College, Tulane University, University of Alabama, University of Arizona, University of California: Berkeley, University of California: Davis, University of Georgia, University of Michigan, University of North Carolina, University of Northern Iowa, University of Pennsylvania, Vanderbilt University, Washington and Lee University, and Wittenberg University.
About Common Sense Action
Common Sense Action is a grassroots organization that expands opportunity for Millennials by bringing the next generation to the policymaking table and building a movement of Millennial voters committed to advancing generational fairness, investing in Millennial mobility, and repairing politics.
Contact Jevin Hodge with any questions: jevin@commonsenseaction.org
