Case Study: The Romero Institute increases Native American voter turnout with Bonterra EveryAction

The Romero Institute Gets Out the Native American Vote with EveryAction

The Romero Institute, a nonprofit public policy center that runs the Lakota People’s Law Project, faced historically low Native American voter turnout and set out to build a community‑led, culturally relevant voter outreach program to ensure Native voices were heard in the 2020 elections. To scale phone banking and enable distributed work, The Romero Institute used Bonterra EveryAction’s VPB Connect phone‑banking tool to reach voters by cell phone and support remote calling from campaign‑provided devices.

Working with Standing Rock, Romero hired and trained tribal members as phone bank organizers and ran socially distanced call centers before shifting to remote calling when COVID‑19 cases arose, leveraging VPB Connect’s remote capabilities to recruit additional volunteers for the Georgia run‑offs. Bonterra EveryAction’s solution helped produce over 250,000 calls in the general election, 11,000 conversations in key states and Standing Rock, and more than 42,000 calls (2,000 conversations) in Georgia—contributing to historic outcomes such as Arizona flipping and record Native representation, with phone bankers reporting excellent experiences and plans to replicate the model.

The Romero Institute