Case Study: NYC Votes achieves increased civic engagement and voter mobilization with NationBuilder

How NYC Votes boosted civic engagement for local elections

NYC Votes, an initiative of the New York City Campaign Finance Board, faced fragmented outreach data and needed to centralize communications to inform, register, and mobilize voters for the 2017 mayoral election. To address this, they adopted NationBuilder’s organizing platform to consolidate their database and create coordinated email, SMS, and volunteer recruitment channels.

Using NationBuilder, NYC Votes A/B-tested emails, launched text reminders, and integrated apps to boost acquisition and engagement — achieving 2.1K email sign-ups, 1K text opt‑ins, doubled volunteer numbers, and mobilized as many as 80 volunteers per day to make more than 9.3K GOTV calls over four days; email open rates reached about 45%. NationBuilder enabled personalized voter support (polling locations, absentee ballots), improved messaging through testing, and measurably strengthened turnout-focused outreach.

NYC Votes

Amanda Melillo

Deputy Director of Public Affairs