18by Vote Merging into New Voters
After years of close collaboration and planning, 18by Vote, the major high school voting organization, is merging into New Voters!
We are beyond excited to share that 18by Vote has merged into New Voters!
For years, both of our organizations have been committed to the same goal: empowering young people to become lifelong voters. 18by Vote has developed an incredible community of youth leaders, investing in the holistic civic development of students. New Voters has created a proven, student-led model for registering high schoolers, combining research, coalition building, and on-the-ground organizing.
By bringing our efforts together, we will reach more students, amplify youth voices, and strengthen the movement for youth and high school civic engagement.
This merger isn’t just a new beginning—it’s the result of years of collaboration.
We (Jahnavi, President and Founder of New Voters, and Ava, President of 18by Vote) first met at the White House three years ago. That one meeting sparked a partnership that became so much more—we found not just collaborators in this work, but the support we needed to navigate the challenges of leading organizations as young people. Each week since has brought another hours-long call—sharing our vision for high school voting and democracy, grappling with the realities of leading an organization, and feeling grateful to be building something bigger than ourselves.
Over the years, 18by Vote and New Voters have worked side by side, running voter registration initiatives and phone banks, co-creating educational content, and sharing lessons on what it takes to run youth-led organizations. In fact, The New Voters Collaborative was born out of a series of calls between us, where we recognized gaps in the space and dreamed up a coalition that addressed them!
Through it all, we’ve seen firsthand how youth leaders, if given the opportunity, can transform civic engagement for our generation. That’s why this merger makes so much sense—it’s a chance to take everything we’ve learned and build something even bigger. But this merger is about more than combining two organizations. It’s about scaling our impact and making high school civic engagement the norm. Here’s what that looks like:
Reaching more high school students than ever before by bringing 18by Vote’s community into New Voters and expanding our on-the-ground programming
Educating potential voters through social media; the well-followed @18byvote Instagram will soon become @newvotersresearch, where we will share the
’s latest findings and information on current eventsBuilding out our Board of Directors with Ava Mateo, former President of 18by Vote, joining as the newest member of the New Voters Board of Directors
Building long-term civic infrastructure to ensure young people don’t just vote once, but become lifelong voters.
We are incredibly grateful to everyone who has been part of this journey so far—the educators supporting civic engagement in classrooms, supporters who have been with both of us since day one, the organizations working alongside us to make voting a habit for every young person, and most of all, the students who are ensuring theirs and their peers voices are heard in politics.
The time to take action is now. Join us at New Voters to ensure high school students are registered to vote—our future depends on all of us.
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