Source: Fortune
Summary
Patagonia launched the 11.2 Million Vote Project, offering $100 in credit or a donation to anyone who shared a voting plan with three friends. The campaign, which ran from Sept. 26 to Sept. 30, reached over 112,000 participants and 500,000 people through their networks, according to the company. The initiative, backed by the Environmental Voter Project, aims to bridge the gap between environmental concern and political action. Patagonia’s chief communications officer said the incentive was key to achieving results quickly. The campaign also aligns with the company’s ongoing legal battle over public lands and its push to mobilize voters ahead of the midterms.
Our Reading
The announcement sounds familiar.
Patagonia offered $100 to get people to share voting plans.
112,000 signed up in four days.
The company wants to turn environmental concern into votes.
The plan relies on friends, not strangers.
The original observation: A $100 nudge can feel like a vote for change.
Author: Evan Null
Caring about climate doesn’t always mean voting
CEO Ryan Gellert told Axios that political apathy is his biggest concern. The campaign’s name and budget draw on EVP research finding that 11.2 million registered voters identified as environmentalists skipped the 2024 presidential election. Nathaniel Stinnett, EVP’s founder, told Fortune that when his organization asked respondents open-ended questions about addressing immigration, gun violence, and education, they overwhelmingly suggested political solutions. But for climate change, personal solutions outnumbered political ones, about four to one, with the most common answer being recycling, followed by changing consumer behavior.
“We’re not going to recycle our way out of the climate crisis,” Stinnett said. Stinnett suspects that framing helps explain why people who care deeply about the environment can still fail to vote. They think about changing what they eat or how they commute, he said, without necessarily thinking about casting a ballot. That absence has consequences. “When we talk about apathy, we need to recognize that politicians know who votes and who doesn’t vote,” Stinnett said, arguing non-voters risk having their priorities ignored.
EVP identifies people who already care about the environment and encourages them to become consistent voters. The nonprofit’s approach relies on social influence rather than another argument about why climate matters, Stinnett said. “Your friends carry much more of a social impact on what your behavior is or ought to be than a stranger does,” he said.
Stinnett said the broader goal is to make voting part of how environmentally minded people act on their concerns. Seeing friends vote can help establish that habit, he said. “People vote because at some point they come to realize that they want to be the type of person who votes,” he said.
Still, reaching nearly 500,000 people does not mean producing nearly 500,000 additional voters. One limitation of outreach through friends is that volunteers often belong to social circles where people already vote, Nickerson said. “You can’t mobilize your friends who will already vote,” he said.
A $100 nudge from a friend
Patagonia said participants signed up for the 11.2 Million Vote Project through its voting-plan app, where they could take an optional training and add friends to generate personalized voting plans. Registered contacts could be matched to public voter files to provide accurate voting information. Those who weren’t registered could still receive information about registering or updating their registration as part of making a plan. Participants then shared the app-generated plans however they preferred and logged their outreach. After repeating the process for three friends, they qualified for the incentive.
Their friends did not have to register or vote for participants to receive the reward. Donald Green, a Columbia University political scientist known for pioneering field experiments on voter mobilization, said that differs from paying people to register or vote, which is illegal in federal elections. He compared the arrangement to a TaskRabbit gig: Patagonia was “essentially hiring people as temp workers, as temp political workers,” he told Fortune.
Green said the midterms offer a promising opportunity. People who ordinarily vote in presidential elections may be less inclined to participate in midterms, leaving room for outreach to influence their behavior. “If anything, this is the right venue for this kind of campaign,” he said. Reaching people through friends also makes sense as contacting strangers through phone calls or social media becomes increasingly difficult, Green said. Outreach from friends may help cut through the flood of messages competing for people’s attention online.
David Nickerson, a political scientist at Temple University who studies voter mobilization, agreed. Messages from friends are more likely to get noticed and carry more credibility than outreach from strangers, he told Fortune. Making a voting plan also helps recipients picture themselves following through.
Still, reaching nearly 500,000 people does not mean producing nearly 500,000 additional voters. One limitation of outreach through friends is that volunteers often belong to social circles where people already vote, Nickerson said. “You can’t mobilize your friends who will already vote,” he said.
A voting plan isn’t a ballot
The $100 credit could help attract younger Patagonia customers with less disposable income, he suggested—a group with lower turnout and more room for outreach to make a difference. To establish whether the campaign increased turnout, Nickerson said researchers would need a randomized experiment comparing people selected to receive outreach with a control group. Public voting records could then show whether the groups voted at different rates. Simply finding that recipients voted would not separate the campaign’s influence from their existing likelihood of voting.
For Stinnett, the broader goal is to make voting part of how environmentally minded people act on their concerns. Seeing friends vote can help establish that habit, he said. “People vote because at some point they come to realize that they want to be the type of person who votes,” he said.
Still, reaching nearly 500,000 people does not mean producing nearly 500,000 additional voters. One limitation of outreach through friends is that volunteers often belong to social circles where people already vote, Nickerson said. “You can’t mobilize your friends who will already vote,” he said.
The $100 credit could help attract younger Patagonia customers with less disposable income, he suggested—a group with lower turnout and more room for outreach to make a difference. To establish whether the campaign increased turnout, Nickerson said researchers would need a randomized experiment comparing people selected to receive outreach with a control group. Public voting records could then show whether the groups voted at different rates. Simply finding that recipients voted would not separate the campaign’s influence from their existing likelihood of voting.
For Stinnett, the broader goal is to make voting part of how environmentally minded people act on their concerns. Seeing friends vote can help establish that habit, he said. “People vote because at some point they come to realize that they want to be the type of person who votes,” he said.
