Japhet Els

Volunteer role working to enhance and support town communications via digital and in-person channels. Examining communications challenges and impacts for rural communities.

Supported start of exploratory research on municipal provisions to residents attending public meetings including City or Town Council, Select Board, annual Town Meetings, Planning Board, or other municipal committee meetings. Conducted initial national research of municipalities offering incentives for public attendance to public meetings including childcare, free parking, adjusted meeting times, food and beverages, accessibility for those with disabilities, coordinated meeting promotion, and virtual offerings for hybrid or remote access. Drafted literature review examining the current state of municipal challenges to public attendance and interest in local meetings. Co-drafted survey and strategy to target town clerks in Maine in effort to begin compiling baseline data and feedback. Worked with Maine Municipal Association to target statewide Maine clerks; gathered full survey response from nearly 30% of all Maine town clerks.

Working with a social mission organization to draw attention to key issues like Medicare reform, fraud and scamming of Mainers, election education, long term care and community access and transportation, we'll be focusing efforts to bring these to the attention of our local elected leaders, community members and our own organization members around the Pine Tree State. Working with community groups and utilizing existing partnerships, I travel the state to make sure our members, and all Mainers, are aware of what AARP is doing for them!

Cients include: TrueMajority.org, USAction, TJ Donovan for Attorney General, The NH Rebellion, The Albert Baker Fund, AARP, the HowardCenter and Fairewinds Energy Education. Working with non-profits, campaigns and organizations to develop email and social media campaigns promoting events, ideas and issues across multiple sectors of society. Specializing in social media, basic analytics and developing content for the web, I've been working mainly with non-profits and organizations in the political advocacy field but am looking to expand.

Launched non-profit issue campaign alongside Lawrence Lessig and Joe Trippi aimed at combatting political corruption. Organized Americans and members of Congress to commit to addressing corruption in our political system through campaign finance reform, earmark process overhaul, full support of public finance in political campaigns and more transparency in all levels of government.

Working in the most exciting Democratic Presidential primary battle in over 60 years in Iowa City, Iowa and Las Vegas, Nevada taught me numerous lessons of field organizing, campaign structure, communication strategy and functioning a uncontrolled chaos. I was responsible for 8 precincts surrounding suburban Iowa City for the Edwards campaign and worked with local political groups, activists and voters to pull together as many supporters as possible for John Edwards. Through phone calls and doorknocking each of us reached out to individual supporters and began building energy for the Iowa Caucuses that were held on January 3, 2008.

Working with the Edwards webteam in Chapel Hill, NC to build our small donor base amidst the candidacies of then-Senator Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama. As a team, we worked on all aspects of the web while each of us spear-headed a particular corner of the web: social networks (socnets), fundraising, advocacy, blogs and emails.

Tasked with helping bring RAN up to speed on online organizing and development I worked with our new web director to build an active online community, the organization's first official blog (http://understory.ran.org), social networking strategy, and doubling online fundraising in the first year.

Worked to build a volunteer network throughout the state of Wisconsin focusing on urban areas of Madison, Milwaukee, Sheboygan, Eau Claire and Green Bay. Also wrote and updated state website of ACT Wisconsin, conducted email program for supporters and ate more brats than I thought possible.

Program consisted of six, 6-week courses focused on leadership ethics, evidence for decisions, policy and planning, and a capstone.