Partner Snapshot: Bucks Vote

Check out how professional basketball team, the Milwaukee Bucks, engage their employees in elections. While Civic Engagement has always been a core pillar of the organization's Social Responsibility program, a dedicated employee resource elevated their commitment. "Bucks Vote" offers staff a simple, social way to engage with colleagues through friendly competition and rewards. View platform walkthrough →

Opportunity


Civic Engagement is a longstanding CSR initiative for the Milwaukee Bucks, which promotes voting as a way for community members to create the change they want to see.

Headed into the 2022 Midterm Elections, their CSR team felt they could do more to act on this commitment internally. They reflected that in 2020, staff members often expressed confusion about voting rules and implications.

So for the next election cycle, they decided to provide more actionable support with a branded, employee-facing resource.

Solution


The Bucks decided to partner with Motivote to "help our employees feel ready and confident to vote" says Senior Coordinator of Corporate Social Responsibility Gracie Adsit.


They decided to offer the digital platform as a resource because "the gamification makes it fun and easy to understand the steps needed to get ready to vote," says Adsit. "I am so happy we can offer it as a creative, out-of-the-box tool to encourage voting."

Following positive employee feedback, the Bucks extended their engagement to cover statewide elections in Spring 2023 and Spring 2024, and now the 2024 Presidential race.

"Motivote is an amazing tool that has helped our employees feel ready and confident to vote. The gamification makes it fun and easy to understand the steps.”

-Gracie Adsit, Senior Coordinator of Corporate Social Responsibility

Digital Platform


Click through the Bucks Vote digital platform to see the user experience. Highlights include: team leaderboards, voting plan actions, prizes and "I Voted" gallery.


Platform Walkthrough

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Structure


Teams

The Bucks tapped into their employees' "inherently competitive" spirit with an organization-wide competition among departments. Each department became a "team," with the top ranking teams earning group prizes, like an all-team happy hour to encourage team bonding. They organized employees into teams of equal size by combining smaller departments so that each group had a fair shot at winning. 


Rewards

In addition to prizes for the winning teams, individual participants unlocked themed swag, like a t-shirt and cap, for completing specific actions like checking registration status. There were also incentives for employees who completed all election modules and achieved the maximum number of points.

"As employees of a professional sports team we are inherently competitive people. So bringing some additional competition off the court and into the office has been such a fun way to engage our team on voting and being civically involved in our community!”

- Angela Gilman, Director of Corporate Social Responsibility

Rollout


In partnership with Human Resources, the Corporate Social Responsibility team launched Motivote in the weeks leading up to Election Day.


The team sent a staff-wide email explaining the mission behind Bucks Vote, instructions to access Motivote, and rules for the competition. To encourage early adoption, they included incentives for the first employee to complete all election actions..


To continue to promote the resource after launch, they sent follow-up emails the day before the election to encourage employees to complete their voting plans and share their “I Voted” selfie to Motivote. 


Approaching the upcoming election in November, the Bucks will also host employee lunch-and-learns and invite local groups to share resources and help employees check their voter registration status. 


Results


Staff meaningfully engaged with and valued the resource. "It’s sometimes challenging to remember all the steps that go into voting as well, as all the resources that we sometimes forget are available to us," says CSR Coordinator Luis Lopez-Barbosa.


"Motivote made it easy for our organization by having all the necessary information housed on one platform and ready for us to check things off."


The numbers back this up: Nearly 100% of users completed steps to get ready to vote, and Bucks participants had a 10% higher turnout rate than national average for the 2022 Midterms. Employees shared positive reflections about the resource and partnership.

How valuable was Motivote to you with getting ready to vote?

How much do you appreciate your employer providing this resource?

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