Town Hall Project

The Town Hall Project aims to remove barriers between constituents and elected officials/candidates by planning, organizing, and hosting town hall meetings. Furthermore, the Project will provide Task Force chapters (Districts), communities, individuals, and local organizations the knowledge and resources necessary (likely in the form of educational materials and board-approved micro-grants) to host town halls across the country. In the past, the Task Force helped organize student town halls for high-school students to communicate their concerns with school board officials and the district superintendent. We aim to use this past experience to inform how we deploy the Town Hall Project on a greater scale.

The objective is for town halls to become accessible to organize, enabling constituents to have more face-to-face interactions with officials/candidates, and improve faith in local institutions. The Town Hall Project is being developed in two stages.

1. Phase One: Town Hall Toolkit: Will create instructional resources on how individuals can host local town halls. These educational materials may include information on securing venues, attendees, technical equipment (such as microphones), and publicity for town hall meetings. We intend to make these resources accessible and easy to understand. 
2. Phase Two: Town Hall Pilot Project: Using the instructional resources developed in Stage 1, the Task Force will host a series of local town hall meetings to test how effective the instructional guides are. These town hall pilots will set the precedent for how to host town hall meetings when the Project is deployed on a national scale.
3. Phase Three: National Deployment: By analyzing historically underrepresented communities, the Task Force will distribute (board-approved) microgrants to Task Force Districts/local allies to plan and organize town halls across the United States.

History

The Town Hall Project is one of the Task Force’s oldest initiatives. Since our founding in 2021, we planned town halls to connect voting-aged students with local candidates/officials. Our work with student advocacy groups culminated in a series of five town halls in Scottsdale, Arizona providing voting-aged students the opportunity to interface with school board members. Since then, Organizational leadership saw the need for a universal Town Hall toolkit that would instruct a national series of town halls.

We are now closer to our vision than ever before as we transition from phase one to phase two! We would appreciate your support along the way!