General:

•  Led a successful Earned Income Ballot Initiative campaign to place a .75% earned income tax on Westerville City School District Residents, leading to its successful passage with 60.85% of the total votes. 

• 2011 Income tax levy was defeated 61%-38%

• 2024 Property Tax Levy defeated 52%-47%

• Created a database of over 800 emails and contacts, engaging those contacts throughout the campaign to build and leverage community support 

Fundraising:

• We were advised to focus on “big donor” and “corporate donor” lists provided by district leadership and consultants. 

• As those efforts bore very few donations, we shifted strategies and focused on mobilizing small $ Donors Through I Heart Westerville Schools shirts as a reward for $30 Donations.

• Began the campaign with ~$18,000 from the 2024 campaign

• Raised $88,000 from nearly 1,000 total donors

• Campaign end balance ~$36,000

• Total donated through website: $29,717.29

• Average donation size: $50.54

• T-shirt sales (tracked):  $8962.4 

*Sold nearly 250 before tracking (but sometimes for less money), and t-shirts sold at events were donated as general fund—total raised from t-shirt sales is around $13,000 (minus production costs)

Strategic:

• Disregarded the hired levy consultant's advice on yard signs and pushed for early orders, despite erroneous claims that Westerville banned them until 45 days before election day.

• Created unprecedented demand for yard signs and distributed 2500 yard signs

• As Early fundraising lagged, we created a hybrid outreach strategy, layering OEA resources (texting & printing), volunteer efforts (lit drops) to effectively reach voters despite a lack of funds throughout September. 

• Rebranded social media and organization branding from Our Community Our Schools to Yes For Westerville Schools while increasing followers. 

Community Outreach/Volunteers

• Engaged at least 582 volunteers and collected contact information for future outreach

• Created an email contact list through the yesforwestervilleschools.com site that pushed campaign information for nearly 900 individuals

Social Media & OOH: 

• Our campaign used an enterprise-level social media strategy to drive both organic and paid performance in a highly contested local election environment. Rather than avoiding opposition narratives, we built a proactive response system designed to counter misinformation, clarify key facts, and strengthen public understanding of the levy.

• We mobilized and trained a volunteer network to engage directly with misleading claims, respond with accurate information, and expose weaknesses in anti-levy arguments. This approach helped shift the conversation from emotion-driven opposition to fact-based accountability.

• As the campaign gained traction, opposition groups began banning our volunteers for sharing verified information, ultimately weakening their credibility and reinforcing the strength of our messaging.

• To expand reach beyond digital channels, we also strategically deployed out-of-home (OOH) advertising near major election sites and high-traffic neighborhood routes. In under 30 days, the campaign generated 361,314 OOH impressions, increasing visibility at critical voter decision points.