Shift the Country

A Super PAC for Service:  We're Catalyzing Civic Engagement To Counter Coronavirus

!!!  ALERT:  We are hosting a series of calls to help take action to counter coronavirus, and to create Community Coronavirus Coalitions.  Register for all Shift the Country (including coronavirus) calls & events on Eventbrite.

UPDATE:  In February 2020, the US Senate voted not to convict and remove a now-increasingly lawless president from office.  Since that time, the US has seen an increase in authoritarian behaviour from this administration.  By late February, the threat of coronavirus, or COVID-19, loomed as a likely world pandemic.  The framework to Shift the Country is uniquely suited to counter emerging tyranny and to help win the 2020 election.  It can also be leveraged to counter the threat of coronavirus.  As of March 2020 we are shifting our focus to our primary tool for this work, "Creating Community Coronavirus Coalitions."  All tools and related discussion will be addressed in conference calls offered via Eventbrite, and on our Facebook page.  This website blog will be updated less frequently until additional funding is available.

FUNDING:  People like you, and businesses like yours, help us make shift happen.  And help us catalyze civic engagement + action at scale to counter coronavirus.  CONTRIBUTE HERE.  Thank you.

We're Growing Something Like A Phenomenon

We will #ShiftTheCountry to help Democrats win the rural US in 2020.  We are helping the left to win the White House and the US Senate, and to hold the US House.

The Shift the Country work leverages the power of community + connection to create tipping points at every level.  We are about engaging with the large majority of Americans – not just in small towns, but in rural micro-cities & cities.  It's on-the-ground grassroots organizing fused with social media influence.  We will publish and spread research-based tools people can use where they live to build coalitions with shared priorities, to work locally on implementing projects and priorities, and to advocate together to politicians for action.  People spread the word in their networks; we help amplify the activity.

THE BEST OVERVIEW OF THIS SHIFT: "Growing Something Like A Phenomenon," as a 2-pg PDF handout or a blog post.

We can Shift the Country toward a future we build together as a majority, for everyone, where we take care of people, where we work to solve problems, and where we build communities we can thrive.  This is innovative stuff.  It can become a movement - creating shift that works.  More:

To shift us away from the path of the republican party - away from the path of fear and bias; away from the party that only fights to help the already-wealthy.  To shift us away from a corrupt, dangerous president and Senate majority leader who are dangerout to life, safety, and health and to government itself.  To shift us away from deadlocked politics.  To shift us toward futures that work for Americans in communities everywhere.

Shift the Country PAC is a federal Super PAC.  This page is the official Shift the Country PAC website until funding allows for a standalone site.

How We're Making Shift Happen

The Shift the Country Proposal gets into methodology, sociology, social networks, community dynamics, influence, language, values, framing, and what’s going on in a whole lot of America - especially rural America.  The core of the Shift the Country work is to deliberately create tipping points... in the places where we live, online, & across platforms + people + networks.  We can deliberately create tipping points by paying attention to context, stickiness, the people in social networks, the networks themselves, and how communities work.  With language, with framing, with attention to values.  With coordinated and strategic attention, activity, buzz, and action that can create noticeable shifts and real-world change in communities everywhere… even before the 2020 election.

The work begins where we live - within our communities and our own social networks.  We create the shift by listening and learning; by paying attention to what’s happening in the parts of America outside the huge cities:  small towns, big towns, farm country, ranchland, micro-cities, & larger rural cities.  There are population centers in rural America full of people who could be democratic voters… the Shift the Country work is designed to reach and engage them.  The work is anchored in established resistance and political campaign work…  it complements and expands it. 

We take it to the next level.

The work + the tools in the Proposal to Shift the Country are designed to foment tipping points.  We need to start work in communities ASAP so that it is well underway by the November 2020 election.  We can help communities across the US start the #ShiftTheCountry work where they live.  We need to build out the tools, share them effectively, and work hard at getting the word out.

Want to get more involved?  Check out all the ways you can Support the Shift here and get other people involved too.  That's how we get it done.

 

"This country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a good place for all of us to live in." - Theodore Roosevelt

Legal Information

The Shift the Country PAC is a federal Super PAC working on the 2020 election.  We are based in rural America, with Washington, DC experience.  Not authorized by any party, candidate, or candidate's committee.  We're building on the power of connection and community to foster tipping points that help make real shift happen.

Contributions may be made online, or mailed via check to Shift the Country PAC, PO Box 1093, Ames, IA  50014.

Per the FEC, "political committees that make only independent expenditures (Super PACs) may solicit and accept unlimited contributions from individuals, corporations, labor organizations and other political committees. They may not accept contributions from foreign nationals, federal contractors, national banks or federally chartered corporations."  Further, “a federal government contractor is a person who enters into a contract, or is bidding on such a contract, with any agency or department of the United States government… the government contractor ban applies primarily to contributions from a partnership (or a limited liability company) with a government contract. It also applies to the personal and business funds of: individuals under contract to the federal government; and sole proprietors of businesses with federal contracts.  The spouses of individuals and sole proprietors who are federal government contractors and employees of federal government contractors, however, may make contributions from personal funds.”  Contributions are not tax deductible, and are filed with the FEC.

This committee intends to make independent expenditures, and consistent with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit decision in SpeechNow v. FEC, it therefore intends to raise funds in unlimited amounts.  This committee will not use those funds to make contributions, whether direct, in-kind, or via coordinated communications, to federal candidates or committees.

 
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How Can I Support the Shift?
I'm In!  Sign Me Up
Proposal to Shift the Country
Events to Shift the Country
Tools to Shift the Country
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Services
The Blog
Check out the Focus Areas
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shift the country - events shift the country - general

Related blog items

Clarion Call: Time To Do Different Things
Cutting-Edge Campaigning: Why We're Unique
Found My Resonance: It's Shifting The Country
Funding Specifics To Get Shift Started
Going All Out
Shift the Country PAC: What We're Here To Do
Shift the Country: Growing Something Like A Phenomenon
Shifting Into Leadership
Telling Our True Stories
The Dimished Fight Against Domestic Terrorists
The Road So Far

Related calendar items

TL;DR - How Do We Shift the Country?
Wednesday, August 7, 2019

Related faq items

Why create another movement?

There ARE a bunch of movements - and organizations - doing great things with lots of staff and resources. 

  • We need heavy focus on rural America, & we can build that.
  • There wasn't a movement specifically designed to do new research-based things to help Shift the Country to the democratic side in areas that will help us win the US Senate and the Electoral College in 2020. 
  • The Shift the Country work is intended to complement, supplement, add to, and build on all of these other initiatives.  It's about how do we take it to the next level; reach even more people; get inactive voters engaged.  We've made a lot of progress since the 2016 election, and the #BlueWave in the 2018 mid-term election was huge.  So how do we get the extra votes we'll need to win the US Senate, and to win the Electoral College?  That's what this work is.

The original idea with the Proposal to Shift the Country was to have a major political organization champion the initiative; to grow the movement quietly from within the democratic side.  The proposal was pitched to many major political and activist organizations from late April through June, 2019.  A few key organizations received the entire 208-page proposal.  Others received a pitch letter, outline, and introduction.  For whatever reasons - and there could be many - there were no bites.

The Shift the Country work was designed to happen at a national level, and to be facilitated by a major organization with some infrastructure, staff, technology, & resources to help get the materials out + widely distributed.  So WE create a major organization, ask for resources, build some infrastructrue, get some staff on contract, figure out the technology, and get the word out by growing the movement via its own methodology - deliberately creating tipping points.  We won't get different results if we don't do different things.  This work is about adding on to the things that we know work - and  taking it to the next level.

Will there be a community to connect with others who are shifting the country?

We would love to have a public community on a platform at a future point once we get a few other things in place. As we are a brand-new Super PAC, we want to make sure we are in compliance with election law.  For now, the community for the work will be on our public Shift the Country Facebook Page.  You can also sign up for future Team work as it evolves.

Related resource items

Shift the Country - 2019 Handout

Informational 2-page handout for the Shift the Country work, November 2019.