Email from Vote Smart From facts to acts.       Note from Executive Director, Dr. Kyle Dell   We have all seen this in so many places in our 2025 lives: “Access the full features of this service for $5 per month.” “Your support powers our work; join us for only $10 per month.” “With a Plus Membership, you can receive access to all our most advanced features.” Whether it is your favorite podcast, your streaming services, or a Substack author you follow, these services have improved over time because enough subscribers upgrade their support. The revenue from this support allows these organizations to improve their work, expand their services, recruit talented staff, and deepen their analysis. Vote Smart lives in this same world. We want to continue to provide the best programs and products we can: our democracy and your right to basic civic education and factual information demand no less. To power that innovation and maintain our commitment to quality and mission, we need to ensure our users support our work. As we have shared for several weeks, Vote Smart will begin to require the most modest support from our users in the form of a regular fee for some (not all) of our programs and tools. By asking for a modest membership fee, we will have the support needed to thrive in the months and years ahead, at a time when every American needs our help more than ever. The future of democracy depends on each of us having a stake in it. By sharing your support and becoming a sustaining member today, you have a stake in our future together. All of our existing members who have donated in 2025 will have full membership through 2026. New users and new members will come into our new membership system, where we see over 100 new people signing up each day right now! Connecting with these new members and asking for their support and trust will allow us to deliver the best to you in 2026. While it is essential to make this announcement, it is even more critical to announce our new products to serve you in the 2026 election. We will continue to deliver millions of unbiased facts about tens of thousands of candidates and elected officials — from the president to Congress to state legislators to local officials. We will do this at votesmart.org and our 800 telephone number. We will continue to expand and improve our weekly newsletters, which tens of thousands of Americans receive, with the latest updates, news in context, and early access to the best factual information on candidates and elected officials. We will expand our civic education tools and help millions of teachers and students use our data nationwide. We will launch our new online chatbot, named by our members. Civic Sage will help provide interactive, personalized data from anywhere in our databases, every hour of every day, when you need it. Best of all, this AI-powered tool is created by Vote Smart and uses only trusted Vote Smart facts. We will launch a new online community called Vote Smart Local, which will allow our members to learn about political events through the most secure and trusted online civic educational mini-lessons. Even better, members will be able to collaborate within Vote Smart Local to generate and strengthen their own networks, families, and friends. In 1992, Vote Smart existed only through one-time print voter manuals mailed to Americans and our 800 telephone number. We were a wild success that year, in no small measure because we were seen as a cutting-edge technology tool for civic education. In 2026, with your continued support, Vote Smart will once again earn that reputation, and we want to extend that support to the millions of users who come to us each election year. Please stay tuned for more information on these new improvements to Vote Smart in the weeks and months ahead. We are so excited to share these with you and are honored to earn your trust again for the election ahead. Sincerely, Kyle Dell Executive Director, Vote Smart   Vote Smart is grassroots: no ads, no agendas, just facts. Your support helps keep it that way. Donate Vote Smart | 1153 24TH ST | DES MOINES, IA 50311-4308 US Unsubscribe | Update Profile | Constant Contact Data Notice