Tech 2 Try: Part 2
Welcome to the second installment of our Tech2Try series! It seems every other day, a new tool enters our world, and we wonder if they’re worth using. We’ve looked at some of them and heard from other campaign professionals about them and can confidently say, they’re worth it!
Campaigning is hard; merch should be easy! MerchBlue makes it possible for every campaign to offer US-made, union-printed, environmentally-friendly merch. There is no cost to get set up, so you can offer t-shirts, stickers, yard signs, hats, totes, and buttons to your supporters for donations through your website or ActBlue. MerchBlue takes care of all of the printing and fulfillment for you.
Universe is an all-in-one campaign management platform built in local campaign offices, for local organizers. Campaign tech has evolved to be fragmented, expensive, and built for large campaigns with internal technology teams. Universe is built exclusively for down ballot campaigns, local organizations, and first-time candidates – giving them access to all of the modern tooling they need to run their campaign, even without a large budget or in-house tech team.
Additionally, Universe builds free and low-cost tools to solve other campaign problems. Notably, their self-service website builder is $24/mo with no set-up fee and can get your website from an idea to published in under an hour.
Rep’d, short for “Represented”, is the first on-demand Town Hall for communities and leaders. As part of the latest Higher Ground Labs cohort, Rep’d provides a designated digital space for voters to ask questions and for leaders to respond personally with short video answers, accessible on any schedule. Their mission is to bridge the widening trust gap between communities and their leaders in both politics and local government.
We hope we’ve settled some curiosity you may have had about these tools. As a reminder, there are no promotional considerations tied to these–we’re just really impressed and excited by them and want to share them with you! If you have tech recommendations, please feel free to send them our way.