About Us
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WHO WE ARE
TurnUp is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and mobile app that comprises the largest youth-led voter registration and turnout initiative. We’re on a mission to strengthen democracy by increasing high-impact youth civic action and closing the gap between young people who want to take civic action and those who take action.
TurnUp includes four integrated programs to increase youth voter registration and turnout: on-campus registration and turnout drives, relational registration and turnout programs, grassroots organizing, and digital campaigns. Forbes recognized TurnUp as the #1 standout tech non-profit organization.
Founded in 2019 by Zev Shapiro, who is now a recent Harvard graduate, TurnUp is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization which comprises the largest youth-led youth voter registration and turnout initiative in America. We’re on a mission to strengthen democracy by increasing youth civic action and closing the gap between young people who want to take civic action and those who actually do so. TurnUp includes four integrated programs that work together to increase youth voter registration and turnout: on-campus registration and turnout drives; relational registration and turnout programs; grassroots organizing; and digital campaigns. TurnUp has been recognized by Forbes as the #1 standout tech non-profit organization.
Since 2019, we’ve registered 645,000+ young voters, text 45 million young voters, talk to 1,200,000 young voters on the phone, and reach 140 million impressions of our ads making it easy to register and vote. We’ve graduated 18,000+ young people from our internship program who collectively contributed 154,000 volunteer-hours registering and mobilizing new young voters.
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TurnUp organized the largest youth-led youth voter registration and turnout operations in the past three cycles as well as in both Georgia runoff elections, according to publicly available data. The young people registered and mobilized by TurnUp have consistently voted in record numbers and made the difference in key elections.
Right now, 10 million young people live in our targeted areas with close elections, including four million who are unregistered. We know that more than 70% of youth who do register go on to vote consistently, so every new registrant makes a difference. Registering these new voters will be key to the 2026 and 2028 elections and our goal is to register and turnout as many young people as possible utilizing our effective strategies.
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We have a plan to register 190,00 new young voters in key states and districts in 2026, while mobilizing over five million more to turn out in November. Our goals include scaling our on-campus and relational registration programs to 2,726 high schools and 291 target community colleges, as well as growing our internship and digital programs.
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All of our work is focused on targeting the key states and congressional districts where youth can make the biggest impact: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Wisconsin, and other competitive congressional districts.
Young people have shown us that with support from TurnUp's programs, they will show up in droves and be the energetic changemakers that our democracy needs.
