Join the grassroots community!
We probably already know about the great work your organization does in the community, but how many people out there looking to be more involved for the first time know who you are?
Even then, dedicated activists and allies might not know what your team is up to at any given time.
Deschutes Grassroots aims to solve both problems – giving you more visibility and the tools to better coordinate with allied groups in one place.
Interested in signing up? It’s all free, you control your content and data, and event listings can be customized to fit on your own organization’s webpage with calendar widgets and more.
Group Directory
Let your group be discovered! Add information about your group to the directory so folks can easily learn about what you do and how they can help or become involved.
Calendar
Add your events to the calendar. Events can be sorted on a variety of filters allowing visitors to find the right fit for them. You can add recurring events like a regular monthly meeting just once and be done, or add special events, multi-day events, events held jointly with another group – there is no limit!
Tickets
Optional: Add paid tickets or free RSVPs to your event and collect attendee data for your list. Use the built-in system or easily direct users to outside sites. Data is easily exported in a CSV file compatible with Excel and most community management suites.
Widgets
Add a calendar to your organization’s website. Calendar widgets can be customized to display different views, such as list-style or month-style, and you can choose which events to show. Show only your group’s events, events from select groups or categories, or the entire community calendar.
You're in control
This project is a group effort. There is no editorial control: you post what you like, when you like, and the data is yours. But, if you need a little help or have ideas for new features, let us know and we can get your group what it needs.
Voters' guide
Ultimately, this site is about affecting change and that means politics is involved. If your group issues endorsements for candidates or issues, add your voice to the one-stop grassroots voters’ guide so folks can hear from people they trust.
Ready to learn more?
Drop us a line and we can chat about how your group can get the most out of this site and what we can do to help.
We’re happy to sit down one-on-one or in a group and walk through how to use the site from A to Z. Plus, we’re working on a step-by-step guide for posting events and more. Don’t let tech savvy get in the way – if you can get around using email, you can post events. Our editor is similar to Gmail or MS Word – no coding knowledge required.
If you’re ready to get started, go ahead and fill out the form below to request an account for your organization (you can have more than one account). Let us know in the last box if you’d like to schedule a meeting or training to talk more about what this site can do.
If you’re still looking for more info before signing up, use our regular contact form here.
Deschutes Grassroots launched in 2017
People were looking for ways to pitch in and make a difference following the tectonic shift in our civic space after the 2016 elections. New organizations were finding their place in the community and people were finding that anyone can be an activist.
Local leaders wanted to each support the missions of other allied organizations. They wanted newly activated do-gooders to find their best fit. And we all wanted to help the community to come together around shared values.
Membership in different organizations often overlaps for veterans in the civic arena. You might be a union member and serve on the board for a social justice organization, while also being a member of an environmental conservation organization who votes for Democratic candidates and subscribes to your local neighborhood newsletter. Even so, coordination sometimes falters. No one can keep up with it all on their own!
That’s where the idea for Deschutes Grassroots came in.
At simplest, Deschutes Grassroots is a place for the grassroots community to organize. A shared calendar. One less thing to worry about.
Eric Lint had been consulting in Bend and the Pacific Northwest for years. Focused on providing technical solutions and strategic advising around outreach and engagement to civic organizations and political campaigns, this project was a natural fit.
Eric reached out to several local organizations in early 2017 to find what tools they needed to better reach the community and break through the noise. Deschutes Grassroots was the result. It was built with a team of volunteers and input from those organizations.
This website is a shared resource - and free
Deschutes Grassroots is a group effort among all participating organizations.
While Eric keeps the machines running, the Deschutes Grassroots project is ultimately consultative. Each participating group gets a say in what happens here.
The content you see here is contributed by members of the community. Organizations may submit their own events or community members may submit events they find noteworthy to the wider grassroots community.
An event being listing here does not constitute an endorsement by the host organization of any other content found here.
This site may post a voters guide during election season. That guide may feature the opinion or endorsement of its individual authors, but, likewise, does not constitute an endorsement by any other entity using this website. Same goes for any blog posts published here.
This website is free. There is no fee for posting events or publishing articles here. While we really hope you like it, this site is a side project for volunteers who built it – and each has a day job. You might find some rough edges reminding you of that. Please get in touch with any feature suggestions or bugs.
If you’d like to support the maintenance of this website, you can buy Eric a coffee or get in touch to volunteer.
Support Deschutes Grassroots
Eric keeps the lights on at Deschutes Grassroots. Yearly costs include:
- Hosting
- Domains
- Calendar app
- Plugins for added functionality
Altogether, this has totaled more than $3,000 since 2017.
Want to help defray ongoing maintenance costs? Buy Eric a coffee! (or pitch in any amount)
Do you have basic WordPress skills? Want to help out as a volunteer moderator? Get in touch!