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Our legislative scorecard helped drive an over +70% increase beyond their first year membership goal and attributed to a Forty over 40 Award
Viante NM is a non-partisan organization based in Sante Fe, NM. New Mexico typically ranks towards last place in the categories of education, quality of life, and crime. So Viante focuses on bills related to improving those issues.
To encourage a wide diversity of thoughts, they have strategically created a balanced Board of Directors who consist of 10 total members. It includes Republicans, Democrats and Independents, five New Mexicans under 40, five over 40, and across a variety of industries.
In addition to New Mexico ranking towards the bottom in education, quality of life, and crime categories, they also only have a 30-day session in which to get bills passed. Although hundreds of bills are introduced, sometimes less than 100 bills get passed in New Mexico. So Viante’s Board chooses 15 key bills per session to focus on during this short legislative session.
Because of this, they needed an easy, automated way to track legislation and get it into a scorecard as quickly as possible to start informing constituents right away.
In 2018, Viante NM partnered with us to create their first scorecard and have worked with us ever since.
While they diligently track many bills per year using BillTrack50, they use our scorecard software to narrow this down and bring visibility to how legislators are voting on their top 15 bills. We use BillTrack50’s API to pull in bills they’re tracking into our software, which allows us to create a more visually appealing and engaging scorecard.
When the legislature is in session, their scorecard updates as new votes are taken. New votes are updated in the scorecard twice per day, which gives constituents the most current information about how legislators are currently voting.
The new, interactive scorecard allows Viante NM members and citizens to hold state representatives accountable for their votes. Constituents can easily look up their own representatives and see how they voted. This has lead to some impressive results.
Paid Memberships Increased 2.5x
Between 2018 and 2019, after they restricted scorecard access to members-only, their paid membership base increased by 2.5x.
Legislators Respond
Legislators are paying attention to their scores. After we added the legislator attendance feature into legislator profiles, legislators have been reaching out to justify or improve their attendance. One example is in this KOAT Channel 7 New Mexico News story.
Increased Publicity
Over the years, the scorecard has been featured in New Mexico news in TV, radio, and podcasts. A complete list can be found on Viante’s Media Coverage page.
"After just one year from our launch in August 2018, we saw 851 grassroots members wanting to be a part of our state’s way forward. My board and I forecasted gaining 500 members in our first year, but we exceeded this goal by 70% through continued persistence. Today, Viante has nearly 2,000 supporters in three years. This rapid growth indicated to me that there is an appetite for our organization’s unifying message.,” Samuel replied when asked what was her greatest professional achievement.
Rhiannon Samuel, Former Executive Director, Albuquerque Business First Article
Since 2018, the scorecard has been featured in New Mexico news in TV, radio, and podcasts. Including, Sante Fe Public Radio, KOAT News, KRQE News 13 and others.
Rhiannon Samuel, Former Executive Director, was the recipient of the Albuquerque Business First 2019 40 Under Forty award and was named a Woman of Influence in 2021. Both awards were, in part, related to the work she did with Viante and using the scorecards to make an impact in New Mexico.