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Ashanté is a shining example of the transformative power of Students for Voting Justice. Her journey, like that of many of our former interns, is a testament to the impact of our program on young careers. Ashanté's tenure as an intern with SVJ in Fall 2021, Summer 2022, and Fall 2022, where she eventually rose to senior team manager, paved the way for her future. After graduating from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in 2024, Ashanté secured a summer position with Trilogy Interactive, LLC, a DC-based political digital marketing and strategy firm. Today, she is a Digital Associate with Grassroots Analytics, a data-driven, full-service tech firm optimizing fundraising efforts for political campaigns, nonprofits, and causes.
She explains, “My role focuses on leveraging hyper-targeted donor data to drive strategic decision-making and enhance peer-to-peer and email fundraising performance.” Day-to-day, Ashanté is heavily involved in client-facing strategy meetings where she collaborates to discuss campaign budgets, outcomes, and key performance metrics. “A significant part of my role is building emails and texts from scratch using HTML code, ensuring functionality and visual appeal. Every day is fast-paced, so I analyze behavior, engagement, trends, etc., and adjust in real-time.” Clients range from Orlando Rep. Maxwell Frost to Teachers Unify to End Gun Violence, a grassroots nonprofit founded by educators committed to addressing gun violence’s impact on schools and communities.
How did Ashanté find these opportunities? Ashanté emphasizes that these opportunities were only made possible by her connection to Students for Voting Justice. She notes, “Social capital is so important, especially right now.” When Ashanté was an intern in 2021, SVJ partnered with Trilogy Interactive to teach our interns about digital marketing, messaging, design, and ads influence campaigns. As a Journalism/Mass Media Communications major, Ashanté was fascinated, and she stayed in touch with one of our Trilogy contacts after the internship session ended. When she was looking for a job after graduation, she sought out that contact and secured a role as a paid media Intern with Trilogy for the 2024 election cycle.
As her internship with Trilogy was ending, Ashanté saw a post in the private Students for Voting Justice LinkedIn Group about a job with Grassroots Analytics. Another former intern who works there had alerted us to the position. Ashanté is now the second SVJ alum on the Grassroots Analytics team, and thriving.
Ashanté’s future is bright, and she credits Students for Voting Justice with providing her with the exposure, support, and skills to navigate the workforce. She specifically highlights the training she received in digital marketing, the connections she made through the organization, and the hands-on experience she gained during her internships. She says that SVJ was a “true stepping stone” for her.
Serving as a stepping stone is one of the primary goals of Students for Voting Justice. For Ashanté, as for many of our interns, Students for Voting Justice was one of the first internships of her college career, and it opened the door to other internships and, later on, to promising careers. We are investing in remarkable young people, providing them with skills, contacts, and the motivation to make an impact through their work. Thank you for your support of this important mission! We couldn’t do it without you.
With continued hope for our democracy,
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