Why I Hustle: Sierra Holstad
On my first day as an organizer on the Bernie Sander’s campaign, I made more than 100 phone calls. I spent hours dialing, listening to a ringing line, waiting to connect with anyone and everyone who would be willing to pitch in and build our campaign. Like most field programs, our success depended on our ability to recruit volunteers to make phone calls, knock on doors, and ultimately vote for our candidate — and for the first few months on the Bernie campaign, we did this by vigorously, earnestly, and endlessly dialing the phone.
It’s no secret that response rates on phone calls, particularly unsolicited ones from unknown numbers, are on the decline in political organizing. A good day on the phones would result in a 15% response rate, connecting with just a handful of the hundreds of people my teammates and I called each day, and maybe (hopefully) scheduling enough volunteer shifts to hit our goals and reliably scale our organization.
After a couple of months of dialing, our Des Moines office was given access to Hustle, a new 1:1 texting platform for organizing and engaging our supporters. Hungry for a better way to organize, my regional field director, Zach Fang, and I began to experiment with the tool. We uploaded a few hundred numbers into the system and sent them text invites to volunteer shifts — we were absolutely blown away by the change in response rates and engagement.
People we had been trying to reach for months on the phone were texting us back, asking questions about how to get involved, and interacting with the Bernie campaign in a way that they never would have before; we went from scheduling 3 or 4 shifts in an entire day to 10+ shifts in a matter of a few hours of texting. The difference was night and day; we had discovered a fresh, exciting, and effective form of organizing that completely changed the way we conducted outreach to Bernie supporters.
Eventually, text organizing became a huge part of the national campaign strategy and large-scale text operations were connecting with voters all over America to encourage them to get involved, engage with the campaign, and ultimately, to vote. The Bernie campaign energized the progressive community in a way that encouraged a new generation of organizers to start building organizations that pushed for the future they wanted to see.
Life at Hustle
When Ysiad Ferreiras, VP of Sales and Marketing at Hustle, asked if I’d be interested in joining Hustle as an administrative contractor in May of 2016, I had no hesitation in saying yes. After my experience with the platform on the campaign, I knew that by working at Hustle, I could empower progressive organizers to effectively fight for the issues that had brought me to the Bernie campaign. I felt that campaigns, unions, and organizations would benefit immensely from the growth and development of a tool like Hustle and I wanted to be part of it.
There is a phrase in organizing, ‘come for the cause, stay for the people,’ that describes in part why I choose to keep working at Hustle. Each day, I’m surrounded by organizers, engineers, activists, businesspeople, and content creators who are fighting to equip important organizations with a tool that brings efficient authenticity to a space in need of real, human connections. I’m challenged and inspired to be the best I can be to match the energy that my colleagues bring to work every day. The vision they have, not only for organizing, but for creating a more connected, personal, and engaging world is exciting and necessary.
In my time at Hustle, I’ve had the opportunity to grow in ways I never would have expected when I left college in 2015 to organize full time. In the year that I’ve been part of this team, despite coming into the job with little experience in the tech space, I’ve felt empowered to develop a deep understanding of Hustle and the organizations that benefit from it. I’ve gone from being a general contractor to managing our sales development team. I’m challenged to continue developing as an organizer, an activist, and as a professional.
Hustle is exactly the kind of company that the world needs right now: one emphasizing inclusion, diversity, responsibility, and relationship building instead of growth for growth’s sake. Everyone here, from our engineering team to our customer success and sales teams, believes in a world where all people are valued and empowered to grow no matter their background. They actively take steps towards building that world in the way they hire, train, and manage the people on our teams. Everyone is expected to bring their full, authentic selves to work.
Finally, our clients at Hustle make working here a humbling and inspiring experience. Every day, thousands of people across America are connected with organizations, non-profits, campaigns, and causes that they care about through our platform. The organizers and activists who use Hustle are constantly at the forefront of bringing about important changes in American society (a sincere challenge in our current political landscape). Providing them with a top notch organizing tool that empowers them to be more successful more often is incredibly rewarding.
Hustle is Hiring
Hustle is currently hiring highly motivated people with a passion for innovation in organizing. If you believe in the power of text to engage and mobilize people across the U.S. to take meaningful action for causes they believe in, I’d love to talk to you about joining our sales, marketing, or engineering team here at Hustle!
Check out our jobs page or connect with me at sierra@hustle.life.
