Patagonia's $11.2 Million Voting Push Reaches 112,000 in Four Days

Patagonia has spent decades pulling young people into the outdoors. Now the outdoor apparel company is trying to pull them into the voting booth. The company set aside $11.2 million for its 11.2 Million Vote Project, launched Sept. 26, offering $100 in Patagonia credit or a $100 donation to the League of Conservation Voters to anyone who sent a voting plan to at least three friends or family members. The money ran out in four days.

By Sept. 30, more than 112,000 people had signed up, and nearly 500,000 people — counting participants and the friends they reached — had plans to vote in this year's midterms, the company said. The campaign reflects a persistent gap between caring about the environment and actually casting a ballot, and a bet that friends can close it.

Patagonia partnered with the Environmental Voter Project, a nonprofit whose research found that 11.2 million registered voters who identify as environmentalists skipped the 2024 presidential election. That figure gave the campaign its name and its budget. EVP founder Nathaniel Stinnett said that when his organization asked respondents open-ended questions about addressing immigration, gun violence and education, they overwhelmingly suggested political solutions. For climate change, personal solutions outnumbered political ones about four to one, with recycling the most common answer, followed by changing consumer behavior.

«We're not going to recycle our way out of the climate crisis,» Stinnett said. He suspects that framing helps explain why people who care deeply about the environment still fail to vote. They think about changing what they eat or how they commute, he said, without necessarily thinking about casting a ballot. That absence has consequences. «When we talk about apathy, we need to recognize that politicians know who votes and who doesn't vote,» Stinnett said, arguing non-voters risk having their priorities ignored.

Patagonia CEO Ryan Gellert told Axios that apathy is «probably the single biggest thing that concerns me right now.» The company's chief communications and impact officer, Corley Kenna, said the incentive was decisive. «Offering a meaningful incentive was a game changer,» she said. Without it, the company might still have reached its goals, but doing so probably would have taken longer than four days — or it might not have reached them at all.

Participants signed up through Patagonia's voting-plan app, where they could take an optional training and add friends to generate personalized voting plans. Registered contacts could be matched to public voter files to provide accurate voting information. Those who weren't registered could still receive information about registering or updating their registration. Participants then shared the app-generated plans however they preferred and logged their outreach. After repeating the process for three friends, they qualified for the reward. Their friends did not have to register or vote for participants to receive the incentive.

Donald Green, a Columbia University political scientist known for pioneering field experiments on voter mobilization, said that distinction matters. Paying people to register or vote is illegal in federal elections. He compared the arrangement to a TaskRabbit gig: Patagonia was «essentially hiring people as temp workers, as temp political workers.» Green said the midterms offer a promising opportunity because people who ordinarily vote in presidential elections may be less inclined to participate, leaving room for outreach to influence their behavior. «If anything, this is the right venue for this kind of campaign,» he said.

Reaching people through friends also makes sense as contacting strangers through phone calls or social media becomes increasingly difficult, Green said. Outreach from friends may help cut through the flood of messages competing for attention online. David Nickerson, a political scientist at Temple University who studies voter mobilization, agreed. Messages from friends are more likely to get noticed and carry more credibility than outreach from strangers, he said. Making a voting plan also helps recipients picture themselves following through.

The campaign also reflects Patagonia's concerns about public lands. «There are 90 million acres of public lands at threat,» Kenna said, adding that the company would continue explaining to its community which lands are threatened and what people can do through Election Day and beyond. The push comes as Patagonia renews its fight with President Donald Trump over public lands. In July, Trump sharply reduced Utah's Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments. In September, Patagonia announced it was joining a coalition challenging the Bears Ears reduction in court, reviving a battle it fought during his first term.

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Caroline Mercer

World News Correspondent

Caroline Mercer covers public affairs, politics, business, culture and daily news for Core Memo. The role focuses on verification, context, and clear explanations for readers.

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