Ruthie Kelly’s Portfolio

End child poverty. Save Darfur, stop genocide. Campaign to help elect now-President Barack Obama and take back the White House. Help protect the environment, save the rain forests and prevent pollution.

All while being paid up to $600 a week.

It’s a college student’s dream job. Fliers boasting these jobs have sprouted up on billboards all across campus for months. They promote not only the campaigns, but also the corresponding earnings, which represent the salary of a full-time job at $12.50 an hour, before taxes.

Many students who agree to work for these campaigns said they end up with more work and less money than they bargained for. The main company behind the postings is Grassroots Campaigns, Inc., and it is active not only on the San Diego State campus, but at other local colleges as well.

“I started working for Grassroots Campaigns because I wanted to get involved in the campaign, and I also needed money with a job over the summer,” Ariane Myers-Turnbull, a political science junior at UC San Diego said.

Myers-Turnbull began working for Grassroots Campaigns last June. However, it quickly became clear to her that even though the causes seem noble and inspiring, the jobs boiled down to one thing: “collecting money,” she said.

The entry-level position is as a canvasser, which involves soliciting supporters for donations and collecting contact information. Canvassers memorize short speeches, or “raps,” regarding the cause at hand, and are paid a percentage of the donation collected, plus a bonus if they meet set goals.
“Got a second to save the environment?” or “Help protect our children,” are some of the “raps” students may recognize hearing near Aztec Center and on Campanile Walkway.

Myers-Turnbull said there were also problems with pay. First, canvassers must meet quotas for the amount of donations they solicit. After meeting quota, canvassers are paid a percentage of the donations they solicit, usually 30 percent. This means canvassers could earn great money if they get a large amount of donations — or they could make nothing at all.

“The $500 to 600 a week is definitely slanted, but it’s not quite a lie,” said Greg Bloom, who worked as a canvass director for Grassroots Campaigns in 2004. “A canvasser takes home 30 percent of what they raise, and in 2004, in the big cities like San Diego, people could work six days a week and raise a thousand or more in a day. There were usually only one or two people in an office with that kind of canvassing talent; everyone else would scrape to make the advertised range.

“In the meantime, canvassers are forced to ‘volunteer’ several hours in addition to the time they’re paid. Even for the lowest level people, it can be a 60-hour a week job. For the office directors, who are still just 20- to 24- years old, it can be a 90-hour a week job.”

Myers-Turnbull ran into quota problems quickly. “Even with the poor working conditions I continued to work there because I liked the people I worked with, and I believed in the work,” she said. “… but every day became a struggle. I would have to basically beg people to give me 20 bucks so I could meet my goal.”

Once the canvassers make quota, there are still difficulties getting the very little they’ve managed to rightfully earn, canvassers reported.

“GCI was unethical with paychecks and reimbursements,” said Kate Burke, who worked as an assistant director for the GCI’s canvass for the Democratic National Committee in 2004. “The canvassers would be asking, ‘Can I please just get my $18 check, so that I can put gas in my car?’ But we didn’t have the checks. I was so severely embarrassed. One director gave someone $300 of her own money, just because she felt so bad because this canvasser’s pay hadn’t come.”

Many students express concern about the working conditions. In order to make the money being advertised, canvassers usually end up having to work 10 to 14 hours per day. Canvassers work in unfamiliar neighborhoods, walking up to homes of strangers. These arrangements cause many canvassers to worry about their health and safety.

“It was really hard and a lot of times it was dangerous,” Myers-Turnbull said. “Once I was locked in some Republican’s yard as he ranted at me and wouldn’t let me out. I was cursed at numerous times, harassed and told that I was a terrible person on a daily basis. But it was all about making quota, so I just tried to move on when that happened. A lot of times I left crying and shaking because of an experience. I know that happened to a lot of people.”

Even though Myers-Turnbull initially thought her sacrifice was for a good cause, she said she would not want to work for the company again.

“I left because I felt that the job was too dangerous, I was losing money on gas, I was tired of begging already supportive Democrats for a few dollars just so I could not get fired … I was tired in general from working 10-hour days and only being paid about 70 dollars a day. I basically lost faith in the organization’s ability to truly make a difference.”

Sean Murphy, a canvasser at SDSU said he knows many students who are very happy working for Grassroots Campaigns, Inc.

“It’s not for everyone. Sometimes people come in and only work for a few days before realizing that it’s not for them, but some people, like me, are really successful and love doing it every day,” Murphy said.

Multiple phone calls to Grassroots Campaigns, Inc.’s corporate offices throughout the course of several months have never been returned.

Read the original article online here. Read the extended version that begat the Daily Aztec article here.