Dunk the Vote

The mission of Dunk the Vote is to support and enhance accountable self-empowerment within and for Black communities. 

Dunk The Vote has a 30-year history of registering over 100,000 Massachusetts residents to vote and a proven record of reaching people in the community. The Dunk the Vote team is led by Ron Bell and includes experts in civic engagement/voter registration, community organizing, public health and communications. 

Ron Bell, Founder and Executive Director, has been a voting rights advocate and community organizer for over 30 years. His long history of building community has made him a well-respected community leader and much-sought-after public speaker. He is a former Senior Advisor for Community Affairs for the Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick. He also led a voter registration drive for the United Independent Party in that registered 30,000 voters and in 2014 which resulted in the establishment of a new party. Ron received President Clinton’s Point of Light Award, Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Rosa Parks Award, the 2005 Freedom House History Makers Award 2005, the University of Massachusetts’ Robert H. Quinn Award for Outstanding Community Leadership, and UMass Boston Center for Collaborative Leadership Leading the Way Award. Ron spends most of his current time consulting on community organizing, training & leadership development, and communications. 

The RealTalk Boston Network began with a partnership between MIT’s Center for Constructive Communication (CCC) and five community organizations. Under the leadership of Ceasar McDowell (MIT) and Ron Bell (Dunk-The-Vote), the network sought to initiate a new community-driven civic infrastructure in Boston. Starting with the 2021 mayoral race, RTBN developed, tested, and implemented the first instance of a RealTalk community process. The result was over 300 people coming together in 62 small dialogues to share their questions about the future of Boston and their personal experiences that informed their questions. Using technology developed by CCC and its partner CORTICO, the audio of people participating in these conversations was captured, organized into themes, and made available to the public and candidates through an online portal. In the portal, users can listen to people asking questions and explaining their experiences. Former Boston Globe reporter Meagan Irons used excerpts from the portal to conduct televised interviews with the two mayoral candidates. In addition, on his radio show, Ron Bell used voices from the portal in live interviews with Boston city councilors. 

Since RealTalk for Change, the RTBN has worked with several other partners to implement the RT Community Process. Transforming Narratives of Gun Violence (TNGV) used RealTalk to collect narratives from across the spectrum of people affected by gun violence, from victims, perpetrators, lawyers, doctors, nurses, etc. The TNGV portal will launch in early 2024. RealTalk was one of a central tool in the City of Boston’s community engagement for the Blue Hill Avenue Transportation Action Plan. 

Real Talk Network plans to offer and expand its form of civic infrastructure to communities interested in utilizing it to benefit their communities.