More than 75 reporters, editors and staff helped to make the KC Voter Guide possible. Credit: KC Media Collective

The 2024 Kansas City Voter Guide was an ambitious, collaborative effort that rallied local media and community organizations under the banner of strengthening civic engagement. Powered by the Kansas City Media Collective (KCMC) in partnership with The Kansas City Star, RevEd, the League of Women Voters Kansas City, and over 200 community partners, the guide was offered as a free, comprehensive resource to voters in the Kansas City area during a pivotal election year.

This project covered 130 races and ballot measures across Clay, Jackson, Johnson, Platte, and Wyandotte counties, providing accessible, unbiased, and comprehensive information. It included four printed versions — Missouri English, Missouri Spanish, Kansas English, and Kansas Spanish — with 38,000  copies distributed to community hubs, churches, grocery stores, schools and libraries. Beyond print, the guide drew 800,000 views and 300,000 unique users on the KC Voter Guide website, highlighting an appetite for information on down-ballot races such as judge retention, sheriff, prosecutor contests and school bonds, which ranked among the most-viewed pages.

This project required approximately 2,000 additional staff hours across the Kansas City Media Collective.

What Made the Guide Unique

The guide was more than a collection of information — it was a community-powered effort that followed three key elements:

  • Collaborative Content Creation: Local journalists and editors from The Beacon, KCPBS/Flatland, KCUR, Missouri Business Alert, Startland News, and The Kansas City Star brought integrity and rigor to the guide’s content. They carefully sourced information from candidate interviews, campaign websites, legislative records, public statements, and previous initiatives to produce accurate, comprehensive and unbiased summaries of races and ballot measures. Integral to this effort was the critical partnership with RevEd, which provided Spanish translation services to ensure the guide met the needs of Kansas City’s increasingly bilingual communities.
  • Comprehensive Distribution: The guide’s success was driven by a coordinated grassroots effort. The League of Women Voters Kansas City played a pivotal role as a distribution powerhouse on the Missouri side, while KCMC managed pick-ups, drop-offs and deliveries to over 200 organizations across five counties. The guide was also distributed through local library systems, churches, colleges and community organizations. It was included as an insert in local outlets, helping to reach voters where they live and work..
  • Community-Centered Engagement: The guide was shaped by intentional community involvement. A five-month focus group of 15 participants — diverse in age, race, party affiliation, county, and voting engagement — provided critical feedback on its value and potential improvements. Roundtable discussions and events, led by partners like American Public Square and the League of Women Voters Kansas City, as well as presentations and interviews with community leaders, amplified the guide’s reach and fostered vital conversations about civic participation.

Biggest Takeaways

The 2024 KC Voter Guide underscored the urgent need for robust civic engagement infrastructure in Kansas City and the two states it bridges. It proved that collaboration among media and community organizations can yield powerful results, but it also highlighted the need for greater reach, resources, and capacity to build a sustainable civic engagement ecosystem for future elections.

This work isn’t just essential for Kansas City — it’s a model for communities nationwide. It demonstrated how pooling expertise and resources can fill gaps left by shrinking local journalism while reinforcing that civic duty extends beyond election years.

Looking ahead, the goal is to expand these efforts, ensuring every voter in the metro has access to the information they need to confidently participate in democracy. At The Beacon, we hope the 2024 KC Voter Guide lives on as a reminder that when communities unite around accurate and accessible information, they can drive meaningful change.

Shiri Asangwe served as the project manager for the 2024 Kansas City Voter Guide, overseeing the initiative through strategic planning and collaboration while representing the KC Media Collective at community...