The Campaign has long supported grassroots groups tackling the structural barriers to reflective leadership. But in 2018, we had an epiphany: Our grantees were doing something different than preparing future candidates for elected office. Instead, their programs were producing civic leaders able and eager to challenge the status quo in broad range of roles. While some run for office, others channel their newfound knowledge and network of support into advocacy, activism, campaign management, and other forms of community engagement.
Thus emerged our new understanding of community-based leadership. Inspired by what we witnessed on the ground, we committed to funding more organizations with a comprehensive, holistic vision of civic leadership development, whose work is aimed at fundamentally shifting how political power is distributed and exercised.
Today, we are proud to fund civic leadership development programs across the country that feature community-based recruitment of reflective leaders, preparation for a broad range of roles in the political sector, the cultivation of shared values and political analysis, and a deep commitment to shifting who controls key levers of power.
Meet our Grantee-Partners
Michigan United
Michigan United, a vibrant coalition of more than 50 civil rights, labor, and faith groups, helped us understand civic leadership development as a catalyst for systemic social change. In 2018, Michigan United prepared 40 aspiring community leaders to run for office and manage campaigns, while positioning itself as an effective gateway to political power, supporting candidates underestimated and overlooked by the political establishment. Its ambitious vision includes a multi-week classroom course on history, policy, and government, and a groundbreaking “governing table” enabling local reflective politicians to network and support each other as they serve in elected bodies where few allies can be found.
TakeAction Minnesota
TakeAction Minnesota is a statewide network of people and organizations working for racial and economic equity. In a state with strong voter turnout and laws protecting the integrity of elections, the TakeAction Education Fund is seizing opportunities to elevate issues affecting women, people of color, and low-income families. Following municipal-level success at reflective civic engagement, TakeAction intends to work in a coalition with its local partners to bring a holistic perspective, long-term mentorship and support, and a shared policy agenda to its civic leadership development program.
Texas Organizing Project Education Fund
Texas Organizing Project Education Fund (TOPEF) promotes the influence and civic engagement of low and moderate income Texas families of color by building their political power. Its decade of wins include a paid sick leave ordinance in San Antonio; $1 million toward street lights for San Antonio’s low-income Latino Westside neighborhood; and an injunction against racial profiling in Texas’s five largest cities. TOPEF plans to expand its civic leadership training program, which already has positioned women of color to serve on an advisory board for the county parks system; win a seat on the Houston Independent School Board; and run a school board campaign for another TOPEF leader.
Our Past Grantee-Partners
Since 2015, the Reflective Democracy Campaign has supported leadership, organizing, and research aimed at overcoming the systemic forces that maintain the political over-representation of white men.
Progressive Maryland Education Fund advocates for fair wages, criminal justice reform, and environmental justice.
One America OneAmerica’s core purpose is building power in immigrant communities through organizing, leadership development, and building multi-issue, cross-racial grassroots movements.
The Pathway Project Organizer Jessica Byrd explored alternatives to traditional political gatekeepers to create pathways to power for candidates of color, developing analysis that led to the creation of the Electoral Justice Project, the electoral arm of the Movement for Black Lives.
Advance Native Political Leadership A team of Native American organizers tackled the severe exclusion of Native Americans in elected office, creating Advance Native Political Leadership, the only nationwide organization focused on building Native political power.
Candidate Supply and Electoral Success: Race and Gender in State Legislative Races Researchers Paru Shah and Eric Gonzalez Juenke used the Campaign’s dataset to study a broad sample of state legislative races, finding that candidates of color and female candidates won elections at the same rates as white men.
Microloans and Low Income Scholarships in the Political World Colleen Loper and Ross Peavey researched pertinent Texas laws to determine whether supplementary personal scholarships or microloans to potential candidates could overcome economic barriers to running for and serving in office.
Pathways to Leadership: Overcoming Personal Economic Barriers to Increase Race, Class and Gender Diversity in Civic Leadership Positions Teresa Purcell and Elisabeth Sullivan explored ways to make running for and serving in office financially viable for women of modest means, focusing on the role of nonprofit and labor union employers. Developed a first-of-its-kind Sample Civic Leadership Leave employment policy.
Ranked Choice Voting and Representation of Underrepresented Groups Utilizing the Campaign’s dataset, Fair Vote set out to identify the electoral structures that best achieve reflective democracy, finding counties that use fair electoral structures – including ranked choice voting – have more reflective officeholders.
Oakland Rising, Restaurant Opportunities Center-DC, Women Organizing Women, and the Public Leadership Institute Developed strategies for forging paths to elected office for grassroots community leaders.
