June 16, 2020
The Vote Your Voice campaign
seeks to: empower communities of color by aiding them in their fight
against voter suppression; support Black- and brown-led voter outreach
organizations often ignored by traditional funders; support and
prototype effective voter engagement strategies; and re-enfranchise
returning citizens despite intentional bureaucratic challenges
MONTGOMERY, Ala.
— The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) today announced it is
investing up to $30 million from its endowment in voter outreach
organizations in the Deep South to increase voter registration and
participation among people of color with a lower propensity to vote.
The initiative, called Vote Your Voice,
is focused on increasing voter participation specifically in Alabama,
Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi, beginning in 2020 and
running through 2022.
“This
initiative is especially important right now, as millions of people
across the country feel the urgency to make our voices heard this fall
after the continued silence from our leaders on the many Black people
being killed by police,” said SPLC President and Chief Executive Office Margaret Huang. “Voting won’t solve this problem the day after the election but in order to begin dismantling white supremacy, we need to ensure that every voter of color is able to cast their ballot without interference or hardship.”
Huang continued: “The
work ahead of us will not be easy. The COVID-19 pandemic has and will
continue to have a disproportionate impact on democratic participation
for communities of color who have been harmed most deeply by the health
and economic crisis and who will encounter greater barriers to voter
participation given the new risks of voting in person on Election Day.”
Numerous
organizations across the five states are working to promote voter
participation and reach communities of color, returning citizens and
young people, but they are struggling to secure resources to further
their outreach amid the COVID-19 pandemic, an era of social distancing,
and major economic recession.
Vote Your Voice, a partnership with the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta (Community
Foundation), will administer grants up to a total of $30 million
available for nonprofit-nonpartisan activities through 2022 as
organizations navigate reaching their constituents amidst the pandemic
and other obstacles.
“We
are proud to partner with Southern Poverty Law Center to target
education and mobilization efforts that support a robust, and fair,
election process,” said Community Foundation Vice President of Community Lita Pardi.
“We must all work to end systemic barriers that deny our citizens their
right to vote, especially in Black communities across the South.”
Other Vote Your Voice goals include:
- Reconnecting with constituencies that historically and currently face barriers to voting, focusing on returning citizens, voters of color, and those who have been purged from voter rolls.
- Engaging voters who are often ignored by outreach programs, including low-propensity voters of color and voters of color who live outside of major metro areas.
- Building greater capacity for voter outreach work to combat voter suppression by providing multi-year support through the 2022 election cycle.
- Funding and supporting organizations that are led by people of color.
The
SPLC and the Community Foundation will award their first round of
grants in early July and a second round later in the summer.
Organizations that work with communities of color have been invited to
submit grant applications as part of the first round. The second round
will be conducted through an open Request for Proposals process.
Vote Your Voice builds
on the SPLC’s ongoing voting rights work to enable every citizen in the
Deep South the opportunity to have their voice heard at the ballot box.
In the past two years, the SPLC invested a combined $2 million to help
pass the Amendment 4 ballot initiative in Florida and increase voter registration and turn-out in Louisiana and Mississippi state elections. Meanwhile, in federal courts, the SPLC has successfully sued Florida on its unconstitutional poll tax and has ongoing litigation challenging Mississippi’s lifetime voting ban for citizens with certain felony convictions. Since May of this year, the SPLC has filed litigation in Alabama and Louisiana to challenge election laws that force voters to choose between participating in democracy and protecting their health.
Information regarding Vote Your Voice is available here, with a grant application coming soon: https://www.splcenter.org/vote-your-voice
No comments:
Post a Comment