U.S. Strategy

In the United States, a history of systemic inequities has led to a democracy that does not accurately represent modern America. Many communities—people of color, women, immigrants, people with disabilities, youth, the LGBTQ+ community, and rural populations—have been denied equal voice and access to fully participate in democracy at all levels. As a result, their voices are too often silenced in conversations about government, from its spending to policymaking. We work to ensure all people have the opportunity to shape and influence the systems and policies that affect their lives.

The Challenge

The U.S. has long struggled to fully live up to the promise of democracy. Trust in the government’s value, effectiveness and impact has eroded with the reversal of protections such as the gutting of the Voting Rights Act, ongoing partisan gerrymandering, and eroding the ability of government to conduct a fair, accurate, and complete census.

Today’s situation is dire: new forms of voter suppression such as strict voter ID laws, roll purging, and polling site closures have emerged in dozens of states to deter civic engagement. As a result, only 53 percent of eligible voters were able to cast a ballot in 2018, with communities of color disproportionately silenced. The fair counting of votes and the integrity of election results is essential to a functioning democracy. Across race, class, generation, and geography, everyday people lack access and opportunities to engage and fully participate in a democracy where they have a role in shaping a more just future.

The Opportunity

America’s political systems were originally designed to exclude, but today it is impossible to ignore historically marginalized communities. Shifting demographics coupled with revived energy from movements such as the Dreamers, Black Lives Matter, People’s Action, young organizers, the disability justice movement , and rural Americans affected by job loss and a lack of investment in their communities have brought these injustices to the forefront. We’re witnessing a new political awakening, fueled by digital organizing and a rise of multi-issue, multiracial and multicultural coalitions, and compounded by unprecedented health and economic crises. But many of our current structures for civic engagement don’t encourage robust, diverse participation—in fact, they prevent specific communities from engaging with government.

The country’s institutions and policies need reimagining. By centering historically marginalized people in reform efforts, we can realize a truly inclusive civic culture that represents the will of all people. By increasing opportunities for diverse communities to lead and participate in civic affairs, we have an opportunity to achieve a more just society.

Our work is designed to build strong institutions and networks that serve those on the margins and elevate the next generation of advocates and leaders across civil society and within government to champion a fairer, more inclusive civic life.

U.S. Civic Engagement Grantee Snapshot

Protecting the polls in Texas

We fund the Texas Civil Rights Project to provide legal guidance and representation to a network of grassroots and civic engagement organizations. For 2020, it developed a robust voter protection program, recruiting and training attorneys and poll monitors from across the state to identify and respond to problems at the polls. When COVID-19 hit, TCRP was poised to respond quickly, outlining key steps Texas must take and launching a new coalition to demand action. When the state hesitated, TCRP sued and advocated for expanded vote-by-mail in the state to expand accessibility to the ballot for every voter. TCRP has also taken their efforts local and has worked with dozens of counties to pass policies that make it easier and safer to cast a ballot ahead of the November election.

The Challenge

State governments wield enormous power and often create models that set the stage for sweeping national reforms of major policy. From pushing for a $15 minimum wage and paid sick leave to pioneering marriage equality and automatic voter registration, states have often taken the first steps toward massive social reforms.

But states have also been major sources of regression: restricting access to reproductive rights; limiting LGTBQ+ rights; fueling incarceration through punitive sentencing reforms; stymieing inclusionary housing and economic development policies; and undermining democracy through gerrymandering and the passage of voter identification laws. These systems and structures get replicated across states and infuse national debates.

Despite the significant power states hold over people’s lives, national donors have not invested consistently in state-based organizations, coalitions, and networks to strengthen their collective ability to advance progressive policy change. Limited, issue-specific funding, often tied to short-term electoral cycles, makes it all the more challenging for leaders to form durable, multiracial coalitions that can bridge racial, economic, and rural-urban divides and advance bold reforms that stand the test of time.

The Opportunity

The country’s demographics are shifting rapidly, and America’s growing diversity is a powerful force for transformative change. By 2040, people of color will represent roughly half of eligible voters in 17 states. But demography is not destiny. The same shifts are also creating new tensions that are being exploited to divide people by race and class and pit communities against each other.

We work to overcome these barriers by supporting organizations and networks in Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, and Texas that can build bridges between all communities to foster solidarity and a multiracial democracy inclusive of all that resists efforts to segregate society.

Women, communities of color, and people of all backgrounds from low-income rural and urban areas have the potential to form powerful constituencies for change. To activate this changing electorate, we invest in efforts that engage communities year-round to ensure people from all backgrounds can become actively involved in policy decisions that affect their daily lives.

U.S. States Grantee Snapshot

Shaping a shared future for Minnesota

With support from Ford, Our Minnesota Future helped bring together 22 faith, labor, environmental, and community organizations and their members across the state, including in rural areas and small towns, to push for positive reforms. Over the past decade, when many states in the Midwest experienced widening inequality and declining economic indicators, Minnesota enacted many reforms to reduce inequality and improve economic outcomes for people of color. Innovative collaborative efforts such as the nonpartisan, Race-Class Narrative produced in partnership with Demos—which engaged communities around questions of race and class to build solidarity and established more people of color and immigrants as civil society and government leaders—created a viable foundation for these policy victories.

Since our founding in Michigan in 1936, we have been deeply committed to Detroit. From supporting the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and the Detroit Institute of Arts in the 1940s to committing $125 million over 15 years to the city’s 2014 Grand Bargain, our aspirations and work are uniquely rooted in our history there to ensure that the city is prosperous, equitable, and sustainable.

After Detroit filed for the largest municipal bankruptcy in American history in 2013, we are continuing our work with the city to rebuild and secure a better future for its residents by preserving affordable housing, strengthening civic engagement, and creating opportunity for all. We support policies and reforms that disrupt entrenched racial and class inequities at city and state levels, and work with government, philanthropies, business, and civil society across Michigan to promote collaborative partnerships to rebuild a thriving, more just city and region.

The Challenge

Filing for bankruptcy allowed Detroit to invest $1.7 billion into improving ineffective city services. Despite this, it is still experiencing uneven economic growth and development, exacerbating long-term racial, class, and economic tensions that the city’s power brokers—both public and private—have never fully addressed.

Many Detroiters, particularly longtime black residents, are at risk of further marginalization as the city continues its recovery. Underinvestment in Detroit’s low-income areas has reduced black homeownership and left 30 percent of the city’s housing stock vacant. The city’s median income has steadily declined over the past 15 years, and almost half of its residents live at or below the poverty line. And yet the city’s downtown area—a mere 7.2 square miles of Detroit’s almost 139 square miles—has received almost $5 billion in investments, creating new businesses and housing for some but deepening the racial and geographic disparities for low-income residents.

While a growing number of local nonprofit leaders and organizations have called for more equitable recovery efforts, there is significant underinvestment in organizations and coalitions led by people of color and the communities closest to the issues at hand. The philanthropic, public, and private sectors historically have also approached these issues in fragmented ways, failing to collaborate effectively with local organizations to advance the city’s and state’s goals of a prosperous recovery. As a result, Detroit has made limited progress in addressing its historic racial and economic inequalities.

The Opportunity

Detroit has received more local, national, and global investments than any city of its size in the country since its bankruptcy. As interest from institutional and private investors continues, the city is at a critical moment to strengthen partnerships across the philanthropic, public, and private sectors to advance equitable growth and racial equity. We work to ensure that these investments work better together to benefit all Detroiters, no matter which neighborhood they’re born into.

Recent local and regional government appointments, as well as increased civic leadership among Detroiters, have sparked new momentum toward a democracy that fully represents all communities across the state. A growing number of local leaders, organizations, and networks are partnering across the city’s and state’s historically divisive lines to push reforms that expand voting rights, economic mobility, immigrant rights, and racial and disability justice for residents who face the greatest barriers to prosperity.

Detroit Grantee Snapshot

Providing legal support to racial justice movements

The Detroit Justice Center (DJC) is a nonprofit law firm that works to reduce poverty, end over-criminalization and mass incarceration, and build thriving communities. DJC has helped expunge criminal records for hundreds of Detroiters and supported efforts by Detroit residents advocating for alternatives to a new Wayne County jail, including investments in the community and its people. DJC surveyed Detroiters at various community events to provide their definition of safety, and held a design summit for young residents to envision the development of community resources in lieu of a new jail. DJC has also partnered with other legal organizations to create the Detroit Coordinated Defense Coalition, which provides legal support to protestors arrested in response to 2020’s fatal police shootings and the COVID-19 pandemic.