New Grants Announced: 蜜桃传媒 awards over $4.6 million in Vote Your Voice funding to help grassroots organizations mobilize voters
Thirty-nine voter outreach organizations across the Deep South will receive more than $4.6聽million in funding as part of a new round of Vote Your Voice grants announced today by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta.
The grants will support voter education, registration and mobilization, especially among communities of color. The grants add to an earlier investment of more than $11 million in two-year grants awarded last year.聽
Included in this round of grants are , , , the and Southern Echo.
鈥淲ith the recent wave of unprecedented attacks on civil rights and liberties that disproportionately target communities of color, women and people with disabilities, it is more important than ever to defend our right to vote and make our voices heard,鈥� said Lecia Brooks, 蜜桃传媒 chief of staff and culture. 鈥淭hese grants will empower communities to get out to the polls, exercise their freedom to vote, and stand up for their right to an equal voice in government.鈥�
Vote Your Voice is a partnership between the 蜜桃传媒 and the to increase voter registration, participation and civic engagement among communities of color in the Deep South. The initiative also is strengthening the field capacity of grassroots organizations through data and fundraising support and the testing of effective voter engagement strategies.
The 蜜桃传媒 has pledged $100 million to support Vote Your Voice through 2032.
鈥淭he bottom line is that everyone deserves a fair shot at a decent life,鈥� said Frank Fernandez, president and CEO of the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta. 鈥淚f you are with the Community Foundation in that basic tenet, then you join the Foundation in teaching our children and all our neighbors that the right to vote is the cornerstone of democracy. It is by educating each other on the tenets of democracy, engaging in civic discourse and ultimately electing officials to represent and advocate for the things that we deem most important that citizens catalyze progress and change in our communities.鈥澛�
Alabama Forward, one of the grant recipients, boosts civic and political participation in that state by providing financial and institutional resources to other nonprofit community organizations. Alabama is among numerous states enacting new laws designed to suppress voting by people of color, allow partisan interference in election administration and dilute the political influence of communities of color through gerrymandering.
鈥淎labama Forward is excited to use these Vote Your Voice grants to empower communities, especially young Alabamians, to make their voice heard through their vote,鈥� said Evan Milligan, executive director of Alabama Forward. 鈥淭hrough community organizing we hope to one day create a system where everyone can have an equal voice in government to bring forward the needs and concerns of their communities, and to have those needs met.鈥�
Top picture: Protesters hold a large voting rights sign during a rally on Oct. 22, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. (Credit: Allison Bailey/NurPhoto via AP)
