Folks, we have exciting news:

Thanks to support from this grassroots team, we are happy to announce we have four new grantees joining our Organizer Grant Program, bringing our national grantee cohort to 24 organizations!

Before we highlight our new grantees, I want to reiterate how much impact your support has.

Groundwork’s investments in hyper-local organizing across states that are typically overlooked or underrepresented is all possible thanks to folks like you who care about building long-term, progressive change.

So if you can, please consider pitching in any amount today to help us expand our grantee program even further so that we can build Democratic power across the Plains, the Deep South, and Appalachia.

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Now, onto our new grantees!

Meet Transform Alabama, an organization based in Talladega, AL dedicated to mobilizing Black Alabamians in rural counties by connecting community issues to civic engagement. Their year-round organizing includes hosting Hip Hop-based community events, highlighting Alabama’s voting rights history, facilitating a political education program for young adults and teens, and reaching out to potential voters across the state.

In Mississippi, we’ve granted to The Coalition to End Corporal Punishment. Their work focuses on ending the barbaric, cruel, and ineffective practice of beating children in schools. Even with corporal punishment being banned in a majority of states, recent data shows over 150 schools across the country are still using it – with nearly half of those schools being in Mississippi. The Coalition helps organize and train impacted students, parents, and community members to raise awareness around this issue and advocate for federal and local policy reforms.

In Oklahoma, our new grantee is the Foundation for Liberating Minds. This organization works to disrupt the root causes of oppression and marginalization through transformative education. It does this using a three-pronged approach: trainings and workshops, community building and programming, and its first large-scale Radical Dream: The Liberation School OKC. Through their trainings and workshops, the Foundation has educated hundreds of Oklahomans on pressing social justice issues and has built a broader movement for change in Oklahoma City.

Last but certainly not least, in West Virginia, we have SOAR! SOAR is a community group based in Charleston that promotes the health, dignity, and voices of individuals who are impacted by drug use. They seek to connect direct services with building power in order to support the people who are fighting to survive in the nation’s overdose capital. From stopping a harmful bill that would criminalize sleeping on public property, to electing a slate of movement-accountable city councilors, to advocating for warming centers and robust harm reduction strategies, SOAR’s work challenges stigmas and saves lives.

True to Groundwork’s mission, each of these new grantees is a trusted messenger in their community, organizing their neighbors around issues of local importance and laying the foundation for a more just and equitable future in their state. I can’t emphasize enough how proud and grateful we are to support them and to have built this grantee program into what it is today.

It’s amazing to reflect and see how just a few dollars here and there from supporters like you all across the country have made such a tangible impact in local communities throughout Groundwork Project’s target states.

If you haven’t already, please consider pitching in. Your few dollars will go a long way in helping us provide year-round support to our grantees and expand our reach.

Thanks again for all the support,

Anthony

–
Anthony Davis Jr. (he/him)
National Organizing + Programming Advisor
Groundwork Project