Friend,

Ashley Shelton is the founder, president and CEO of the Power Coalition for Equity and Justice headquartered in New Orleans. The Power Coalition received a three-year, $750,000 field strengthening grant from the SPLC’s Vote Your Voice initiative, which is helping community organizations in the Deep South cultivate civic engagement and increase voter turnout among Black and Brown people.

The Power Coalition uses its funding to support voter outreach efforts across Louisiana with the help of its local partners, aiming to reach 600,000 Black and Brown voters by 2026. Shelton has led strategies to move more than 1 million voters throughout Louisiana, delivering significant electoral impact in the state’s major metropolitan areas, including New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Shreveport. The organization’s integrated voter engagement approach has changed policy at the municipal, state and federal levels.

The SPLC works to protect, expand and uplift the voting and civic engagement rights of communities of color across the nation. Through legal action, policy, education and partnerships with local groups and organizers, we help strengthen the political power of those targeted by voting restrictions and structural barriers to fair representation. We envision a thriving, multiracial democracy for all Americans — a nation where every voice counts.

In 2023, we:

• Temporarily blocked a ban on distributing food and water to Georgia voters waiting in long lines to cast their ballot and a requirement for voters to write their birthdate on their absentee ballot upon penalty of their vote being discarded.

• Protected the voting rights of Cobb County, Georgia, residents by using the courts to block their racially gerrymandered school district voting map ahead of school board elections in 2024 in the lawsuit Finn v. Cobb County Board of Elections and Registration.

• Filed a lawsuit on behalf of voters in Florida after Governor Ron DeSantis suspended Monique Worrell, the only Black woman state attorney in Florida, from her duly elected position as the top state prosecutor in Orlando.

• Supported 68 grassroots voter and civic engagement organizations through grants to expand capacity and build civic power for Southern communities through the SPLC’s Vote Your Voice initiative.

Our sacred right to vote was paid for with the blood and lives of heroes and everyday citizens alike. Without your support, our work to preserve our democracy and ensure fair and equal access to the ballot would not be possible. Thank you for being a valuable partner in our voting rights work — will you make a special gift to continue your support for the SPLC?

Fighting for our democracy has never been more important, and we are thankful for having you by our side as we continue building power in communities that have long been underserved.

Sincerely,

Your friends at the Southern Poverty Law Center