September 16, 2025
Today is National Voter Registration Day, a nonpartisan civic holiday that is typically used to create awareness around voter registration opportunities and to celebrate democracy. But this year, it may feel a bit different. Aside from all that’s come to pass since January, political leaders are making changes to nonpartisan voter registration programs that threaten nonprofits’ ability to provide support to underrepresented groups. Despite this, leaders urge nonprofits not to back down from encouraging people to become voters.
Over the years, political instability in Nepal and increasing climate challenges has caused remarkable growth within the Nepali community in the United States. NPQ’s latest series, The New Asian Diaspora Media: Defending Democracy Locally and Globally, looks at how Khasokhas was first formed to provide digital news to the US Nepali community but turned to short-form videos, such as Tik-Toks, to counter disinformation.
In 2020—in the midst of the pandemic and at the height of a resurgent Black Lives Matter movement—a window of opportunity cracked open for leaders of color in the nonprofit sector. However, in the years since, philanthropic interest in racial justice has cratered and DEI initiatives have faced considerable backlash. Despite that, those who rose through the crises of that year are forging on.
Nonprofit organizations are vital to civil society. But the current administration is trying to tell a different story. If threats against nonprofits continue, as authors Ellinor Heywood and Genevieve Nadeau pointed out, then our ability to remain a free, safe, and healthy society is also at risk.
In solidarity,
Coty Poynter
Managing Editor
