Friend,

With voting rights under attack across the Deep South, the Southern
Poverty Law Center announced today that it will invest $100 million
from its endowment over the next decade to support voter outreach and
civic engagement organizations in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana
and Mississippi.

Through our Vote Your Voice
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 initiative, we will partner with dozens of organizations to help
sustain their crucial work during and in between major election cycles
and support their long-term strategic planning for years to
come. The Vote Your Voice grants are administered in partnership
with the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta
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.

Voter suppression tactics are escalating

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, and the ease of voting varies widely by county, even within the same
state. Several states, including Florida

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 and Georgia

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, are implementing new laws increasing barriers to the ballot that
affect all voters, particularly low-propensity voters of color, voters
who live outside major metro areas, returning citizens and - as
evident in SPLC-filed litigation

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 - engagement organizations.
The Vote Your Voice grants will:
* Establish year-round civic engagement activities updating
communities on important state and local policy matters and the
ways in which they can better engage lawmakers.
* Contribute toward expansion of the groups' fundraising
base through philanthropy networks to maximize their reach.
* Support efforts that train and help launch a new generation of
political leaders in the South.
* Build voter engagement that ensures fairness in the 2030
redistricting process.
* Innovate - addressing future problems and using
to-be-developed tactics and tools - to build additional
capacity and trailblaze in work vital to democracy.

The Vote Your Voice program was created in 2020 with 12 grantees.
Currently, the program funds 55 organizations and continues to
contribute toward the long-term infrastructure of groups that are best
suited to boost voter turnout and increase public awareness around
issues that impact communities. Here are some of the
program's highlights:

* Grant recipients' efforts had a noticeable positive impact
on the turnout rates of traditionally low-propensity voters of
color and young voters, increasing turnout by 6% to 14%.
* Voter engagement efforts are focused on two groups:
low-propensity voters who are members of the new American
majority, skewing nonwhite and under 50, and voters outside of
major metro areas, who have often been overlooked by many
previous voter engagement efforts.
* Direct voter engagement like the kind by Vote Your Voice partner
organizations has consistently proven to be one of the most
effective ways to increase voter participation and education on
fundamental rights in the United States. Among the
program's grantees, data demonstrated the greatest boost
in turnout among voters under 30.

Thank you for your dedication to transforming our democracy so that
every voice and every vote counts. Your support makes deeply important
work, especially the Vote Your Voice program, possible. 

Sincerely,

Your friends at the Southern Poverty Law Center

 


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