Texas is in the news—and not for good reasons.
After the worst school shooting in 10 years, its elected officials are incredibly out of touch—even kicking out dissenting voices who say we need to do something about our gun epidemic. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz will even speak at the upcoming NRA convention.
Here's the good news: Texas is changing. But that change won't come without a fight, and we must be ready.
Click here to donate $1 to these seven Texas-based organizations who engage their communities across the Lone Star State and help them vote.
At Daily Kos, we are dedicated to building progressive infrastructure in Texas by helping groups who have strong relationships with infrequent voters and help to engage them in the democratic process. This is long-term sustained community organizing.
Texas is miles behind other states in building a progressive political infrastructure. We see this in the Rio Grande Valley, where Daily Kos-endorsed candidate Jessica Cisneros is waging a tough fight against a very conservative congressman.
The hard work to engage front-line communities cannot be done only at election time, but will instead take years of investment. It will require the know-how of local groups.
Here are the seven groups we are providing support for, with possibly more to be added later. Your money will go far to help them more effectively engage their communities and change the political landscape of the state by giving a voice to the most vulnerable Texas communities:
- JOLT Action mobilizes young Latino voters with the goal of forging a democracy that works for everyone. Through community and student organizing, leadership development, voter engagement, and multi-issue advocacy, JOLT Action empowers young Latinos to harness the brilliance of our community and culture to create a collective voice that drives change.
- MOVE Texas Action Fund is a nonpartisan, grassroots nonprofit organization working to build power in underrepresented youth communities through civic engagement, leadership development, and issue advocacy. What started in 2013 as a campus group at the University of Texas at San Antonio is now a statewide organization of youth and disenfranchised communities.
- Radical Registrars is a grassroots, Black woman-led organization in San Antonio formed out of the George Floyd/Black Lives Matter protests of 2020. With a very small staff, they partner with bars and restaurants and outreach to high schools, colleges, and even prisons to explain to convicts how they can restore their voting rights after completing their sentence.
- SAAVE Texas works to increase the political power of Texas’ South Asian community (the state's fastest-growing minority group) through education, engagement, and empowerment. Founded by a group of women in Dallas Fort Worth who wanted to channel their energy after 2016, SAAVE Texas is now leading the largest statewide South Asian grassroots outreach in Texas. They have proven that voter contact year-round can successfully impact voter turnout.
- Texas Blue Action Fund is a year-round, women-led, neighborhood-based network of volunteers mobilizing progressive voters in Texas. Started in 2017 in the Austin suburbs, their chapter model offers organizing resources for successful volunteer and voter outreach. They train volunteers to register, educate, and turn out voters. Their motto is "Get Shit Done."
- Texas Organizing Project, founded in 2009, organizes Black and Latino communities in Dallas, Harris, and Bexar counties with the goal of transforming Texas into a state where working people of color have the power and representation they deserve. By mobilizing on issue-based campaigns and linking those issues to the importance of voting for leaders who are in the fight with us, TOP is changing Texas by changing our cities and counties.
- Workers Defense Action Fund is a statewide organization dedicated to empowering low-wage workers and immigrants across Texas to pass policies and elect candidates who address injustices in their communities.
Click here to donate $1 to these seven Texas-based organizations who engage their communities across the Lone Star state and help them vote.