The impending Supreme Court decision on Roe vs. Wade has obvious implications for abortion rights, but it also signals a crisis for democracy. It’s widely known that GOP legislators hold majorities in the 23 states where the end of Roe will mean abortions are banned. But new analysis from the Reflective Democracy Campaign, a project of the Women Donors Network, reveals just how undemocratic the bans will be. 

With the midterms looming, early resources are critical. So we're making a big investment and moving more than $3 million in funding to 20 organizations that are driving electoral organizing, narrative, and digital programs in critical geographies for 2022.

Indigenous communities are among the most marginalized in the United States, with staggeringly high poverty and unemployment rates, abysmal access to health care, scant political representation, and too many other barriers and challenges to name. The horrifying mistreatment of Native Americans is not a legacy or settled history. This treatment is perpetual and is sure to persist until Indigenous people gain the political power to shape their own destinies.

Nadia Nisha Belkin is the Executive Director of the Asian American Power Network, a growing alliance of 501(c)(4) organizations that are building political and electoral power within Asian American communities across the country. We had the chance to interview Nadia about what AAPN is doing differently.

It is more important than ever to move resources as early as possible to organizations laying the groundwork in key states. With 2022 being a critical election year, Georgia is on our minds.

Justice and equity begin at home. Across the U.S., more than two million nannies, house cleaners, and care workers, most of them women of color and immigrant women, toil every day to keep children healthy and happy, tend to the health of older family members or those who need care, and play the countless other roles that keep a home running.

The announcement of Justice Stephen Breyer’s pending retirement paves the way for a historic opportunity—the possibility of the first Black woman Supreme Court justice in our nation’s history. We need a national coalition to support the nomination and confirmation—and WDN Action grantee She Will Rise is primed to lead the charge.

What if artists had a greater role in the most important conversations, and what if there were stronger links between artists and movements for change? We believe deep, systemic change would be conceivable to many more members of the public and the political elite alike.

So far this year, WDN Action has granted over $7 million dollars in c4 funding to more than 60 organizations working nationally and in 14 key states. 91% of our funding has supported BIPOC-led organizations and 72% of our funding has supported BIPOC, women-led organizations.

WDN Action is proud to support Down Home North Carolina and their important work to organize in rural communities in the state. We had the chance to speak with their Co-Director Dreama Caldwell to dive deep into how and why they are building a deep-rooted, multiracial, working-class coalition.

Art and culture are powerful engines for political engagement. That’s the basis for the work of WDN Action grantee Cultural Engagement Lab (CEL). When campaigns and organizations partner with artists to tell authentic and compelling stories, they can win in the near-term and reshape the narrative landscape over the long-term.

Black Futures Lab strives for a future where Black people are forced into definitions of success that they don’t own or control. They want a world where society recognizes all Black people for the competent agents of change that they are.

With increased attacks on reproductive justice and voting rights, we continued to invest in infrastructure and capacity building ahead of 2022 and 2024. Since our last update this summer, we’ve granted $510,000 to organizations in key states and national partners, bringing our funding total to more than $7 million in c4 dollars since January.

The stakes couldn’t be higher for this California gubernatorial recall election. If Governor Newsom is recalled, it will reverse so much of the progress California has made. This is why WDN Action stepped into rapid-response mode and moved $100K in rapid-response funding.

COVID-19 has given rise to a different kind of advocacy: online advocacy. Congress members’ time is more accessible than it has ever been, but is lobbying through a screen as effective as it is in person? What other pitfalls or positives may arise? Sarah Bolton, Principal at The Raben Group, has years of federal- and state-level policy experience and has joined us to give her take on virtual advocacy.

This year we have seen escalating attacks on our democratic institutions, from voting rights to the freedom to protest. However, it is important to note that this is building on a nearly ten-year erosion of voting rights that began in earnest with the gutting of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in 2013.

In 1868, as voting rights were debated in the United States House and Senate, much as they are being deliberated today, Senator Henry Wilson put forth legislation that barred discrimination in voting rights based on race, color, place of birth, property or religious creed.

Since last month, WDN Action has approved nearly $3,000,000 in c4 grants! Thanks to the collective investment of this network, we are able to continue moving critical funding to support electoral organizing around important local races and initiatives on issues ranging from community safety to climate justice, advocacy and accountability within state legislatures, and cultural and narrative strategies.

In the wake of the 2016 election, we knew that we needed to use all the tools available to us to fight back against the threats to our democracy and move forward with a vision of a more just, equitable, and sustainable world. Our shared values were under attack at the national level, and we were barreling toward authoritarian rule.

In our Mapping Progressive Political Power webinar, WDN Action political strategy advisor Katrina Gamble spoke about the political landscape and the critical role of year-round organizing.