Just Gratitude
It’s time to remind ourselves that when things are dark, it helps to think about what we’re grateful for. A few things on our list:
- The clarity of our vision. Our North Star – to build a grassroots movement withthe power to abolish poverty – guides us to a solution to the economic inequality that undermines our democracy.
- The courage of our colleagues. There are so many threats on the horizon, yet we are ready to defend our communities and fight for our vision of what this country can be.
- Being in the fight with our grassroots partners, national allies, collaborators,organizers, activists, and supporters like you.
We’re sobered by the challenges we face, but proud of our work leading up to Election Day, work that readies us for the marathon ahead. While it’s now clear the infrastructure and movement required to defeat MAGA forces are not here yet, we’re committed to continuing to build them. Organizing is our tool to interrupt the isolating forces of racism, division, and hate; to make clear our shared experience of economic precarity; and to build the power to change it.
Program Updates
No Regrets
In 2024, Community Change Action/Voters and our partners left it all on the field. Across phone, door, texting, and relational voter contact, we had more than 2.4 million conversations with voters who are often left out of the conversation by political parties. We started by listening, identifying the issues that matter most to communities — and then connecting those issues to candidates and ballot box power. Despite the election results, Black, Latino, and AAPI voters in our program turned out for early voting at higher rates than statewide numbers.
With voters continuing to point to pocketbook pain, we doubled down this year on mobilizing our base and Childcare Changemakers leaders to pave the way for a new vision of a care economy. Bridging years of issue-based organizing with the political opportunity of the moment, in the leadup to Election Day our National Child Care Day of Action included 40 events to reach friends, family members, and neighbors within key electoral communities.
And Community Change Action didn’t stop there. We continued to bring the fundamentals of organizing to rising digital spaces, fueling a creator cadre to organically flood the narrative infrastructure with over 9 million views. While some of our creators were already active in political content creation, many had never been engaged in this type of conversation. They brought new, often hard-to-reach audiencesinto our democratic conversation. First pioneered by our staff in 2020, our creator programs continue to break ground by supporting creators, especially young people of color, directly – instead of relying solely on the reach of the biggest paid media companies that all too often dominate the political landscape.
Linking Arms With National Allies
The progressive movement will need to show up as a united front in the fights ahead. Community Change is one of a core group of six national organizations that are coordinating advocacy and field efforts to center the needs of low-income people. Together with the Center for American Progress, Center for Law and Social Policy, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Coalition on Human Needs, and National Women’s Law Center, we are convening dozens of additional groups to share information and coordinate on work to protect safety net programs, invest in family-supporting policies like the Child Tax Credit, and advocate for fair and progressive tax policies.
People’s Prom Disrupts Tax Prom
Wearing prom attire, crowns, and penguin suits, and handing out carnations with tags demanding the rich pay their fair share, activists from Community Change Action, Spaces in Action, and other groups held a People’s Prom on Nov. 21 to disrupt the “Tax Prom,” the annual fundraiser of the Tax Foundation, a major supporter of Trump’s tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy and corporations, and an influence on Project 2025. Ahead of a major tax fight over the 2025 expiration of Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, the Tax Foundation event was a black-tie opportunity for corporate elites to rub shoulders with members of Congress to ensure more tax cuts for the ultra-rich at the expense of working families. People’s Prom attendees gathered at the event venue to decry “trickle-down” tax policies that have impoverished our communities.
Before You Go
- In “Can Democrats Get Their Voters Off the Couch?,” Community Change Action Co-president Dorian Warren says that, to overcome cynicism and disillusionment in the party’s base, Democrats must address issues such as economic inequality and systemic racism while investing in long-term relationships with grassroots organizations that can mobilize key voter groups.
- Read about how Childcare Changemaker BriTanya Brown helped get two ballot measures for childcare funding passed in Texas, in “With high U.S. childcare costs, local voters fill funding gap.” With federal pandemic-era support for child care over, local solutions are becoming increasingly important.
- ChangeWire Fellow Deborah Coffy profiles three mutual aid organizations in Central Florida that are bucking the trend of division and isolation by meeting people’s material needs and bringing communities together.
The monthly newsletter is a joint publication by Community Change and Community Change Action.
