Protecting every citizen’s right to vote.
Together we can strengthen our democracy by reducing barriers to voting and ensuring fair elections.
Discussion with Steve Phillips
Thursday, March 7, 2024
Steve Phillips is one of the country's most important thinkers on race relations and the critical role of BIPOC communities in voter mobilization efforts. Citizens gathered to hear some post-primary analysis from Steve and hear his thoughts on how Democrats can win in 2024. He also signed copies of his newest book- How We Win the Civil War: Securing a Multiracial Democracy and Ending White Supremacy for Good.
Who We Are
Citizens for the Vote is a community of energized citizens who pool our money and time to support organizations devoted to advocating for and protecting fair and free elections. We provide quarterly grants to non-profits who support election policies and voting rights through litigation, policy, advocacy and public education.
How Citizens Works
Community
We meet quarterly (sometimes remotely and sometimes in person) to discuss issues central to preserving democratic institutions, to plan and uplift, then select 501c(3)’s whose missions we want to support. We pitch and discuss organizations working directly on critical voting issues, and then we choose which organization to financially support.
Funding
We contribute our collective resources to organizations who are positively impacting communities and/or are working to change policies and election outcomes. In the past few years, we provided quarterly grants ranging from $25,000 - $45,000, focusing on organizations mobilizing the vote on the ground in states pivotal to the election. Since our inception, Citizens for Truth has granted around $300,000 to non-profits making a difference on the ground.
We invite any contribution level and encourage members to contribute generously. Contributions range from $1,000 to $10,000 with an average donation of $5,000 per family. All contributions are made into a donor advised fund at the East Bay Community Foundation, which distributes our aggregated funds to the chosen organization. Donations are tax-deductible.
Sidecars
Because we are focused on funding 501(c)(3)’s to maintain our tax deductible status, we cannot make contributions to political campaigns, PACs and other types of partisan organizations.
To allow members to bring our scale to these campaigns crucial to electoral politics, we’ve created a separate, informal funding structure we call Sidecars. It’s simple: when individual Citizens make a contribution to a political candidate, PAC or 501(c)(4), they alert the rest of the group via email with the Subject line: Sidecar! If other members want to contribute, they are invited to do so.
Recent Grantees
In off-election years Citizens chooses to focus on organizations that are working on long-term structural change to protect voting rights and support our democracy. Whereas in Presidential election years we strive to support organizations, such as those in swing-states, that can have a direct impact on the elections. Our grantee selections in late 2023 fit both strategies. Citizens donated $25,000 to each.
The Voter Formation Project are a digital-first, Black woman-led organization, dedicated to reaching underrepresented voters and mobilizing their participation in local, state and national elections.
The Asian Pacific Islander Political Alliance’s (API PA) is organizing their communities in Pennsylvania year-round with culturally competent and linguistically accessible direct voter contact.