Resource Type: Research & Articles

When faced with challenges to their power, social movement organizations can revise their structure in different ways to solve different problems. For example, the Sunrise Movement has engaged its membership in an attempt to decentralize some power from its national staff to local hubs. Color Of Change expanded its staff-driven approach to create events and local groups for social engagement and localized projects, in addition to refocusing its campaign goals to local elections. United for Respect has experienced member and staff growth, experimenting by organizing staff by campaign and by role, settling on a hybrid structure, utilizing both. Other organizations—ISAIAH, New York Working Families Party, and Florida’s Statewide Alignment Group—have also re-structured in illuminating ways. This report employs useful metaphors to describe different group structures, including “boat”, “big tent”, “Rubik’s Cube”, “house”, “stool”, and “fractal”.             

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won in 2020 with a multiracial coalition, and 2020 was the most diverse electorate ever. Latino voters continued to favor Democrats, but Republicans made inroads with Latino voters. Black voter turnout increased substantially, resulting in significant gains for democrats, despite a modest overall drop in Democratic support levels. The urban-rural voting divide continues to be immensely important, with suburbs growing more Democratic and racially diverse. Young voters drove record-breaking turnout. This long report includes many data analyses and visuals to describe voting patterns in the 2020 election.

It’s key for organizations to ensure they’re practicing disability justice in their work. “Disability Justice: An Audit Tool” is aimed at helping Black, Indigenous and POC-led organizations (that are not primarily focused around disability) examine how well they’re practicing disability justice, and where they want to learn and grow. It includes questions for self-assessment, links to access tools, organizational stories and more. You can download a PDF of the tool.