Black Organizing Project Blog Being A Part of Something Bigger: BOP's Integrated Voter Engagement Journey

By Staff Writers Mirishae McDonald, Jasmine Williams, and Jackie Byers In 2016 BOP joined California Calls- an alliance of 31 community-based organizations across the state which purpose was to engage and educate voters from poor and working class communities of color. Within the California Calls coalition the African American Civic Engagement Project (AACEP) was birthed, and designed as a three-year initiative with the purpose of; strengthening the scale of civic participation amongst African American groups in California, contributing to the increasing voice and power of communities suffering from social and economic inequalities, and supporting the on-the-ground work organizations across the state were already invested in. Despite blazing ahead toward unfamiliar territory, we chose to see the opportunity of intentionally participating in civic engagement as a tool to build Black power across California in the following ways: 1) As a learning opportunity and access to the technology and tools that can allow us to reach greater scale and develop strong tracking system 2) Participation in a statewide Cohort of Black organizations was a space that could lead to deeper relationships and movement building opportunities 3) Having the resources to train and develop community members who are often marginalized out of voter engagement and electoral jobs allowed us to create a leadership pipeline 4) to influence policies that would have significant material impact on our community by providing access to information and education. Eleven Black led community based organizations across 5 California counties, joined us in the cohort, receiving training and technical assistance with the hopes of integrating the methods and learned systems into ongoing organizing efforts. Over the last three years groups within AACEP have outreached to nearly 150,000 folks and registered 12,000 to vote. Building [...]The post Being A Part of Something Bigger: BOP's Integrated Voter Engagement Journey appeared first on Black Organizing Project.