The grant will enable us to:
1. build a shared cloud-based technology toolkit across our collaborative partners,
2. make deep technology infrastructure investments to support more efficient organizing, and
3. develop a year-round fundraising canvassing program.

Technology holds the key to scaling up and out in this critical political moment. Voter education and mobilization has been our main civic engagement strategy over the years – but it is clear that we must more deeply engage people in order to collectively hold and exert progressive political power – especially in the face of a Trump presidency. Technology allows us to effectively reach voters, track their involvement, and analyze the results. This funding allows us to build a shared database to help us match, connect and grow our relationships across our collaborative to win policies that improve the quality of life for children, youth and families in Oakland. Furthermore, staff members of at least three of our partner organizations will receive in-depth, paid training around operating and maximizing the new shared database.

This funding will also support the launch of a fundraising canvass. While our budget and staff have doubled over the last two years, the organization and our partners continue to receive the majority of funding from foundations. With less than 10% of our financial support from individual donors, this is a major area in which we can grow our support. Besides diversifying our funding portfolio, continuing to increase our individual donor base provides an avenue to increase our funding for electoral work and advance residents’ civic engagement by financially contributing to an organization. Additionally, we envision that our partner organizations will utilize our canvass when they have an urgent policy campaign. Our trained phone callers will be able to make rapid response calls into strategic areas for needed political actions.

Stay tuned to learn more as these programs get underway later this year.