Win the Midwest was created in late 2020 by a set of donors, practitioners, and strategists from across the region. We envisioned a nimble infrastructure that could strengthen the capacity of local movement organizations and fundamentally shift the way politics is practiced in the region. We believed that a regional strategy, rather than one that treats each state in isolation, could lift all states.

Our strategy launched with the release of the Win the Midwest report in 2021. We disseminated this analysis in 2022 through a set of briefings with 400+ individuals, half of whom represented donors and philanthropy. We harnessed this momentum at Organize the Midwest in May 2022. This convening seeded a regional cohort of organizers, movement leaders, key donors, and stakeholders who are advancing a vision for long-term power building and innovative state based infrastructure in the Midwest.

The result of that convening was a cohort of funders, practitioners, individual donors, and Midwest leaders that formally launched Win the Midwest to accelerate the work of state power building, to sharpen our political analysis, and to build multiracial governing coalitions capable of defeating right-wing extremism in the heartland.

We continue to be guided by the recommendations laid out in Win the Midwest:

INVEST in strategic and independent Black, immigrant, and youth organizing.

ORGANIZE conflicted white voters with new and proven strategies.

ADVANCE a Race Class Narrative.

ESTABLISH electoral programs through independent state ecosystems.