Develop Organizers.
Advance Strategy.
Catalyze Investment.

HOW WE WIN

HOW WE WIN

Training & Capacity

  • For nearly a decade, state power leaders across the Midwest have been collaborating on organizer bootcamps, weeklong training for grassroots leaders, and civic engagement strategies.

    In 2021, organizers from Minnesota, Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana launched the State Power Training & Capacity Hub to build out this infrastructure and to provide training opportunities for power building groups across the Midwest. The Training Hub is designed to be nimble and driven by the needs of organizations, with a training team of senior organizers from regional partners and a few veteran organizers working as consultants.

  • Over the past several electoral cycles, the Midwest has birthed some of the best narrative work in the nation, including the Midwest Culture Lab and Midwest Race Class Narrative project: We Make the Future.

    At the heart of this narrative work is an effort to change the public conversation around race in the Midwest. Building an authentic multiracial democracy must move us from racial polarization towards a shared sense of solidarity around an economy that benefits everyone.

    We Make the Future works with power building and organizing groups across to develop strategic communications skills, equipping teams with the capacity needed to implement effective campaigns.

Shared Analysis

  • Strategy is driven by research.

    But, too often, research within electoral work is top-down or consists only of polls, focus groups, and crunching numbers in the VAN. Win the Midwest amplifies and disseminates the best research about the Midwest being produced by state based leaders and organizers. We believe that the story of the Midwest is best told when field organizers work with academic partners such as the Democracy and Power Innovation Fund, the P3 Research Lab at Johns Hopkins University, and the Harvard Kennedy School to complete high-level, community-focused research.

    Read the Win the Midwest Report here.

  • Win the Midwest gathers practitioners, strategists, researchers and donors to share the best tactics and strategies from each state.

    State Power Accelerator. In collaboration with the State Power Fund and the Amalgamated Foundation, we bring together groups from across the Midwest who are seeking to generate funding that is independent of donors and philanthropy. We identify potential projects and assist organizations with the development of plans for revenue generating projects.

    Win the Midwest. We bring together more than 200 movement leaders, donors, foundations, researchers, and top organizers from the Midwest to build a shared analysis of our region. We will highlight recent organizing wins and share models for civic engagement, organizing, resource mobilization, and narrative strategies to win racial, economic, and climate justice policies across the Midwest.

Generational Investment

  • We cannot win the Midwest without a generational investment in organizing the communities that will anchor multiracial governing coalitions. Without this investment, unorganized communities will likely give way to a right-wing, fascist, and anti-democratic political movement that has captured the Republican Party.

    This means engaging and building power for a huge swath of nonvoters that are currently sitting on the sidelines, as well as persuading and aligning sets of voters who should be in our coalition but are not. Organizations on the ground remain plagued by boom-and-bust funding cycles, transactional investments to work on national campaigns, and the constant grind of nonprofit fundraising.

    Our goal is to galvanize funders around multi-year investments across all seven states. This fundraising strategy is anchored by a core team of a dozen donors, foundations, and practitioners. We believe that by championing the region, by signaling urgency to the field, by building deeper relationships among practitioners and funders, by exploring new funding vehicles, and by exploring innovative strategies we can resource anchor funding needed in each of these seven states.

  • Groups across the Midwest are leaders in developing social enterprises to fund movement work. We cannot build real power if we are constantly fundraising. These leaders are pioneering independent assets, including social justice taprooms, field vendors, and real estate vehicles to fund community organizing. To learn more about this work as it pertains to the electoral industry, read Controlling the Means of Production of Politics: Analysis & Strategy 2023.