Coordinated strategies to advance community organizing, leadership development, policy advocacy and voter education, engagement and mobilization.

Proactive and defensive efforts to ensure that voting is accessible and fair for all Americans, including administrative monitoring, Election Protection and litigation

These funding areas are deeply interrelated and interdependent parts of a comprehensive strategy that promotes voting and civic engagement in historically underrepresented communities.

Simply put, if people do not make the connection between the political process and issues affecting their daily lives, they will be less likely to be civically engaged and vote. And even the most robust, genuine and thoughtful civic and voter engagement programs will not be successful if barriers to voting and suppressive tactics prevent people from accessing the ballot box.

The State Infrastructure Funds provides technical assistance and capacity-building support to its grantees in areas of communications, program growth and support, and organizational development.

This includes such things as strengthening communications structures, messaging coordination, relational and digital organizing, professional development and legal support. In 2020, this technical assistance was of vital importance as SIF’s grantees were forced to shift their programming in response to the COVID-19 global pandemic.

These trainings help grantees identify the tools and tactics they need to help them develop digital/online organizing programs and content that fit their particular needs. Furthermore, SIF assisted grantees to develop new digital and online civic engagement programs focusing primarily on VBM/Absentee Ballot voting. SIF opened the trainings to grantees funded by the 13 funder members of the Collaborative Fund Alignment Group, resulting in more than 225 leaders from more than 100 organizations participating.

The State Infrastructure Fund created and continues to coordinate the Voting Rights Working Group (otherwise known as the Litigation Collaborative) to engage in legal action on behalf of communities most directly impacted by voter suppression.

In 2013, the Shelby County v. Holder decision severely undermined Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. In response, SIF launched the collaborative which is comprised of 12 of the most established and diverse civil rights legal organizations in the country. As such, the Collaborative has become one of the nation’s most powerful forces for protecting voting rights and battling voter suppression. Members meet regularly to identify, discuss and share litigation strategies and align efforts to capitalize on each group’s capacities and experience. To date, collaborative members have been involved in more than 126 voting rights cases, at least 81 of which involved issues related to the recent 2020 elections. Through the work of the Litigation Collaborative, SIF is able to expand its reach far beyond its priority states and have an impact on protecting the vote in all 50 states.

In addition to voting rights litigation, SIF also supports both national and state organizations that engage in year-round Election Protection (EP) programming and communications to help communities understand their rights, as well as the obstacles they may face when voting, and ultimately protect those rights throughout the entire election process.

In addition to national legal oversight, the overall EP program in 2020 was comprised of over 43 field and legal mobilization programs that included multi-lingual voter hotlines and the coordination of volunteer attorneys and field staff positioned in communities to assist voters in real-time.