The Southern Poverty Law Center announced Thursday more than $10 million in grants for outreach, voter mobilization and civic engagement efforts by Deep South organizations over the next two years through the Vote Your Voice initiative.
“Following record turn-out in the 2020 election, legislators right now in many Deep South statehouses are using the deadly conspiracy theories that fueled violence in Washington, DC, on January 6 to justify the introduction and passage of bills severely restricting the freedom to vote,” said Margaret Huang, president and CEO for the SPLC. “Right now, we are fighting for a desperately needed restoration of the Voting Rights Act, but in the meantime, we aren’t waiting for a superhero. We continue to believe deeply in empowering southern organizations to do the hard work on the ground registering, educating, and mobilizing voters regardless of what new barriers are erected or which longstanding ones fall in the coming years.”
In 2020, the Vote Your Voice initiative, administered through the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta, provided over $12 million in support to 40 nonprofit voter outreach organizations in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi.
“These organizations reached out to millions of people in communities of color across the five states to encourage registration and then urged and supported infrequent voters of color to participate in the elections,” the SPLC said in a statement Thursday.
Proposals by organizations for this new wave of grants are due by March 24, 2021, and grants will be awarded by April 30, 2021. Average grant sizes are estimated to range between $50,000 and $300,000, according to the SPLC.
Non-partisan organizations from five Southern states – Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi – are eligible to apply.
