Can We Reverse the Decline in Community Organizing?
Written by SP Editor
Social Policy readers know the value of community organizing. We recognize:
*most politicians need grassroots pressure to do the right thing;
*organizing builds political relationships;
*organizing expands a campaign’s political base; and
*grassroots organizing is the most effective strategy to defeat Big Money and powerful interests.
Despite the demonstrated success, foundations and large donors have slashed funding for community organizing over the past two decades. The “progressive” foundations that defunded ACORN in 2009 did not shift their money to other grassroots organizing groups. Instead, a vast level of progressive resources now goes to election campaigns. Wealthy progressives continue to donate staggering sums to elections while shortchanging the ongoing community organizing that builds the political base necessary to win.
Barack Obama won the 2008 Democratic Presidential nomination and then the White House by using a mass door knocking and house meeting strategy. His victory showed that the grassroots tactics that bring victories at the local level could win national elections as well.
Yet after taking office Obama disbanded much of the organizing apparatus he had built. Obama’s team was said to be uncomfortable with an independent “Obama for America” organization that would also hold Democrats accountable. Obama sharply scaled back his powerful organizing network just when it was most needed to support his ambitious “Yes We Can” agenda.
The combination of the scaling back of Obama’s organizing team and foundations defunding ACORN had a devastating impact on Obama’s agenda. Lacking community organizers to mobilize support for labor law reform, comprehensive immigration reform, and health care expansion, the first two failed and the last was weakened. Obama’s team was out-organized by an astroturf “Tea Party” campaign that progressive community organizers would have overcome.
The decline in funding was not caused by community organizing’s failure to deliver. Instead, funders have failed community organizing. This failure has occurred despite widespread sentiments after the 2024 national elections that ongoing community organizing is an essential electoral investment.
I’m sorry to bring back these painful memories. But before offering a strategy to revive ongoing community organizing let’s take a deeper dive into its biggest competition for funding: elections.
Shifting Money to Election Campaigns
Progressive foundations and wealthy individuals view grassroots organizing as a much lower funding priority than election campaigns. Progressive interests spend a staggering amount on local, state and national elections. ACTBlue sends round the clock text messages requesting money for candidates. Texts and emails seeking funding for the ongoing organizing necessary to win elections cannot compete.
Some left funders once downplayed elections as a competition between two very similar major parties. Community organizing was seen as the best way to get working and low-income people the resources they need.
But the Republican Party’s drastic rightward shift changed this perception. For at least the past decade politics in the United States has been all about elections. Ongoing organizing has been devalued.
Winning elections should be a top priority. It’s essential that Democrats win control of Congress in 2026 and the White House in 2028. But winning elections requires investing in ongoing organizing. Massive ad buys within two months of an election do not do the trick.
Recall the post-election consensus that door-knocking for Kamala Harris in 2024 failed to sway voters because it came too late. Many canvassers who parachuted into swing states found their door-knocking or phoning reached few if any undecided voters. Canvassers concluded that relationships with voters had to be built well before Election Day.
That’s what community organizers do. Yet Harris’s defeat has not spawned the huge new investment in community organizing that the post-election consensus supports.
We saw a recent example of progressive dollars going to campaign advertising rather than ongoing organizing in California’s June 2026 election. Tom Steyer, a progressive candidate for Governor, spent over $200 million on his own campaign. Despite securing the bulk of the major labor, environmental and progressive endorsements, Steyer did not make the top two runoff.
What if instead of spending tens of millions on campaign ads Steyer had invested in statewide grassroots organizing campaign to build support for his progressive agenda? This would have led more voters to back the candidate favoring progressive policies like single payer health care over his chief rivals who did not. It also would have better insulated Steyer against the tens of millions of corporate independent expenditures spent against him.
The Steyer campaign never built deep relationships with voters. It instead replicated the strategic failure of the Democratic Party in 2024 by delaying canvassing until it was too late.
Organizers Must Promote Funding
I’ve talked about the message in this article with many organizers. None dispute the electoral value of ongoing organizing. But most are resigned that those running campaigns haven’t gotten the message and will never get it.
But maybe that thinking can change.
The organizing community has to make a stronger public case that investing in ongoing organizing is the best electoral strategy. While we are deluged by text messages, emails and other social media requests for candidate funding, it’s rare to see a request to fund ongoing organizing as an essential strategy for winning elections.
Asked what people should be doing on the eve of New York’s June 2026 primary, Mayor Zohran Mamdani replied, “keep canvassing.” His campaign invested in ongoing organizing well before his mayoral election. Couldn’t the election strategy used by a Democratic Socialist to get elected mayor of New York City get moneyed people to rethink about where to invest to win elections?
Organizers are great at empowering those they organize. But many career organizers dislike promoting themselves. They really don’t like the constant calls for money that candidates engage in 24/7. I’ve seen appeals to support community organizing groups that don’t even mention what a lot more money could accomplish. They don’t make you feel, like candidate texts do, that if you don’t send $25 today that something really bad will happen.
A National Campaign
What if community organizers came together publicly after the November 2026 elections to urge funding for grassroots organizing? And identified it as an investment in winning the White House and Congress in 2028?
The best-case scenario would be a social media campaign that led to a massive outpouring of funds to an identified list of organizing groups. The worst case is that the plan would come under attack. But even this worse case would raise the importance of community organizing.
The third option---that organizers continue their past practice of not publicly campaigning for funds---is the worst. Good organizers use the tactics and strategies necessary to win campaigns. They are the last people to tell those impacted not to try.
Many organizers know each other. Putting together a group for a national media event would not be difficult. I realize that groups with a lack of track record could try to become a designated recipient. The leaders of the current major organizing groups could either develop a process for inclusion or specify no specific groups. Groups like the Movement Voter Project already serve as a funding vehicle for local organizing groups. A public chart keeping track of overall donations to organizing would monitor donations.
Why Hasn’t This Already Happened?
Organizers are smart. If they thought they could double, triple or quadruple their organizing staff by publicly seeking funds, they would have already done so. Right?
Wrong. I have found organizers to be particularly reluctant to promote their own value. Most see organizing as empowering constituencies, not promoting the impact of organizers. Organizers as a group are not big go-getters when it comes to seeking funds.
Those running multi-million-dollar election campaigns don’t have that reluctance. They deluge us with texts and emails and don’t think twice about doing so. Those urging money for ongoing organizing must do the same.
Prior to the 2024 national elections I wrote about the reluctance of the national Democratic Party to fund organizing for young voters. You would think that targeting a group which has relatively lower voter turnout would be a priority. It never has been. Money for groups organizing youth around political issues is in the low hundreds of thousands when it should be in the millions.
Maybe people and groups with money that are investing now for the November 2026 elections will keep their organizing teams in place through 2028. Maybe these entities will realize that investing in organizing does not have to be directly connected to an election to positively impact voter preference and outreach when the election comes. Maybe I will look back on this story and conclude that what I urged to happen was already happening.
But it’s more likely that the mistakes of the past will be repeated. And that the community organizing necessary for Democrats to radically change the country’s direction will not happen unless longtime organizers start speaking out.
A Post-November Strategy
Within days if not hours of the November 2026 elections attention will shift to the race for the White House in 2028. The timing is perfect for organizers to then announce a strategy for winning the presidency that is based on ongoing community organizing. The pitch is along the lines of Democrats having two years to reclaim America and the time to start the struggle is now.
The post-November election environment offers a great chance to secure the increased funding for ongoing organizing that we know is needed.
If you think that bringing organizing groups together for a national campaign to lay the groundwork for 2028, let me know. I’m happy to help coordinate how we make this happen. I’d be even more happy for those working in organizing groups to take the lead.
The stakes are too high for organizers to accept the status quo. Let’s make the power of ongoing community organizing the story of the 2028 election.
Randy Shaw is the Director of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic in San Francisco and Editor of BeyondChron.org. He has written about the power of ongoing organizing in multiple books, including The Activist’s Handbook and Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
