Learn about the outstanding voting organizations joining our 2022 Midterm Action Accelerator
We’ll be working with them through Election Day to develop and implement innovative, ambitious, strategic creative campaigns, supporting voters and voting all across the United States
We’ve selected 9 of the most impactful individuals and groups committed to serving voters and making sure their voices are heard, this midterm election season and beyond. These organizations are based in states that have faced the toughest anti-voter attacks, helping voters that often face the highest barriers to exercising their fundamental freedoms.
These groups are bringing inspiration and innovation in droves. Click the logos below to learn more about how they’re joining us in making sure voters are unstoppable.
Unstoppable Voters Action Accelerator Project Teams
Young Black Lawyers’ Organizing Coalition (YBLOC)
The Young Black Lawyers’ Organizing Coalition (YBLOC) is a nonpartisan, community-centered movement of young Black lawyers, law students and organizers working to protect and empower Black voters. YBLOC works with grassroots Black communities to fight for full access to electoral democracy and to realize full electoral voice. Since its founding in 2019, YBLOC has led innovative, high-impact organizing campaigns for voter protection and civic empowerment across seven focus states: Texas, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina, South Carolina and Arkansas.
Project team: Abdul Dosunmu, Laurel Bush, Gaytha F. Davis
What we’re working on
“In the 2022 midterm elections, Black voters will confront a new era of voter suppression that threatens our political voice. To empower our communities to resist and overcome voter suppression, the Young Black Lawyers’ Organizing Coalition (YBLOC) is mobilizing a robust voter protection organizing corps to train voters to successfully vote and help their communities do the same through community education sessions in Texas, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina, South Carolina and Arkansas. As part of its community education work, YBLOC will incorporate the arts and culture to engage and empower irregular voters, who are especially vulnerable to voter suppression, to fully exercise their vote and their voice.”
“Art and culture are among the most important tools available for empowering people in the midst of deeply challenging times. We’re thrilled to be part of the Unstoppable Voters Action Accelerator to leverage the power of art, creativity and culture in our work to protect Black voters in the critical 2022 midterm elections.”
– Abdul Dosunmu, Founder & Chief Strategist, YBLOC
Arizona State University School of Art / #ArtistsWhoVote
Begun in 2020, a group of art students, community justice scholars, and artist Gregory Sale formed a temporary artist collective called #ArtistsWhoVote to work collaboratively on an arts-based, get-out-the-vote campaign on campus at Arizona State University, online, and across metro Phoenix. They produce videos, public events, and sign-spinning performances that literally tossed the questions of the election up in the air.
Like taking an in-progress play on tour, #ArtistsWhoVote rehearses progressive iterations that derive their transformative power from the process of their development, allowing their public service campaign to unfold organically and not be prematurely defined.
Project team: Gregory Sale, Abby Galvin, Cydnei Mallory, Emiliano Lopez, Janet Davids, Kate Derwin, Meredith Hoy, Mikey Estes, Prashast Kachru, Yvette Serrano
What they’re working on
#ArtistsWhoVote’s target audience is young voters and university students for whom the voting experience is new as well as those most directly affected by the efforts of some in community leadership to reduce voter opportunities. A primary goal for 2022 is to create scaffolding for participants old and new to develop newly found agency and to interrupt and alter oppressive systemic patterns of governance and social structures. Some collective members now consider their socially engaged art as a testing ground for building possible futures and models for experiences of collectivism yet to come.
“Our collective is thrilled to have an opportunity to work with the Unstoppable Voters Action Accelerator. We welcome input from these skilled and experienced organizers who will support us through our process and share the artistic activism training and mentorship offered by the Center for Artistic Activism.”
– #ArtistsWhoVote
Alianza Center
Alianza Center is a Latina-led, community-based organization serving Florida’s growing, racially-diverse, and underserved Puerto Rican and Hispanic populations. They work in 12 counties, serve 14,000 members, and build the intrinsic leadership of area Hispanic communities through a program rooted in culture, sustainability, and self-determination. Alianza’s innovative family- and sector- organizing model features monthly First Friday cultural nights and a climate- and arts-focused summer program. Recent campaigns have renamed a middle school; ended a ban on hospital nurses speaking in Spanish at work; and stopped 650 million tons of coal ash from arriving to a nearby landfill.
Project team: Jerry Millan, Candice Mercado, Cristina Robinson
What we’re working on
“We are currently working to expand our electric scooter evangelism program for the 2022 election cycle. Our goal: 50 Latina women of all ages on electric scooters rolling up loud and proud at high turnout events from September through Election Day where they will pass out our palm cards and encourage everyone to ‘Go and vote early — so you can focus on getting ALL your family and friends to vote early too.'”
“People need connection. When art and culture become the focus, the connection is so much richer.”
– Jerry Millan, Culture, Arts, and Education Coordinator, Alianza Center
San Marcos Cinema Club / Lost River Film Fest
The San Marcos Cinema Club is a 501c3 film society that runs Lost River Film Fest, a multi-venue film fest – hosted in a Texas college town of 80,000 people, half of whom are students. The cinematic selection is chiefly attuned to social-justice issues, with new, independent films functioning as a tool for popular education.
Last year, they expanded the festival in San Marcos (county seat of Hays) into Lockhart (county seat of Caldwell) with simultaneous programming at theaters in both places – and despite COVID concerns saw excellent attendance and interest in both. (They offered a free badge to anyone who donated $100 to remove a Confederate monument & 62 people took advantage! The monument was successfully moved.)
For 2022, the sixth annual festival – which is partly sponsored by the Texas Film Commission, Texas State University & Mano Amiga – they’re going even further by confirming & securing venues for a San Marcos festival on campus and at the downtown Price Center, Oct 20-23; a festival in Lockhart on Oct 29 at the downtown Gaslight Baker Theater; and a festival in Seguin (county seat of Guadalupe) on Oct 30 at the downtown Palace Theater, with the latter two daylong fests transpiring while Early Voting is underway!
Project team: Erasmo Vasquez, Mauro Murillo, Ronald Mercado
What they’re working on
With the support of Unstoppable Voters, the Sam Marcos Cinema Club will design compelling GOTV materials to play prior to every film bloc in the lead-up to the November 2022 election, containing voter education info, including polling times and locations.
“In the past year I’ve learned the importance of civic engagement and so I won’t only be casting my first ballot this November, but with guidance from the Action Accelerator I’ll be employing my artistic skillset to motivate many hundreds of others in my community to likewise get out the vote.”
– Erasmo Vasquez, Technical Director, Lost River Film Festival
North Carolina Community Bail Fund of Durham
The NC Community Bail Fund of Durham fights to end cash bail while providing bail of $2K and under to return people to families to prepare their defense, while being supported by a community of care in stabilizing basic needs. Director Andrea Muffin Hudson is also the Coordinator of the Bull City Participatory Defense hub in NC, a community organizing model for people facing charges, and communities to impact the case outcomes while transforming the landscape of power in the courts.
Project team: Andrea Muffin Hudson, Josselyn Farrior, Brittney Bethea
What they’re working on
Ending mass incarceration and money bail. Currently they are part of a coalition that will be unlocking the vote and getting over 55,000 people on probation and parole registered to vote.
“I’m excited that the Unstoppable Voters Action Accelerator will allow us to uplift the work in Durham to impact more lives to see a better outcome.”
– Andrea Muffin Hudson, Director, NC Community Bail Fund of Durham
The Ally Coalition (TAC)
Founded in 2013 by Jack Antonoff (Bleachers) and fashion designer Rachel Antonoff, TAC is committed to bettering the lives of LGBTQ youth through tours, campaigns and partnerships, providing support to organizations serving LGBTQ Youth. TAC partners with artists and uses their platforms to raise awareness of the systemic inequalities facing the LGBTQ population and activate prominent members of the creative community and their fan bases to engage with these issues in meaningful and impactful ways.
Project team: Annie Bailey, Geoffrey Morrissey
What they’re working on
TAC is bettering the lives of LGBTQ youth through music tours, campaigns, events, and partnerships, and is expanding its work in the voting space.
“We are so excited to expand our advocacy and outreach to promote voting and voter awareness. We can’t wait to implement new campaigns and ideas into our work with the help of the Unstoppable Voters Action Accelerator and the other groups and people involved in the program.
– Annie Bailey, Community Engagement Coordinator, TAC
Vote With Us
Vote With Us is a party series where friends help friends cast a safe, informed, early & joyous vote.
Project Lead: Jenny Gottstein
What they’re working on
This party series distributes tools and support for relational organizing across the country. It is designed to support all voters, but especially those who have moved in the course of the pandemic, and need to check or re-register. The party series is hosted online, but culminates in a national invite to Vote Early Day dance parties on Saturday, Oct 28th.
“After running these parties every election cycle for the past 8 years, it is a dream to join this incredible cohort. The support, infrastructure and inspiration will help us scale our efforts and find new ways to infuse the voting process with joy.”
– Jenny Gottstein
Pittsburgh DSA
The Pittsburgh chapter of Democratic Socialists of America seeks to facilitate transformation to a truly just society, one in which the means and resources of production are democratically and socially controlled. DSA rejects an economic order based solely on private profit; alienated labor; gross inequalities of wealth and power; discrimination based on race, gender identity and sexuality; brutality and state-sponsored violence; destruction of our environment and communities to feed the insatiable appetite of capitalism; and an empty defense of the status quo. DSA’s conception of socialism is profoundly democratic: a humane social order based on the people’s control of resources and production, economic planning, just distribution, and non-oppressive relationships.
Project team: Steph Sorenson, Brian Nuckols
What we’re working on
“We are working with our neighbors beyond Pittsburgh’s city limits and throughout Allegheny County, populations that have been historically underserved. Through the power of art, and using our deep canvassing skills, we will create a unique, interactive, and fun experience to engage nonvoters, build lasting connections centered on their concerns, and practice relational organizing to empower our neighbors to connect with their networks on the issues they care about. We will help our neighbors complete voter registrations and pledges, while building long term commitments to the practice of democracy through collective struggle, for which voting is just the beginning.”
“We are eager to learn the Center for Artistic Activism’s methodology for artistically activating voters and moving them from inspiration to action. Pittsburgh DSA is inspired by the opportunity to participate in the Unstoppable Voters program, to learn from mentors, and connect with a cohort of like minded activists. We welcome the opportunity to center democracy in our outreach and art in our activism.”
– Brian Nuckols and Steph Sorenson, Pittsburgh DSA
Just Act
Just Act is a hybrid of artistic and community engagement committed to social justice. As a theatre-based catalyst for healing, change and activism to build a just world, Just Act works at the intersection of theatre, social justice, anti-oppression facilitation and civic engagement to strengthen individual and collective power. They apply the principles of Theatre of the Oppressed to ignite critical thinking and unite community members for collective action.
Project Lead: Lisa Jo Epstein with Angelique Hinton, Thomas Quinn, Rebecca Allen, JianWei Li, Samantha Sandhaus
What we’re working on
“PA Youth Vote teens will train in devised theatre to create an interactive play about why teens don’t vote and to educate their peers about why they should vote. This is the second year in a row that Just Act has partnered with PA Youth Vote to support teens to dive beneath the surface of “get out the vote” and understand teen attitudes towards voting that keep them from becoming civically engaged, the root causes of these feelings and the purpose of voting. We guide the teens to explore the personal and systemic barriers to why teens don’t vote, the impact of oppressive policies on inter-personal relationships between teens, and how to channel their new knowledge into interactive theatre. The teens are also discovering the relationship of voting to ongoing issues of social injustice about which they care deeply: in particular, gun violence and mass shootings in schools, discrimination in education and climate change. We want them to gain an embodied understanding of why voting should matter to students. This fall, we want to figure out how to have the teens perform at high schools and develop their capacity to catalyze dialogue with their peers across the city.“
“Just Act is so excited to be an Action Accelerator because it will expand our knowledge beyond our own applied theatre practices, and in doing so, strengthen everything that we undertake. We can’t wait to learn from C4AA’s invaluable experience, knowledge and skills in artistic activism as well as from the cohort who share Just Act’s commitment to voter arts activism.”
– Lisa Jo Epstein, Artistic & Executive Director, Just Act
Unstoppable Voters
Through our expansive Unstoppable Voters program, we support creatively risk-taking, strategic, ambitious organizations, people, and projects that address urgent and specific anti-voter attacks. We provide training and community building for individuals and groups who are passionate about protecting the freedom to vote and bringing the needed innovation to that fight. And we provide funding and support to help manifest that innovation and bring real, measurable impact. To date, we’ve helped dozens of organizations and several hundreds of individuals make voting accessible, safe, joyful, powerful, and irresistible.
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