What is MVP doing to win back young voters? We need a “Turning Point of the Left”!

MVP funds (and has always funded) youth organizing, but the simple truth is that the right has invested far more in scaling up this work on their side, both offline and online, with some of the most obvious examples being Turning Point USA and PragerU. 

To counteract and compete with these right-wing juggernauts, we are funding and closely strategizing with our youth partners like Alliance for Youth Action and Gen-Z for Change about how we can build a radically reimagined and more powerful youth movement on the progressive side.

This work is a core pillar of our new-media strategy, as well as our overall national and state-level grantmaking, because it’s crucial to build a youth organizing infrastructure that seamlessly combines digital and “in-real-life” engagement.

Sampling of Partners

Here is just a small sampling of our grantee partners engaged in youth organizing:

• National: Alliance for Youth Action, Gen-Z for Change
• Arizona: LUCHA (Living United for Change in Arizona), Rural Arizona Action
• Georgia: Georgia Youth Justice Coalition, Black Male Initiative
• Michigan: Michigan United Action, Detroit Action
• Nevada: Make the Road Action Nevada
• North Carolina: Education Justice Action, Siembra NC
• Pennsylvania: One Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Stands Up
• Wisconsin: Voces de la Frontera Action, Wisconsin Public Education Action Fund

Bottom line: Powerful youth movements need sustained funding.

Look at these funding charts for Turning Point and PragerU. See how their revenue builds year after year, uninterrupted? Now look at the funding for Alliance for Youth Action and its C3 affiliate: much less money, distributed far more sporadically.

If we want to build a more powerful progressive youth movement, we’re going to need to do what the right has done well: Fund like we’re serious about power.