Fund For The Public Interest
Fund For The Public Interest is a national nonprofit organization working to increase the visibility, membership and political power of the nation’s leading environmental and progressive groups.
The Fund was launched in 1982 to develop campaigns and technologies to engage Americans in public interest advocacy efforts. Through our fundraising and non-fundraising canvasses, we've gathered over 20 million petition signatures over the past 25 years and raised over $20 million for our partner organizations in the last year alone.
Current Fund partners like Sierra Club and Human Rights Campaign are expanding their donor base and passing tougher legislation against air pollution, forest clear-cutting, hate crimes, and special interest money in politics. We owe our success to the fusion of our staff’s grassroots organizing experience, cost-conscious attitude and work ethic with our partner groups’ issue expertise, initiative and vision.
We're best known for our canvass programs. Over the years we've developed the nation's largest and most effective network for door-to-door and street canvassing—signing up members in high traffic, public places. We sign up sustainers—members who commit to automatic monthly contributions from a checking account or credit card—as well as one-time contributors. We are also one of the nation's most prolific signature gathering operations. We have pioneered other creative outreach methods, like canvassing at concerts and gay pride festivals.
Voter Registration
The Fund ran the Community Voters Project to register low-income minority voters for the 2004 and 2008 elections. We ran campaign offices in Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Ohio. Fund staff applied decades of experience in grassroots organizing to develop a model for a successful large-scale voter registration effort built around face-to-face contact. Between 2004 and 2008, the Fund registered nearly 400,000 new voters.
In 2010, the Fund launched a campaign with the Progressive Future Education Fund Community Voters Project to register voters in Colorado, Pennsylvania, Florida and Ohio.
http://www.progressivefuture.org/job-descriptions
Our Mission
Progressive Future promotes progressive values through grassroots action. We are a nonprofit organization advocating for core progressive principles such as community, fairness, and security; and working for progress on critical issues such as providing health care for all Americans, promoting a clean energy economy, and ending the war in Iraq. We make the case for sensible policy solutions and hold politicians’ feet to the fire by activating citizens in their communities and helping progressive Americans make their voices heard.
Our Strategy
Our primary strategy is to build the progressive movement in four interconnected ways. First and foremost, we focus on building the progressive activist base. Next, we do this by working across a range of issues—activating citizens who care not just about the environment or health care, but see the connections between these and other critical issues. We push forward our agenda through public education, grassroots advocacy, and working to elect more progressive candidates. And, finally, we seek to tie our work back to a coherent framework of values that binds us together as progressives and differentiates us from right-wing conservatives.
From helping elect Barack Obama to promoting a bold, new progressive agenda.
Challenges Ahead
Our country faces steep challenges in the coming months and years. Rebuilding our economy in a way that works for all Americans while we restore our standing in the world won’t be easy. We need to put people back to work, control the spiraling cost of health care, and build a new energy future.
Powerful forces will line up against progress on every front. From oil companies protecting their profits to right wing ideologues hanging on to Bush’s failed policies, the guardians of the status quo will not move aside without a fight.
A Breakthrough Election
But, this is also a moment of great hope and opportunity. More than just a rejection of George Bush’s failed policies, the 2008 election has given us a historic chance to advance a bold, new progressive agenda.
At Progressive Future, we worked hard to elect Barack Obama, and other progressive candidates. Along with our campaign partners, we:
• Talked face to face with hundreds of thousands of undecided voters in ten battleground states, handing out literature that compared Barack Obama with John McCain on the economy, health care, and energy. Download the factsheet.
• Worked to get out the progressive vote through our “96 Hours for Change: Progressive Future’s Obamathon” program.
• Sponsored two pro-Obama ads (one featuring Ronald Reagan, the other set to Paul Simon's "American Tune.") View these ads.
• Endorsed a strong slate of progressive "down-ballot" candidates in Colorado. Read the endorsements.
In addition to our work on behalf of progressive candidates, we also helped expand the electorate through nonpartisan voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives focused on voters from historically under-represented communities such as youth and African-Americans; educated citizens about key ballot initiatives in Colorado and Ohio; and encouraged citizens to call their representatives to demand comprehensive health care reform in 2009.
History in the Making
Barack Obama has just made history, winning a resounding mandate for progressive change.
True to his community organizer roots, he didn't do it alone. To his credit, from day one he invited all of us to share ownership of his campaign and the movement for change.
We're proud of the role we played in Election 2008 through our own independent efforts. Here's just a little of what we did:
• We sponsored two pro-Obama ads (one featuring Ronald Reagan, the other set to Paul Simon's "American Tune.") View these ads.
• We endorsed a strong slate of progressive "down-ballot" candidates in Colorado.
• And in the last four days, we did our part to help get out the vote for Barack Obama in 10 states through our own 96-hour Obamathon.
Growing Grassroots Democracy
In addition to the presidential election, we also worked to build democracy and grow the grassroots movement around progressive issues.
• We ran non-partisan voter registration drives in 15 states.
• We helped push past the smears and delivered a fact-driven, side-by-side comparison of the candidates (click here to download) to undecided voters in 10 states. Read more.
• When Michigan Republicans moved to challenge voters whose homes were being foreclosed, we took action. When the rhetoric at McCain-Palin rallies provoked a hateful response, we spoke out.
We were able to accomplish all of this, and more, because of our members and donors. If you'd like to help build a more progressive future, join us.