Vote Your Voice | Southern Poverty Law Center

Vote Your Voice Initiative graphicAbout the Initiative

Vote Your Voice (VYV) is an initiative of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a fund at Tides Foundation, that supports nonprofit organizations working to advance full voter participation and fair representation across the Deep South. VYV centers historically excluded and under-represented communities and invests in organizations with a demonstrated commitment to voter education, civic engagement, and voting access.

Launched in 2020, Vote Your Voice was created to move beyond short-term, election-cycle funding and toward sustained, year-round engagement that strengthens democratic participation and community leadership over time.

VYV supports organizations working in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

Our Reach and Impact

Since launch, Vote Your Voice has supported a network of 124 nonprofit organizations working directly in communities across the Deep South.

Together, these organizations engage a program population of nearly 15.5 million overlooked, under-recognized individuals with barriers to voter participation, civic engagement, advocacy, and protection efforts.

Vote Your Voice grantees:

  • Increase access to accurate voter information
  • Support participation in local, state, and national civic processes
  • Strengthen community leadership and long-term civic infrastructure
  • Address barriers to participation through education, advocacy, and systems change

How Vote Your Voice Works

Vote Your Voice combines direct grantmaking with capacity and technical support to help organizations remain strong, effective, and responsive to community needs—during election years and beyond.

Our approach emphasizes:

  • Continuous engagement, not one-time mobilization
  • Long-term relationships with grantee partners
  • Respect for organizational capacity, avoiding unnecessary reporting burden
  • Collaboration and learning across organizations and geographies

The Protection to Power Framework

In response to increasing pressures on civic engagement organizations, Vote Your Voice is implementing a Protection to Power framework, deploying $10 million over two years to strengthen the long-term health of the Southern civic ecosystem.

This framework includes three interconnected areas of support:

Immediate Protection

Rapid, flexible resources to help organizations address legal, financial, or digital challenges that could disrupt their work.

Organizational Resilience

Support to strengthen operational infrastructure, diversify funding, and build systems that allow organizations to thrive over time.

Leadership & Network Sustainability

Investments in leadership development, peer learning, and collaboration to strengthen connections across the Southern civic landscape.

All three areas are designed to work together to support organizations at different stages and with different needs.

What We’re Looking for Moving Forward

Vote Your Voice seeks to partner with organizations that:

  • Are rooted in and accountable to the communities they serve
  • Engage in 501(c)(3)-permissible voter education and civic participation work
  • Demonstrate a commitment to year-round engagement and community leadership
  • Are interested in strengthening organizational capacity alongside programmatic work

Upcoming grant rounds will continue to prioritize flexible funding, long-term partnership, and shared learning across the VYV network.

Join the Vote Your Voice Network

Vote Your Voice is building a connected ecosystem of organizations working to expand civic participation and representation across the Deep South. We invite organizations aligned with this vision to review upcoming grant opportunities and consider applying.

 

Learn More About Our 2026 Grant Cycle

 

About the artwork: By commissioning Atlanta-based muralist Sarah Neuburger, Southern Poverty Law Center centered Southern culture as a source of strength, grounding our work in community rather than corporate aesthetics. Her art connects our systems-level strategy to the human heart of the movement, offering beauty, rest, and resilience for partners doing the hard work of democracy across the South. It’s a reminder that our shared culture — not division — is what carries us forward.