Advancement Project Education Fund

Power & democracy (right to vote and voter protection)strategic litigation remains an important tool that we can bring to bear for our partners as they seek to hold states accountable to the voters in their communities. To that end, work continued during this reporting period on the strategic litigation that we filed in response to s.b. 202, Georgia's disingenuous "election integrity" bill. This past fall, our voter protection program and litigation teams connected with our plaintiffs in Georgia to provide updates and next steps in the case against sb 202 in anticipation of september 22nd preliminary injunction hearing. In our rights restoration work, we have continued to support our current partners in Louisiana and Wisconsin and have developed a new partnership in Georgia. Rights restoration is a priority of ours because it cuts across our voting rights and criminal justice work. "

Justice projectwe continued our work with movement for black lives in atlanta, ga, this year, as they protested the construction of cop city, a "public safety" training facility that will, in addition to its $90 million price tag, occupy 85 acres of green space in the city and have a severe and outsized environmental effect on black and poor resident. Protesters have faced a massive backlash, including being attacked with tear gas and rubber bullets by police. As a part of our work in the district of columbia, we participate in hands off dc, a coalition of more than 50 organizations working in d.c. and nationally to ensure that residents of our nation's capital can exercise their basic right of self-governance.

Opportunity to learn (quality Education and schoolhouse to jailhouse)over the past couple of years, public schools have grown into one of the most contested spaces in the united states, with "parental rights", restrictions on curriculum, and book bans dominating the headlines. Our work focuses on the young people in those schools, centering them and their needs. First, we, alongside alliance for educational justice, convene the national police free schools campaign, helping young people advocate for the removal of police officers, as well as their surrogates (security guards, surveillance, etc. ), from their schools so that they can be their full, authentic selves in a safe space to learn. The second pillar of our work with young people involves helping them envision and work towards the liberatory Education that they deserve. The common thread in both bodies of work is that we help equip young people with a set of organizing and campaign-building skills that they will carry with them beyond the schoolhouse, as well as the transformational knowledge that they can affect change in their communities.

Communicationsour communications program does not just support the pr of Advancement Project, but acts as a program arm to support all of our teams and programs. They do this through media placement, campaigns, creating communications collateral, and trying to change that national narrative around all of our programs. For example, we are currently in the process of developing a communications strategy to support narrative challenges to the police free schools campaign in the dc/maryland/virginia (dmv) region. Because they reside in the same news market, these school districts often find their varied challenges reduced to a monolith by the mainstream media, specifically that young people are violent and need police. "

Our other programs include our campaigns and formation work, as well as fellows that help support different special projects in our main 3 programs. In november 2022, we re-launched formation, our relationship building, cross-learning, and strategic capacity building network of multiracial local organizations waging campaigns to dismantle systems and structures of racial oppression. Formation seeks to build the ideologies and strategies needed to build multiracial power as demographics shift. The organizations have met virtually and in person. At our october 2023 meeting, groups shared their preliminary plans for 2024, including their plans for the 2024 presidential elections, and expressed interest in strategizing together. The groups left the meeting agreeing to reconvene for an in-person gathering in the first quarter of 2024, which Advancement Project took the lead in planning.