Blueprint North Carolina

Blueprint NC's Movement Center Grant Program aims to sustain and develop central community hubs. These are independent community institutions that build our social movements by providing access to physical space where organizers can build and develop their leadership. We believe that investing in existing physical infrastructure deepens trust between grassroots organizations and the communities they organize. This is particularly true for our harder-to-reach communities in the more rural areas of our state.

In 2023 Blueprint NC's voter engagement and voter mobilization work focused on registering BIPOC voters in order to increase their share of the North Carolina electorate in preparation for 2024 voter turn out. We continued our coordination of the Enfranchising Voters Table, starting the year with over 40 one to one meetings with partners to gauge where resources and support were most needed. We overwhelmingly heard from partners their need for funding, tools and data trainings, and refreshers on civic engagement organizing.

Blueprint NC works to provide our ecosystem with the necessary resources to meet this political reality. In 2022 we piloted a safety and security regranting program that would aid organizations in creating safety teams for stronger community led safety. The findings of this project made clear to us that we needed a more intentional approach to building this culture of safety into our entire framework. In 2023 we saw this intentional effort manifest in tracking threats to the safety of our partners, centering the safety of voters at our Election Protection Table, and providing training that centers community-led safety tactics for organizers on the ground.

Blueprint North Carolina plays an important part as a convener of organizations in our state. Blueprint NC partners represent a diverse portfolio of organizations, not only in terms of their advocacy, but also with regards to size and scope. Many groups find themselves at different stages of their organizational life-cycle, especially when compared to others. Some partners we work with are formally incorporated 501(c)(3) organizations, while others rely upon Blueprint for fiscal sponsorship. Some have annual operating budgets in the five-digit range, while others may exceed $1 million or more