The Chronicle of Philanthropy: Money worries cloud voter mobilization efforts
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This excerpt is from a piece that originally ran on October 28, 2026.
To help nonprofits make certain that their voter mobilization efforts don’t cross the line into political activity, the Alliance for Justice’s Bolder Advocacy program has set up a hotline for organizations to call for advice. The group has held webinars on the subject, worked with foundations to make presentations to grantees, and held training sessions with nonprofit coalitions.
Interference from both the federal government and some state governments into get-out-the-vote efforts have many community organizing groups nervous, said Maggie Ellinger-Locke, senior state law and legislative counsel at Bolder Advocacy.
“The threat environment that nonprofits are operating in right now is, I think, increasingly dangerous,” she said. “There’s nothing unique or unusual about what groups are doing right now, but they are under increasingly deeper levels of scrutiny.”