Blog: My City Votes in 2025

Education and civic engagement are the foundations of democracy. Voters Ed Fund is ready to work with local community partners to expand our civic education programs and empower  Michigan voters, but we need to break through the increasing levels of damage caused by misinformation over several election cycles.

Over the last two years, we have built relationships with local organizations and community leaders in Flint, Pontiac, Grand Rapids, Muskegon Heights, Benton Harbor, and Warren through our My City Votes program. It has always been our goal to continue developing these partnerships in order to grow the grassroots activist community in Michigan and ensure every community has the power to create people-powered change. 

In 2025, My City Votes will work to support local community partners and expand the civic engagement and education programs we offer to ensure Michiganders are empowered with the tools to advocate for their unique and diverse communities. We will develop lasting partnerships with local organizations and voters in key cities, lending our resources and expertise to support voters in historically underrepresented communities to make their voices heard. 

Our plans for My City Votes communities in 2025 include election education during the May, August, and November local elections, educational town halls in partnership with local officials, and expanding our Democracy Academy program, tailored to the needs of individual communities, to reach voters where they are and help them engage with local government. We also plan to identify vacancies on municipal boards and commissions and engage community members to consider serving on those boards

My City Votes 2025 will build on the work Voters Ed Fund has done throughout the last two election cycles to support local municipalities and community organizations in building a more educated, engaged, and empowered citizenry.

Blog: My City Votes Makes a Difference – Because Each Vote Counts

In 2022, Voters Ed Fund launched a comprehensive Get Out the Vote (GOTV) campaign in five cities across Michigan, mobilizing low-propensity voting populations for the 2022 general election. My City Votes is an innovative program that collaborates with city officials and local community organizers to develop city-specific voter education and outreach campaigns including websites, events, direct mail, targeted canvassing and text-banking, and more to increase voter engagement, turnout, and overall civic participation.

In 2024, Voters Ed Fund relaunched My City Votes and expanded to six communities: Pontiac, Muskegon Heights, Warren, Benton Harbor, Flint, and Grand Rapids. While some of these are smaller municipalities, Grand Rapids and Warren are the second and third largest cities in Michigan, and represent a large population of low-propensity voters who are at risk of not voting in this election. We are also continuing our work to support voters in Detroit, as part of the Detroit Votes partnership that continues this year. 

We know that in close elections, like we saw in 2016 and 2020, just 2 votes per precinct can determine the outcome of the elections. That’s why it’s so important to reach low-propensity voters now and let them know that their vote really does matter. 

Through our partnerships with officials and community organizations, voters will receive multiple contacts from trusted messengers that provide the information and encouragement they need to participate in this election. In Grand Rapids, for example, our local partners from the Grand Rapids Hispanic Center and Creston Neighborhood Association will soon begin knocking doors! Their early start in those communities will especially make a difference in getting voters ready to vote when absentee voting begins later this month. 

We’re excited to see how My City Votes will impact turnout in this November’s election, but the My City Votes program is about more than any one election. By partnering with local leaders, it is our goal to help build voter power in communities across Michigan, and to make sure voters know that every election matters and every vote counts.

Help Us Reach 200K Voters through My City Votes

My City Votes 2024 Just Got Even Bigger

As we prepare for the November General Election this year, Voters Ed Fund has been building up our partnerships with local clerks, mayors, and other trusted community leaders in our My City Votes communities to make sure that voters, especially those in underrepresented communities, know their voting options and have confidence in local and state election systems.

We are excited to announce that we are officially adding another municipality to our My City Votes 2024 campaign: Warren, Michigan, the third largest city in our state!

To be selected as a My City Votes municipality, communities must meet a few specific criteria, including having an above average population of historically disenfranchised voting groups, higher rates of poverty, and below average voter turnout rate compared to the state at large. Our goal is to reach low-propensity voters in these communities and give them the information and motivation they need to get out and vote.

Warren, as the third largest city in Michigan, has a population of over 135,000, and provides Voters Ed Fund with an opportunity to reach even more voters from historically marginalized communities. Thanks to cooperation from the Warren Mayor, we will be targeting an additional 53,000 voters to help them to exercise their constitutional right to vote this November. 

While we’re excited to be expanding to another city, our work in Warren was not part of our original budget for this program. That means in order to make sure we can make the impact we want to have in this city, we’ll need to raise an additional $100,000 between now and September, when this campaign will fully launch. If you want to support My City Votes 2024, and the work of Voters Ed Fund to educate, motivate, and empower voters in historically marginalized communities, make your tax-deductible donation here.

Voters Ed Fund Presenters Ensuring Michiganders Can Vote with Confidence in 2024

In February 2024, Michigan voters participated in the most accessible statewide election in Michigan’s history, taking advantage of new options such as early voting and the permanent absentee ballot list. However, many Michiganders don’t yet know how much more secure, modern, and accessible our elections have become.

That is why the Voters Ed Fund has been training volunteers to inform their communities all over Michigan about their new voting rights.

Group of people seated in chairs around the perimeter of a room.

Throughout 2023, many city and township clerks told us that the best way organizations like Voters Ed Fund can support them is by informing voters about the upcoming election changes. Therefore, as part of our Proposal 2022-2 Implementation program to ensure the successful initiation of Michigan’s new voting laws, Voters Ed Fund has launched an ongoing Voter Educator training program that prepares volunteers to give their own presentations on Michigan’s new voting laws. Since November, Voters Ed Fund has trained over 50 volunteer presenters across 27 municipalities.

To ensure this pivotal voter education reaches a wide scope of voters across Michigan, we encouraged volunteers to engage organizations within their own communities including block clubs, Democratic or Republican clubs, faith organizations, and unions. Since the start of our program, Voters Ed Fund volunteer Voter Educators have already given 22 presentations to over 600 voters across Michigan.

Voters Ed Fund isn’t done educating Michigan voters. We continue to host training sessions to empower volunteers to become Voter Educators and inform their local communities about Michigan’s elections. You can join them in this mission: sign up for an upcoming Voter Educator Training (hosted monthly) to learn how you can help empower your community through voter education!

Interested in securing a VNP voting rights presentation for your local civic, religious, or community group? Reach out to Education Programs Manager Alyson Grigsby at alyson@votersnotpoliticians.com or request a presenter using this online form.

Democracy Academy Off to a Great Start in 2024

While many eyes are focused on the 2024 presidential election cycle, Voters Ed Fund recognizes that in order for our democracy to be truly representative, communities across Michigan need to participate in every election, at every level.

That is why the Voters Ed Fund launched the Democracy Academy workshop series –  to ensure that voters can develop civic engagement skills that they can use beyond 2024.

On March 20th, Voters Ed Fund held the first of six virtual Democracy Academy workshops scheduled for this year. The focus of this inaugural workshop was Your Community Your Government–-Making the Case for Getting out the Vote in Local Elections. 

Like our in-person workshop series in 2023, this first workshop was designed to inform attendees about the widespread issue of low voter turnout in municipal elections compared to midterm and presidential elections. Attendees also explored various tactics to increase local voter turnout in their communities, from relational organizing to leveraging Michigan’s new voting laws such as early voting, and discussed long-term solutions such as moving municipal elections to the even years via a local ballot initiative to increase turnout.

Our first workshop received 51 attendees, more than half the number of total attendees during our entire 2023 in-person workshop series. However, like last year, attendees left wanting to develop additional skills to politically engage their communities. That’s why our remaining five workshops will build on the knowledge and skills of the first Democracy Academy session.

Our next workshop will focus on recent changes to Michigan’s voting laws, including those mandated by Proposal 22-2. You can sign up for our April 16th workshop or any of our following workshops below:

Interested in learning more about Democracy Academy or our other education fund programs? Want to get involved in developing or presenting one of these workshops? Reach out to Education Programs Manager Alyson Grigsby at alyson@votersnotpoliticians.com.

Democracy Academy Ready to Reach a New Audience

Voters Not Politicians Education Fund’s voter education programs are in full swing preparing voters for the presidential elections and all of Michigan’s new voting options. However, just because it’s a presidential election year doesn’t mean that we’re abandoning our local- and state-level voter education. 

In 2023, Voters Ed Fund launched Democracy Academy, a series of in-person workshops to combat low voter turnout in municipal elections statewide and expand local civic engagement. We targeted these workshops to those who are starting their civic activism journey and looking to help their communities become more civically active in their local governments. 

Our volunteer-led team developed our first learning module, Making the Case for Local Election Voter Turnout. This module not only addressed the issue of low voter turnout in local elections but also empowered attendees to increase civic participation in their communities.

Over the course of 5 months, we hosted workshops in Kalamazoo, Warren, Monroe, Lansing, and Marquette. We partnered with 12 community organizations throughout the workshop series, including the Kalamazoo NAACP, APIAVote, NorthernVotes, the American Association of University Women, and the Immaculate Heart of Mary Sisters. 

Now, Democracy Academy is returning for its second year, and we’re introducing additional modules so that voters can take their civic activism to the next level. These monthly virtual workshops will increase accessibility to the content, as well as our overall impact and engagement. 

Our first workshop, Democracy Academy 101, will be held on March 20th, 2024 at 6 PM as a refresher course and introduction to our workshop series. 

Democracy Academy 101 March 20th 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM

Additional workshop topics will include:

  • Proposal 22-2: How These New Voting Laws Affect Michigan Voters
  • Citizen Lobbying Your Local Government
  • Participatory Budgeting: How To Take Part in Your Local Government’s Spending
  • Monitoring Your Local Elections
  • Starting a Local and Statewide Ballot Initiative

Interested in learning more about Democracy Academy or our other education fund programs? Please reach out to Education Programs Manager Alyson Grigsby at alyson@votersnotpoliticians.com.