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.
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.
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