Building Civic Power Through Community

We harness the power of relational organizing to build civic literacy, disseminate accurate information about voting and democracy, and drive voter registration across America.

Connect With Us Our 2026 Program

About Us

Civic Leadership Foundation is a project of the Institute for Ethical Campaigning, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization dedicated to expanding civic participation.

We run non-partisan voter education and voter registration programming to educate and mobilize low-propensity and first-time voters. Our programs use friend-to-friend tactics to expand the electorate, reach voters that cannot be reached through other voter contact efforts, and train them to share information with their friends and family members.

Our mission is to increase long-term civic literacy and engagement within underinvested populations, through mechanisms that help those communities meet their immediate needs right now.

Our 2026 Program

Starting Q2 2026, we will run paid civic education trainings, recruiting and compensating low-propensity voters as they learn about civic engagement and share what they've learned with their communities.

Map showing program states: Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Mississippi, with potential expansion to Alabama, Louisiana, and South Carolina
Phase 1 $2.1M

Reach 200,000 voters across GA, MI, NC, PA

Phase 2 Expansion

Expand to AL, LA, SC

Target Populations

Young People Black Americans Formerly Incarcerated Americans Low-Income Americans

Training Tracks

Affordability & Public Policy

Participants learn how public policy affects their lives through the lens of affordability—healthcare, SNAP, utilities—and share practical resources with their communities.

Voter Registration

Participants learn voting mechanics and help friends and family check registration status, identify unregistered voters, and get them registered.

Voter Access

Trainings on voter ID requirements, felon enfranchisement laws, voter roll purges, and resources for eligible voters in mixed-status households.

Projected Impact

18,530 Ambassadors
185,304 Contacts
203,834 Total Reach
$2.1M Phase 1 Budget

Why It Works

Our approach is grounded in research demonstrating that lack of information is a primary driver of low civic participation—and that relational organizing can effectively close this gap.

43%

of Black youth respondents in a CIRCLE survey of youth nonvoters following the 2022 midterms said voting "was not important to them or they did not think their vote matters"—the highest of any group surveyed.

Source
22%

of unregistered youth 18-21 said they were not registered simply because they did not know how.

Source
⅔

of youth surveyed were unaware of their state's felony enfranchisement laws, creating barriers for affected community members.

Source

Randomized Controlled Trial: Proven Results

In 2022, we ran an RCT testing the impact of civic education trainings as part of a paid relational mobilization program in Pennsylvania. Request access to full RCT results →

+6.8pp Turnout increase for training participants vs. control
+9pp Turnout increase for training + relational program vs. control

The Homophily Effect

People tend to share similar characteristics with their networks. By engaging participants in hard-to-reach communities with low civic participation, we effectively reach networks of similar voters with high-impact touches from trusted messengers—not strangers or ads.

Our Starting Point

We work with Rally by Relentless, which has an existing base of participants and their networks across our target states. This network is our starting point for engagement.

40,985
Prior civic training attendees
94,302
Interest form signups
1,398,795
Mapped contacts in social graph

Existing Network by State

State Prior Training Interest Forms Social Graph
GA Georgia 19,716 41,373 682,917
MI Michigan 5,974 15,328 184,906
MS Mississippi 1,837 3,664 74,443
NC North Carolina 6,374 15,313 188,832
PA Pennsylvania 7,084 18,624 267,697

Our programming operates out of the Rally platform, which stores mapped relationships to a durable social graph that participants build upon over time. This creates a continually-growing network for civic engagement.

Learn More About Our Work

Interested in partnering with us or learning more about our evidence-based approach to civic engagement? Sign up to access our research and schedule a conversation with our team.

Research & RCT Results

Access our randomized controlled trial data and evidence on relational organizing effectiveness.

Schedule a Meeting

Book time with our team to discuss partnership opportunities and program details.

We'll be in touch within 24 hours to share resources and schedule time to connect.