For the Many Strategies was started by three civic strategists committed to delivering real progressive wins to communities.
As teachers, political organizers, and policymakers, we've spent two decades working in and across public systems, watching the promise of public goods and democratic freedoms fail to deliver real change for our neighbors. Over time, this causes political withdrawal – not voting, or voting while keeping expectations low.
To build trust in democracy, we need democracy to deliver.
But even after electoral success, we see new leaders face systems hostile to change. When the campaign ends, supporters have nowhere to go – while political insiders and institutional inertia know how to keep the system working as usual. And if change doesn't materialize, another generation learns not to invest in politics. This system has only one winner – those who it already benefits.
Real change requires building belief in what government can do.
We started For the Many Strategies to support coalitions, candidates, and civic institutions working to build a democracy accountable to ordinary people, by working on at least one of the three pillars below:
We work with partners to get money out of politics and amplify the voices of everyday people in our democracy.
We design policies to expand public goods and services, and translate them to everyday people, showing what government can do for the common good.
We help civic leaders govern to build public trust, changing how governments listen, respond to, and deliver on public needs.
We believe that the hardest things we want take all of us. That’s why we work with partners spanning governments, civil society, as well as candidates and elected leaders – all of us fighting for a democracy that works for the many.