How the Power of Collective Action is Creating Great Possibility in 2026

0:00 You're listening to the Nonprofit Power Podcast. In today's episode, we share how the power of collective action is creating great possibility in 2026. So. Stay tuned. If you wanna have real and powerful influence over the money and policy decisions that impact your organization and the people you serve, then you're in the right place. I'm Kath Patrick, and I've helped dozens of progressive Nonprofit leaders take their organizations to new and higher levels of impact and success by building powerful influence with the decision makers that matter.

0:41 It is possible to get a critical mass of the money and policy decision makers in your world to be as invested in your success as you are, to have them seeking you out as an equal partner and to have them. Bringing opportunities and resources to you. This podcast will help you do just that. Welcome to the Nonprofit Power Podcast. Hey there folks. Welcome to the Nonprofit Power Podcast. I'm your host, Kath Patrick. I'm so glad you're here for today's episode because we have reason to celebrate! And I wanna celebrate with you. I hope you were able to participate in one of the thousands of No King's events this past weekend.

1:28 I was there for the event in my community and it was awesome. Fantastic energy, lots and lots of people. A wonderful collection of friends and neighbors and people I'd never met before. All of us gathered there in common cause. And to demonstrate the power of collective action. It was beyond impressive. So I hope you were able to be at your local No Kings event. And I hope that when you got home, you had a chance to look through social media and everywhere else that there were images upon images and video of all of the amazing events all over the country and the world.

2:10 The fact is there is powerful evidence that momentum is increasing for us. And the biggest, most obvious recent piece of evidence is the ever growing No King's attendance and the number of communities touched and the number of red communities touched. Which tells us that there is deep dissatisfaction in every corner of this country, but that people are willing to do something about it. Over 8 million people in over 3,300 local communities, including many in deep red territory in every state of the country.

2:54 All of them showing up to say, what's happening is wrong. We want better. We are joining together to call for better and to commit to creating better. And what was maybe the most exciting to me, although there were a lot of exciting things, was that thousands of those who showed up said that this was the first time they'd ever participated in any kind of a protest. They'd never done anything like that before. But they looked around at what was happening and they said, I can't be silent anymore. I can't be standing on the sidelines. I need to stand up, show up, and begin to take action.

3:37 So that's powerful piece of evidence number one. Another huge sign that our momentum is massively increasing, is the overwhelming special elections shifts in 2025 and early 2026, plus the regular elections that happened in Virginia and New Jersey. In 2025, there were 60 special elections for various offices. The Democrat outperformed the Republicans 2024 vote in 50 out of those 60 elections. The average swing from Republican to Democrat across all 60 was 13%. That's massive.

4:18 Those are double digit swings in voter preference. The folks who are studying this, the people who take exit polls and survey voters and all of that, who dive way deeper on this than I do. Have basically identified that there are two reasons that's happening. One, it's because democratic voters are more motivated to vote. And because the people who voted Republican in 2024 have either switched to supporting Democrats or they're staying home. That's how you get those massive shifts in voting trends, and it's changing the results. Democrats flipped a total of 30 state legislative seats since the 2024 election, including in Texas, Iowa, and Florida.

5:08 These are deep red states. In Virginia, which up to this point has been solidly purple, democrats secured their largest majority in the House of Delegates in 40 years. Democrats broke Republican super majorities in the state Senates of Iowa and Mississippi. They flipped a state Senate seat in a deep red region of Pennsylvania and pulled off an upset in a Georgia district that 47 had carried by double digits just the year before. And amusingly, just last week, we saw the same thing happen in of all places the district that includes Mar-a-Lago. There was a special election for a Florida house seat and the Democrat won by a decent margin of 2.4 percentage points.

5:56 Which would be unremarkable, except that that has been a solidly Republican seat for years. And in the previous election, the Republican had won that seat by 19 points, just a year and a half before. These swings, these shifts are massive and they're happening all over. And they're happening in deep red districts, not just in the purple places. And then the other big piece of evidence is the polling. Now, things were already really bad for the orange one before he started an unnecessary war of choice, which is spiking oil prices, which is in turn sending gas up a dollar a gallon, so far.

6:38 It's doing some other things, which you don't hear as much about. It's endangering fertilizer supply globally, including for American farmers, which will in turn spike grocery prices within a few months. Not to mention the prospect of increasing casualties among American troops. All of this is deeply unpopular across the political spectrum. That is not good for the Rs going into an election season. And they are exceedingly alarmed at the dramatic shifting in polling on approval ratings and everything else. 47's approval ratings were already really bad, and they have gotten substantially worse in the last three to four weeks, with no end in sight.

7:24 Any one of the three major plot points that I've called out, any one of them taken individually would be really positive. But when taken together, what they unquestionably show is that the country is unhappy with the direction things are going. And they are ready to stand up and take action to change it. So that tells us two things. Number one, and this is a huge thing. Because you know, right now coming off of No Kings, everybody's pretty jazzed and excited and the energy is high. But you know how things can be and you get to doom scrolling and all the negative conversations start to happen.

8:10 So number one, don't let anybody drag you into pessimism or cynicism. There is real power in collective action, and there is real power in the shifts that we are seeing that have been moving steadily in one direction ever since the 2024 election. People are standing up and showing up and making it clear they are done with this administration. The power of each individual's action, combined with millions of others, has never been more clear. So ignore all that doom scrolling BS. We need to keep our eyes on the prize and focus all our energy toward positive action.

8:54 Which leads me to the second thing, which is that we each have a job to do. We actually have several. But as Nonprofit leaders, one of the most significant is going to be to ensure that every single person in our communities who has been affected by these disastrous policies, has the opportunity to make their voice heard at the ballot box in the primaries, and in November. Now it's very important to also acknowledge that the Rs are terrified. They can read the results and see the trends and the polls just as well as we can. They can't get rid of 47. Well, they could, but they're not going to.

9:35 So they gotta come up with something else. So what they're doing is they're doubling down on their strategy of voter suppression and restricting the right to vote, trying to intimidate voters as much as possible, and to confuse and disrupt the process wherever they can. We have to be ready for that and ready to counter it. Don't wring your hands about it. Take action. And that process begins now. It is not too early for every single person that you serve, every single volunteer, everybody else in your orbit at your organization, for all of them to be making sure right now that they are registered to vote and that their registration remains valid.

10:19 This is the get ready phase right now. We'll have plenty of time to talk to people about the issues at stake and all of that. And there's a lot of great messaging coming your way. But we can start right here, right now. Getting ready and making sure that everyone who wants a voice will have that chance. There's a couple of really simple things you can do right away. One thing you can do is add a question to your intake forms and your follow up forms. Every time you're making contact with a client, add in a question. Are you registered to vote? And if they're unsure or if they're not registered, ask'em if they would like to register or if they'd like to double check whether they're registered.

11:04 Even if they say they are registered. If it's been more than a year since they voted, or if they've changed address since they last voted, they should double check their registration status, just to be sure. We also wanna keep our eyes on the changing landscape around early voting and mail-in voting, because that is an evolving situation. We wanna make sure that people have accurate and up to the minute information as it develops. There are several national organizations that are keeping track of that, and I will share information on that with you in upcoming episodes. For right now, if you know there are efforts going on in your state, for example, to tinker with those processes, keep an eye on them.

11:48 But no matter how you choose to vote, whether you do it on election day in person, you vote early by whatever means become available at that particular time. No matter what, registration is essential for all of them. If your registration isn't 100% in order, chances are good your vote will not be counted, particularly this year. That is the core message that people need to get. We don't want them being kind of sure, maybe, probably that they registered. We want'em to be a hundred percent sure that their registration is current and valid. And the good news is there is a super easy way to check that right now. There is a fantastic resource that will help make this so much easier for you and your folks.

12:34 All of the state secretaries of state have a national association. And that national association has created a website that is all about voting. They have a Can I Vote page that has a super handy, all in one place way to link directly to the relevant state webpage. Where every voter can use these tools to check their voter registration status, to register to vote, to find their polling place, to check what forms of ID will be accepted, to check on absentee and early voting options.

13:14 It covers all that for all 50 states, and it takes you directly to the individual states correct website, where they can check all that information online. I will link up that one mega website in the show notes so that you can go right to it. With all these kinds of things, I always recommend you tinker around with it yourself. Go ahead and put your own information in there and make sure first of all, that everything's working. No broken links or anything like that. But also so that you've been through it and you can walk someone else through it more efficiently and easily. Cause this may be the first time your clients or your volunteers will have done this. So the more that you can be an expert guide, the better.

13:58 Very important to point out that when folks do this, they're not being tracked by anybody. They're just finding out what records exist already for them as a voter. And so if, for example, they go to look up their name and it doesn't show up, they know they have a problem. If they look up their name, but it's got an old address, they need to update their address. They may need to re-register depending on the rules in the state, but all of that will be available on that state website. So they're in the right place to get done the things they need to do to make sure they'll be able to vote and that it will be counted on election day. And before you ask.

14:39 No, it is not too early to be thinking about this. I hear a little voice somewhere in the back of the crowd saying, yeah, but it's only at the beginning of April. Election's not till November. The primaries have already started. Five states have already had their primaries. They're over and done. And a whole lot more are on deck in the next couple of months. So we are in it, folks. We are in election season right now. And as you know, a lot of places for local elections, sometimes the primary is the election. So if people want a voice, they wanna make sure that they're involved in the primaries as well as the general election. But certainly you want to get your gears turning to get people ready for the general.

15:22 Those are your first couple of assignments. Add that question to your routine interactions with clients. And access that universal resource so that you can hook people up to make sure their registration information is current. That's a great running start for right now. Before I go, let's just pause a moment, one more time. To bask in the amazing energy from the weekend's massive No Kings events. And then let's get to work on the biggest collective action of all, making sure that every eligible person is able to cast their vote and have it counted. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you in the next episode right here on the Nonprofit Power Podcast.