Organizations

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What can super PACs and 501(c)4 do instead of funding independent expenditure campaigns?

They could redirect their resources from top‑down independent-expenditure campaigns to building a durable democratic infrastructure owned and led by communities themselves. Instead of carpet‑bombing airwaves every two years, they could fund long‑horizon projects that expand who participates, strengthen grassroots organizations, and generate the public‑interest research needed to rewrite the rules of the game. One major role would be to underwrite and help manage rigorous, public‑facing political integrity and democracy‑reform research projects—similar in spirit to efforts that study campaign finance, corruption controls, and alternative voting systems—and then translate those findings into accessible tools and training for local leaders.

They could also anchor year‑round voter engagement programs that focus on relational organizing, multilingual voter education, and neighborhood‑level outreach to boost participation in low‑turnout primary and local elections, layering door‑to‑door canvassing, texts, and phone calls in ways that research shows modestly but meaningfully increase turnout, especially in primaries.

Beyond elections, these entities could invest in capacity building for grassroots groups—funding organizers’ salaries, data and tech infrastructure, leadership development fellowships, community policy labs, and small‑dollar fundraising programs—so that base‑building organizations, not consultants, become the central civic institutions in their communities. In combination, this shift from last‑minute persuasion to permanent organizing and research would move money away from personality‑driven campaigns and toward a more participatory, community‑rooted democracy.