This month, we're doubling down on some of our February thoughts with reminders about how we maximize our impact. By showing up this week and giving in the next few, we can help stem the red tide and build toward a better future.

This email, in short:

• No Kings!: A plea to turn out and bring others to No Kings III this Saturday, and some good reasons why it it is so importan. And
• Give Soon: We're reiterating our philosophy on political giving in 2026 and sharing where we have personally invested this year – both as a way to encourage others to do their own giving by the end of April, and to hold ourselves accountable for doing so.

Why No Kings III?

We hope you have plans for this Saturday's No Kings III. Our bottom line is that we all should attend a rally if we can, and bring someone who might need a nudge or a buddy.

We need this first popular protest of 2026 to be big!

Throughout 2025, demonstrations steadily grew:

• April: 3-5 Million across 1,400 sites at Hands Off;
• June: 4-6 Million across 2,100 sites at No Kings;
• October: 7 Million across 2,700 sites at No Kings II.
• Saturday: There were already more than 3,000 sites signed up as of last week.

Why bother? Even if you are "all in" for turning out to protest, we know not everyone is or can be. There are people out there who desperately want change but ask themselves: what good do these protests do? Will they change anything?

Our democracy depends on voters voting and on the confidence that their vote can – and will – matter. But, who will be watching?

• Voters – many more potential voters need to believe, to turn out and to vote.
• Elected officials – they need to know there will be consequences for their actions, or inaction.
• The media – they need unassailable truth and visual evidence.
• The missing – those who cannot turn out or are scared to do so. They need us to do it for them.

This is about way more than Saturday.

We are all a part of a movement that will ensure the elections happen this year, are free and fair, and that their results are respected. T-Rump and the far right have shown the violent and illegal methods they will use. But there are enormous efforts to counteract them.

The good news? Elections are conducted locally and democracy is still popular in this country.

Last month, we wrote about one of the organizations and coalitions working to protect the election, those who conduct it and the election's results. With January 6 offenders pardoned, election deniers still contesting 2020, and a weaponized DOJ going after "alternate offenders", popular turnout and uprisings will ultimately ensure the results of elections are respected in November.

There are broad deep long-building efforts to support election resiliency and to strengthen the election infrastructure so it is less vulnerable to election sabotage and election-related violence:

• Training volunteers for Rapid Response to combat election interference (like the recent FBI seizures).
• Supporting election workers, dedicated civil servants who believe in democracy and are under attack.
• Recruiting volunteers for voter protection and support at the polls.
• Training to defend against voter intimidation (ICE deployment?) at the polls.

So, we look forward to running into Boston-area friends on the common. You can find other No Kings III sites here. Let's all bring a crew of usual – and unusual – suspects.

Need a quick dose of hope? If you need a reminder of the power of everyday people and organizing, watch Minnesota Emergency: Organizers vs. ICE (the Inside Story), a recent film from Movement Voter Project.

Give by April (& Our Giving Report-Back)

Our most frequent advice on giving boils down to three things:

1. Give to what resonates for you, what fuels your fire.
2. Give consistently, providing support year-in and year-out, not just when there are elections to be won.
3. Give early in the year when it comes to political giving and organizing, particularly if you want to influence November.

1. Give to what fuels your fire. This goes for all types of giving. You will always feel best, and reap the most reward, by supporting what you believe in most deeply. It will feed future investment and deeper relationships with the organizations you value most.

2. Give each and every year. Political and organizing power is built over time with continual and consistent investment, whether you are trying to win elections or support the communities that bear the brunt of injustice. The boom and bust cycle typical of election-year giving is dysfunctional for organizations. Every day, we are witnessing attacks on – and retrenchment of – rights including civil, gay, transgender and reproductive rights. Legal and organizing investments are successfully slowing the destruction of rights that took decades to build. Losses can be rebuilt over time. But, only with the steady organizing and investment that powers forceful opposition during bad times and forceful advocacy during good.

3. Give Early. Figure out what you will do for politically-focused giving and do it early in the year when it can have the largest impact in November. Many well-intentioned people will get "activated" by the elections as they ramp up. But giving or organizing in the Fall, or even July, leaves little time for true building. Field operations depend on activation of staff and recruitment of volunteers; building lists and membership; and frequent and repeated contact. That takes time and cannot happen without early investment.

Our Own Giving Report-Back

As we wrote about in our January newsletter, it is not easy in our culture to "give it away." But, here we are again: in the election of our lifetimes. So, we rolled up our sleeves, dug into our choices (starting with our February newsletter – we won't repeat those rationales here), and spent the necessary time thinking, reading, and coming to agreement with one another. A few qualifiers and points of information that might be helpful:

• These are all 501(c)(4) or PAC gifts. That means they are not tax-deductible.
• The PAC gifts are reported to the FEC and so will become publicly discoverable. The c4 ones are not.
• We did most of our c3 – charitable/deductible – giving in December.
• We did what we could. It was less than we would have liked, but more than we would have expected just a few years ago. We know that we aren't going to change the world with our contributions, but that it will not change without a lot of us giving collectively.

So, what were our choices? Here's what we did. It is what made sense for us and to us at this moment.

• We made our largest single investment in the Indivisible Project.
• We invested more, split across two of the groups coordinating funding, in the Election Safeguard Response Network:
  • All Voting is Local
  • Democracy Defenders Action
• We invested another significant gift in the Working Families Party, and also set up a monthly membership gift as a way of sustained investment.
• We made a gift to Black Voters Matter. As we didn't mention them in our February newsletter: this was our way of supporting black organizing in the South in this moment. We think they do great work and are long-time fans and supporters of BVM and its founders.
• We also made gifts to the people fighting a critical redistricting ballot initiative in Tom's birth state of Missouri (People Not Politicians), as well as a low-profile new media group that is producing excellent online content for targeted audiences, and doing it with integrity and data-driven savvy.
• We should note that we chose not to give to Movement Voter Project directly this time around. However, many of the groups above are MVP grantees. We have given a majority of our political funding to MVP the past 8 years, and Tom made them the main focus of his own work life. We therefore made a conscious choice to emphasize giving directly elsewhere this time. But we encourage you to consider them for your own giving!

Again, this is our own formula for maximizing our impact and making sense of the moment. We encourage you to explore yours.

And to enjoy your No Kings gathering. Bring a friend. Or five.

Thank you for being in this work with us.

Tom & Julia