Raise Up Massachusetts is a grassroots coalition of more than 150 community organizations, faith-based groups, and labor unions committed to building an economy that works for everyone. Field First, led by Carl Nilsson, has coordinated the Raise Up Massachusetts coalition for the past five years, building a shared strategy and driving the execution of winning campaigns. Since the coalition came together in 2013, it has consistently fought for workers’ rights and to better our economy. Currently, MVT’s ED is a member of the steering committee, which is the governing and decision-making arm of the coalition, and she aalso chairs the Grassroots Committee, which holds the larger voting membership of the RUM coalition.

Last year RUM launched the Fair Share Amendment ballot campaign after decades of failure to pass a legislative bill to increase the tax threshold on incomes of $1 million or more, of which $2 billion dollars would be raised in revenue for Education and Transportation. In 2023-2024 MVT has led partners in advocacy of a number of legislative bills to protect the Fairshare dollars in the state budget. Collaborating with RUM MVT and partners advocated this session on estate tax reform, closing corporate tax loopholes, and preventing high-income tax avoidance to protect Fair Share wins. MVT’s ED and three partners gave testimony earlier this year at the Joint Committee on Revenue about why ensuring the Fair Share dollars are protected in the state revenue.

Additionally, MVT is working with RUM on increasing the minimum wage to $20.00 an hour.

MVT also created its first Advocacy toolkit this year for table partners to help them prepare for meeting with their district Representatives and Senators on RUM priorities and EMC. This toolkit helped get partners started with scheduling these advocacy meetings to build deeper relationships with their legislators and share a bit more about their support of legislative policies that support their local civic engagement work.

MVT plays an essential role in the EMC. EMc is a coalition comprised of nonprofits that are working to influence the Massachusetts legislature to create laws that make elections and the voting process a more efficient and pleasant experience. MVT’s ED and Communications Organizer meet weekly to actively work on legislative and grassroots strategies to advance policies to expand voter access in the state.

MVT was key in helping to pass the VOTES Act through the legislature in June 2022, making mail-in voting and weekend early voting permanent, creating guidelines for jail-based voting, and moving up the voter registration deadline by 10 days. Despite advocacy efforts, the legislature excluded same-day voter registration from the VOTES Act, which would have had the greatest impact on voter turnout and equity in our elections system. In 2023, MVT as a member of the EMC assisted in filing and supporting the Voter Access Act, which includes Same Day Voter Registration. This decoupled Voter Registration from the Municipal Census, ensuring ADA-accessible polling locations, and creating uniform mail and absentee voting processes.

MVT is in continued partnership with DOE, a program MVT designed in partnership with Mass Budget & Policy Center and Massachusetts Communities Action Network. The goal of this work is to use the local and state budget process to move money into policies and projects that will expand and enhance racial and economic justice in MA communities. Currently, the ED and Field Director attend weekly strategy/planning meetings for DOE.

In 2022 the coalition funded MVT partner organization to further resource the grassroots efforts to help pass the FairShare Amendment ballot campaign. This campaign aligned with the goals of DOE because when passed it would funnel more resources towards education and transportation in low income and BIPOC communities. During this campaign, MVT partners engaged with over 100,000 voters. With a successful passage DOE began engaging partners by building out regional trainings led by MVT and Mass Budget on budget advocacy. This included teaching MVT partners how the local and statewide budget process works and by knowing these steps provided avenues for advocacy for BIPOC communities. Along with further budget advocacy trainings DOE is focused on planning a ten year agenda with partners to strategically think about how budget equity can be weaved into yearly civic engagement work that grassroots groups are already doing statewide and locally to further resource BIPOC and low income communities. The goal is to develop this plan that will lead to a long term strategic campaign.

MVT convened MassCounts, the grassroots census coalition, from 2018-2020 to achieve an accurate count in BIPOC, immigrant, and low-income communities in the 2002 Census. After convening MassCounts, MVT convened the Drawing Democracy Coalition to increase participation in the redistricting process and advocate for fair maps at the federal, state, and local levels.

In partnership with the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center and supported by the National Census Equity Initiative, we are educating and informing MA constituents about the importance and deep regional impact of the Annual Community Survey and decennial Census. During 2023 we co-hosted community presentations in Springfield and Cape Cod. These were held in partnership with local organizations in the area, and all members of the regions were invited to attend. The goal of these conversations was to deepen the understanding at the voter level of the impact of the Decennial Census and ACS on our communities, empower them to vote, and engage in this process to increase the level of representation of our hardest-to-count communities.

MVT has also been training partner grassroots organizations within historically undercounted communities about the importance of the ACS and the decennial Census and how to prepare for participation in 2030. This includes regional “Power of Data” workshops highlighting the value and use of census data.

MVT has also created a census data dashboard for legislators and organizers as a tool to identify regional and district gaps in resources for advocacy.

MVT has been organizing on participatory budgeting in Boston since the 2021 Yes on 1 campaign. The Better Budget Alliance is a grassroots coalition of community-based organizations in Boston working to increase democratic control over Boston’s public budget. Since the passage of participatory budgeting through a ballot initiative in Boston, the Better Budget Alliance has convened a dynamic team of community leaders, participatory budgeting experts, City Hall staff, City Council staff, and academic researchers to develop and create a sustainable and equitable city-wide participatory budgeting process.

The EAC is led by Boston elections commissioners to promote voter education, engagement, and turnout in Boston. MVT joins several other community-based organizations on the EAC to advocate for accessible and high turnout elections.