Momentum Nonprofit Partners hopes more nonprofits join them in giving their staff the day off to vote on Election Day.
MEMPHIS, Tenn — Momentum Nonprofit Partners supports more than 500 nonprofits every day. Now, they're asking nonprofits to support them in making Election Day a holiday.
Located in Cooper-Young, Momentum Nonprofit Partners is a support advocacy for nonprofits. During the pandemic, they found a way to provide PPE for nonprofits and how to tackle racial injustice inside the workplace. While work continues, CEO Kevin Dean is setting his eyes on the upcoming election.
For the first time, Momentum staff will not be working on Election Day.
CEO Kevin Dean says nonprofits often play an important role in civic engagement.
“Because nonprofits play a really important role, we want to start a movement where nonprofits are closed on Election Day providing a paid holiday for their staff to make sure that nonprofit employees are able to vote," he said.
On Tuesday, Momentum sent out an email to all its member nonprofits asking them to give the day off for workers.
“Right now, we have 25 organizations that have signed on but this is something that we’re expecting more up until Election Day." he said.
Dean says there's a misconception that nonprofits can't be political. They just can't be partisan, he said.
“A lot of times people think this election is just about Trump and Biden. It’s not," Dean said. "It’s about local elections. It’s about state elections and just because you’re in one party, doesn’t mean your elected officials in that party are supporting nonprofits or even responding to emails from nonprofits.”
A recent goal of Momentum is to emphasize public policy work.
“Nonprofits have to start thinking from a systemic level," he said. "How do we change systems? And one of the best ways to do that is to change policies and there are a lot of bad policies that are in place that are keeping people poor, keeping people homeless, keeping people hungry.”
That's one reason they want to remove any barriers that would prevent people from voting which are highlighted by growing concerns with mail-in ballots and potential long lines on Election Day like what was recently the case in Georgia.
The push to make an Election Day has grown over recent years. Earlier this year, a movement called "Time to Vote" was created to also push private companies to give time off to vote.
"Workers shouldn’t have to choose between earning a paycheck and voting. Time To Vote is a nonpartisan movement, led by the business community, to contribute to the culture shift needed to increase voter participation in our country's elections," the site reads.
Recently, Coca-Cola announced it would give its employees time off joining the likes of Best Buy, Nike, Twitter, Visa and more.
Some studies show voter turnout would increase if Election Day was a holiday. A survey by Pew Research shows that 2/3 of Americans are in favor of it.
Dean said the National Civil Rights Museum, Just City and South Memphis Alliance are examples of some of the 25 local nonprofits that have signed up so far.
"Even if their staff does have the ability to vote, they can early vote, [they have] three hours off on Election Day, symbolically I think it matters to be closed," Dean said.
August 20, 2020 at 08:16PM
https://ift.tt/2FL4kC1
Nonprofit advocacy group pushes for nonprofits to make Election Day a holiday - WATN - Local 24
https://ift.tt/2QoXNjh
Holiday
No comments:
Post a Comment