The left-of-center Alliance for Youth Organizing (AFYO) was founded by Mathew Singer to promote youth voting and other left-of-center issues. It is the sister organization of the Alliance for Youth Action (AFYA). ¹

Backed with funding from left-of-center foundations and corporations like the Open Society Foundations, Univision, and the Rockefeller Family Fund, AFYO seeks to shape a national organization made up of local organizations to advocate for young voter registration and a number of left-progressive election policy changes including automatic voter registration, lowering the voting age to 16, disconnecting criminal history from voting rights, and mail-in voting. ²

AFYO provides a toolkit for organizing, webinars for sharing experiences, one on one assistance, and grants to partners who join the alliance. It is the successor of the Bus Federation Civic Fund. ^{3 4}

History

Alliance for Youth Organizing (AFYO) is a left-of-center advocacy group established in 2017 to encourage left-leaning younger voters and is the successor organization of the Bus Federation Civic Fund. ^{3 4}

Matthew Singer, a left-of-center political activist and the former CEO of Forward Montana, led the Bus Federation groups and the Alliance for Youth Organizing and Alliance for Youth Action from 2009 through 2017. ^{5 6}

Organization

Alliance for Youth Organizing activities include educating young people on left-wing issues, training leaders for local partners, and mobilizing young voters. Annual conferences, one-on-one coaching, and site visits are some of the methods used to deliver support. The group also conducts lobbying, reporting $15,000 in lobbying spending for 2018. ^{7 3}

AFYO’s Democracy Done Right initiative advocates broadened voter registration availability including automatic registration, pre-registration for 16-year-olds, same-day voter registration, mail-in voting for all, elimination of designated polling places, and disconnection of a person’s criminal history from voting rights. ²

AFYO partnered with left-of-center Students Learn Students Vote Coalition; Campus Vote Project, an initiative of left-of-center Fair Elections Center that opposes voter identification and removal of those who have died from voter rolls and backs felon voting; and MTV to launch “+1thevote +1thepolls” to expand access to voting on campuses. ⁸

AFYO partners with Students Learn Students Vote on the Campus Takeover project. The initiative aims to increase civic engagement on college campuses through “mini grants” provided to groups that organize left-0f-center campus civic engagement efforts and toolkits with information about organizing civic engagement on campuses. ⁹

Other activities of the group included We Can Vote, a left-of-center resource for information and opportunities to help make elections secure, Work Elections a tool to connect poll workers to opportunities, providing a link to the Vote at Home Institute, a separate left-of-center non-profit, that seeks to expand mail-in voting. ⁸

AFYO has advocated for government-funded university tuition, a cap on student loan payments, expansion of publicly owned housing, rent caps, reserved labor union positions on company boards, and increased taxes on wealth through its “Broke AF” initiative. ¹⁰

Network

Alliance for Youth Organizing’s civic engagement network consists numerous state- and local-level left-wing advocacy groups. These groups include MOVE Texas, the New Hampshire Youth Movement, Chicago Votes, the Georgia Youth Justice Coalition, New Era Colorado, the Ohio Student Association, the Asian Community Development Councial, and Forward Montana. ¹¹

According to AFYO’s 2023 annual report, Chicago Votes distributed over 90,000 voter guides and registered 1,615 imprisoned individuals to vote. Chicago Votes campaigns for the restoration of voting rights for those incarcerated. ¹¹

Leadership

The Alliance for Youth Organizing shares several staff with the related advocacy group Alliance for Youth Action but maintains its own separate board of directors. ¹²

Dakota Hall is the executive director of the Alliance for Youth Organizing (AFYO), having held the position since 2021. He previously served as executive director of community activist group Leaders Igniting Transformation as well as several positions with local left-wing group Milwaukee Inner City Congregations Allied for Hope (MICAH). ^{13 14}

Whitney Porter is the board chair for Alliance for Youth Organizing (AFYO). Porter works as chief operating officer (COO) for Jews United for Justice (JUFJ). ¹⁵

Board member Liba Rubenstein is senior advisor for Civic Alliance and formerly senior vice president of social impact at 21^st Century Fox. ¹⁶

Board member and Treasurer Catherine Lerza is a consultant and previously was senior philanthropic advisor at the left-of-center Tides Foundation. ¹⁷

Board member Vaughn Frisby is director of philanthropy at SAGE and previously held positions at the Trevor Project; SPUR, an urban planning think tank; the Sierra Club; and San Francisco Aids Foundation. ¹⁸

Alexis Anderson-Reed is a board member of AFYO and the executive director of State Voices. ¹⁹

Board member Tatenda Musapatike is the CEO and founder of the Voter Formation Project. ¹⁹

Funding

In 2023, Alliance for Youth Organizing gave $250,000 to its sister organization Alliance for Youth Action. The group also gave $300,000 to the Minnesota Youth Collective Education Fund, $290,000 to the Chicago Votes Education Fund, $285,000 for the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, and $273,000 for the New Era Colorado Foundation. ²⁰

The group also gave $90,000 to the Tides Foundation, $92,000 to the Tides Center, $70,000 to NEO Philanthropy, and $75,000 to State Voices. AFYO gave $20,000 to Jews United for Justice in 2023. ²⁰

In 2023, the group gave $75,000 to Pizza to the Polls, a group that delivers free food to polling locations. ^{21 20} Partners of Pizza to the Polls include AFYO, the ACLU Georgia, Forward Montana, New Era Colorado, Chicago Votes, MOVE Texas, the Equity Alliance, and Power the Polls. ²²

In 2020, AFYO gave $400,000 to the March for Our Lives Foundation, a gun-control advocacy group. ²³

Financials

In 2023, the organization’s revenue totaled $20,164,183. The organization’s expenses totaled $13,203,136 the same year, and its total assets were $20,604,965. ²⁴

AFYO has received over $7 million in grants from the Ford Foundation, a left-of-center organization and one of the largest grant making institutions in the United States. In 2018, the Ford Foundation gave AFYO a $500,000 grant for to drive civic engagement “for young women, immigrants, youth of color, and low-income youth.” ²⁵

In 2021, AFYO received $100,000 from George Soros’s Foundation to Promote Open Society. The grant was earmarked for supporting the MOVE Texas Civic Action Fund to support “young students of color in civic engagement.” ²⁶

In 2023, the Susan Thompson Buffet Foundation, a large left-of-center grantmaking focusing on abortion access, gave $251,000 to AFYO. ²⁷

AFYO has also received multiple grants from nonprofits in the Arabella Advisors orbit, including $1,250,000 from the Telescope Fund in 2022, $525,000 from the Windward Fund in 2022, and $230,000 from the New Venture Fund in 2022 as well as another grant of $265,000 in 2021. ^{28 29 30 31}

Other donors to AFYO include the Marguerite Casey Foundation which gave $500,000 to AFYO in 2022, the Tides Foundation which gave $1.5 million in 2022, and the Skoll Foundation which gave $1 million to AFYO in 2021. ^{32 33 34}

1. “Home.” Alliance for Youth Organizing. Accessed January 2, 2025. https://allianceforyouthorganizing.org/.
2. “Democracy Done Right.” Alliance for Youth Organizing. Accessed May 19, 2020. https://allianceforyouthorganizing.org/campaign/democracy-done-right/.
3. “2019 Annual Report.” Alliance For Youth Organizing. Archived from the original October 19, 2020. Accessed January 2, 2025. https://web.archive.org/web/20201019221401/https://alliance4youth.wpengine.com/action/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2020/04/AYA_AnnualReport2019.pdf
4. Alliance for Youth Organizing, Return of Organization Exempt form Income Tax (Form 990), 2016, Block B and Block C https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/display_990/462465621/IRS%2F462465621_201612_990_2017080114598995
5. “Matt Singer – Partner – Impactual.” LinkedIn. Accessed January 2, 2025. https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattsinger7/.
6. Ablow, Gail. “Make It Weird: Getting the Youth Vote Out.” Medium. Carnegie Reporter, July 6, 2017. https://medium.com/carnegie-reporter/make-it-weird-getting-the-youth-vote-out-7109a4279e51
7. “Alliance For Youth Organizing.” Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax (Form 990). 2018. Part II-A, Line 2d. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/462465621/202040369349300339/full
8. “+1 the Polls.” Alliance for Youth Organizing. Accessed November 25, 2024. https://web.archive.org/web/20210718231742/https://allianceforyouthorganizing.org/plus1thepolls/.
9. “Campus Takeover.” Alliance for Youth Organizing. Accessed November 25, 2024. https://allianceforyouthorganizing.org/campus-takeover/.
10. “Broke AF.” Alliance for Youth Organizing. Archived from the original September 24, 2020. Accessed January 2, 2025. https://web.archive.org/web/20200924105346/https://allianceforyouthorganizing.org/campaign/broke-af/
11. “Alliance For Youth Organization Annual Report 2023.” Alliance for Youth Organizing . Accessed November 25, 2024. https://allianceforyouthorganizing.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/2024-AYO-Annual-Report-for-2023.pdf.
12. “Staff & Board.” Alliance for Youth Organizing. Accessed May 18, 2020. https://allianceforyouthorganizing.org/about/staff-board/.
13. “Staff.” Alliance for Youth Organizing, Accessed February 27, 2024. https://allianceforyouthorganizing.org/about/staff-board/
14. “Dakota Hall.” LinkedIn, Accessed February 27, 2024. https://www.linkedin.com/in/dakotahall
15. “Whitney Porter.” Jews United for Justice, Accessed February 27, 2024. https://jufj.org/team/whitney-porter/
16. “Liba Wenig Rubenstein.” LinkedIn. Accessed January 2, 2025. https://www.linkedin.com/in/libawr/
17.  “Catherine Lerza.” LinkedIn. Accessed January 2, 2025. https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherine-lerza-1252535/
18.  “Vaughn Frisby.” LinkedIn. Accessed January 2, 2025. https://www.linkedin.com/in/vaughn-frisby-56930514/
19. “Staff.” Alliance for Youth Organizing. Accessed November 25, 2024. https://allianceforyouthorganizing.org/about/staff-board/.
20. “Alliance for Youth Organizing,” Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax (Form 990) 2023. Schedule I. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/462465621/202432409349300933/IRS990ScheduleI
21. “About.” Pizza to the Polls. Accessed November 25, 2024. https://polls.pizza/about.
22. “Partners.” Pizza to the Polls. Accessed November 25, 2024. https://polls.pizza/partners.
23. Stilson, Robert. “The Funders of Gun Control Advocacy.” Capital Research Center, March 29, 2023. https://capitalresearch.org/article/the-funders-of-gun-control-advocacy/.
24. “Alliance for Youth Organization,” Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax (Form 990) 2023. Page 1 Lines 12, 18, and 20.
25. “Grants Database.” Ford Foundation. Accessed November 25, 2024. https://www.fordfoundation.org/work/our-grants/awarded-grants/grants-database/?search=Alliance%2Bfor%2BYouth%2BOrganizing.
26. “Open Society Foundations – Awarded Grants, Scholarships, and Fellowships.” Open Society Foundations – Awarded Grants, Scholarships, and Fellowships – Open Society Foundations. Accessed November 25, 2024. https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/grants/past?filter_keyword=Alliance%2Bfor%2Byouth%2Borganizing&grant_id=OR2021-77984.
27. “Susan Thompson Buffet Foundation,” Return of Private Foundation Exempt From Income Tax (Form 990PF) 2023. Page 11 Part XIV.
28. “Telescope Fund,” Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax (Form 990) 2022. Schedule I.
29. “Windward Fund,” Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax (Form 990) 2022. Schedule I.
30. “New Venture Fund,” Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax (Form 990) 2022. Schedule I.
31. “New Venture Fund,” Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax (Form 990) 2021. Schedule I.
32. “Margurite Casey Foundation,” Return of Private Foundation Exempt From Income Tax (Form 990PF) 2022. Page 11 Part XIV.
33. “Tides Foundation,” Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax (Form 990) 2021. Schedule I.
34. “Skoll Foundation,” Return of Private Foundation Exempt From Income Tax (Form 990PF) 2021. Page 11 Part XIV.