Houston in Action Network (HiA)

HiA is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in Houston, Texas that originally began as fiscally sponsored project of the grantmaking foundation Houston Endowment, gaining tax-exempt status in 2022. ^{5  6} According to the organization’s 2024 tax filing, HiA reported $8,565,629 in revenue, $9,798,403 in total assets, and $10,568,871 in expenses, with the majority of revenue coming from individual contributions and grants. ⁷ The organization has also received funding from left-of-center grantmakers such as the NEO Philanthropy Action Fund and New Venture Fund. ⁸

Background

Houston in Action Network began as a regional civic engagement initiative fiscally sponsored by Houston Endowment, with the goal of coordinating nonprofit organizations around long-term civic-participation efforts. ⁵

HiA gained 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status in 2022 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas. ^{5  6}

The organization claims to bring together local leaders to increase collaboration and regional capacity for community engagement in the Houston area. ⁵ HiA later expanded its focus beyond voter participation to include census outreach, local governance issues, state governance issues, and public health issues. ^{3  2  4  9}

Advocacy

Electoral Initiatives

Houston in Action Network has worked on programming which the organization claims helps voters cast ballots “safely and easily.” HiA has described its work as involving coordination with the Harris County clerk’s office and training community organizations to influence voters at polling locations. ¹⁰

The Movement Voter Project, an organization that acts as a clearinghouse for Democratic donors to contribute to Democratic-aligned political groups, has urged donors to give support to HiA. It described Houston in Action as part of broader “voter protection” and “electoral reform” efforts in Texas, including work connected to the Texas Legislature and left-of-center redistricting advocacy. ¹¹

Houston in Action has also been associated with the #HTownVotes initiative, an effort combining art and political organizing that aimed to increase civic participation among Black Houston residents. ¹² According to the Defender Network, the initiative claimed to engage artists, cultural organizations, and community groups to promote voter registration and turnout among younger and Black voters. ¹² The campaign included public-facing programming and collaborations that claimed to integrate electoral engagement messaging into Houston’s arts and cultural spaces. ¹²

Grow the Circle

HiA’s “Grow the Circle” campaign is a voter registration and turnout effort that the organization claims is focused on “historically underrepresented” voters in the Houston region. ^{13  14}

HiA’s voter advocacy efforts are primarily carried out through this campaign, partnering with arts organizations across the Houston area to pool resources and coordinate voter mobilization initiatives. ¹³

In 2022, left-of-center transportation-advocacy group LINK Houston partnered with Houston in Action during the midterm elections claiming to “encourage voter participation” and “reduce barriers to accessing polling locations,” including by producing neighborhood maps showing voting sites alongside bikeways and transit routes. ^{14  15}

In 2024, the left-of-center legal policy coalition Alliance for Justice published an advocacy playbook titled “Democracy & Equity” that referenced Grow the Circle as an example of a coalition-based campaign intended to increase turnout among “underrepresented” voters. ¹⁶

Census 2020 Campaign

HiA participated in Census 2020 “complete count” advocacy and outreach in partnership with local government and civic institutions. A City of Houston agenda document for the Census 2020 engagement initiative stated that the city “partnered at no cost” with Houston in Action, which was said to be “funded by Houston Endowment,” and that Houston in Action provided the “lion’s share of volunteers” for high-touch outreach before the COVID-19 pandemic reportedly disrupted volunteer operations. ¹⁷

The left-of-center think tank Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University published an evaluation of the “Say Yes to the Census” Get Out the Count campaign that assessed outreach undertaken by Houston in Action and partners across Harris County. It found that the initiative deployed a mix of data-driven strategies including machine-learning household identification, experimental messaging tests, and in-person and phone canvassing to inform residents about the 2020 Census and support “increased response” efforts. ¹⁸

Understanding Houston, a data initiative associated with area philanthropic and civic partners, also described HiA as having a “mission to increase access and breakdown systemic barriers to civic participation” through facilitating the Complete Count Committee, a regional partnership with the City of Houston and Harris County aimed at engaging minority community groups to actively participate in the census count. ^{19  20}

Unity Maps Campaign

HiA has participated in community mapping initiatives and redistricting advocacy in Harris County. In 2021, local media reported that a coalition of community organizations that included Houston in Action drew and promoted a “Unity” map during precinct redistricting debates. The “Unity” map proposal was intended to correct what the organizations alleged was Texas’ “long history of targeting communities of color and excluding them from the political process by dividing them along district lines.” However, the proposal was ultimately rejected in favor of the “Ellis 3” map proposal, which was the subject of a lawsuit by Harris County’s two Republican commissioners because the map would have placed Harris County Commissioner Tom Ramsay into a Democratic-leaning district. The Texas Supreme Court ultimately declined to hear the challenge to the “Ellis 3” map, allowing the newly proposed map to take effect in 2022. ^{3  21  22  23  24}

Later, a 2025 redistricting roadmap published by the left-of-center redistricting coalition Fair Representation in Redistricting (FRR) cited HiA, highlighting the Unity Maps campaign and claiming that the campaign successfully put pressure on local leaders which influenced the decision of multiple final adopted maps across county, municipal, and school board districts. ²⁵

Public Safety Project

HiA has engaged in advocacy related to criminal justice and public safety policy in Harris County. In August 2024, a Harris County Commissioners Court meeting record included public comment delivered “on behalf of Houston in Action, the Public Safety Project,” a left-of-center policy platform that the organization advocated candidates for Harris County district attorney and sheriff to adopt during the 2024 election cycle. ^{26  27}

Later, in October 2024, the Houston Chronicle reported on a forum conducted through HiA’s “Public Safety Project,” describing it as an effort aimed at urging the next Harris County district attorney and sheriff to implement soft-on-crime policies the effort claimed would help “reduce mass incarceration.” ²⁸

As of 2026, the Public Safety Project’s campaign website was no longer available. It appeared to have been a fiscally sponsored project of Houston in Action that was shuttered. ²⁹

#SaferTogether Vaccine Campaign

During the COVID-19 pandemic, HiA was identified as an anchor partner in the Rockefeller Foundation’s Equity-First Vaccination Initiative, which claimed to focus on hyper-local networks intended to “increase vaccine access” and “reduce racial and ethnic disparities in vaccination.” ⁴

The Equity-First Vaccination Initiative was launched in 2021 by the Rockefeller Foundation as a multi-city effort to fund local nonprofit “anchor partners” that would coordinate community-based organizations, conduct outreach, and organize vaccination events in neighborhoods identified as having low vaccination rates. ^{4  30}

In Houston, HiA’s role included convening community partners, supporting vetted messengers, and facilitating localized outreach strategies aimed at increasing vaccine uptake in minority communities. ³¹

HiA has also publicly associated its COVID-related outreach with the “#SaferTogether” label, which it listed as a past campaign on the organization’s website. ^{32  31}

Working Groups

Houston in Action organizes several working groups intended to coordinate sustained issue-specific engagement among member organizations and community stakeholders. The Voter Engagement Working Group claims to focus on strategies to increase voter registration, turnout, and electoral participation across Harris County, including sharing resources with other organizations, aligning outreach timing, and supporting get-out-the-vote activities. ³³

HiA’s LGBTQ+ Working Group is a coalition space for organizations and advocates that claim to focus on issues affecting LGBT communities. The group aims to identify LGBT policy priorities and facilitate coordinated advocacy towards counteracting “Texas’s harsh anti-LGBTQ+ legislation.” ³⁴

HiA’s Climate Justice Working Group partners with the Hive Fund for Climate and Gender Justice (Hive Fund), a left-of-center grantmaking organization that provides funds to left-of-center nonprofits run by women, racial minorities, and “gender nonconforming people” devoted to transitioning away from conventional fuels in favor of weather-dependent energy, in order to support the “equitable implementation of the IRA (Inflation Reduction Act).” ³⁵ HiA further claims that the creation of this working group is in accordance with the “priorities determined by this LGBTQ+ Organizing Working Group” indicating close alignment between the Climate Justice and LGBTQ+ Working Groups. ³⁵

HiA defines Cultural Organizing as the “intersection of arts, culture, and community organizing” and created the Cultural Organizing Working Group in order to “merge all of these groups together can and will advance social justice.” ³⁶ This working group claims that it “connects cultural engagement with public policy” by fostering partnerships between artists and other “cultural practitioners” and civic leaders, supporting campaigns aimed at “building relationships among elected officials, government agencies, business owners, and community activists.” ³⁶

Criticism

Harris County Precinct Redistricting

In 2021, the Harris County Commissioners Court adopted new precinct maps following the 2020 Census. A coalition of community organizations that included Houston in Action promoted a proposed “Unity” map during the redistricting process. ³

Local reporting described the redistricting debate as highly contentious, with Republican officials arguing that the county’s adopted map constituted partisan gerrymandering designed to favor Democratic candidates, while supporters of alternative proposals including the Unity map argued that changes were necessary to reflect population growth and demographic shifts. ^{3  21}

Election Administration Legislation

In 2023, the Texas Legislature passed Senate Bill 1750, which eliminated the Harris County Elections Administrator position and transferred election oversight responsibilities to the County Clerk and Tax Assessor-Collector. ³⁷ Local reporting noted that HiA opposed the legislation and publicly urged county officials to challenge the measure, and Harris County filed suit against the state arguing that the bill targeted the county unfairly. ² In August 2023, the Texas Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the law, and the Elections Administrator position was formally eliminated, with election duties reverting to other county offices. ^{38  39}

Critics of Harris County’s prior election administration structure argued that the centralized Elections Administrator model contributed to ballot paper shortages and polling place issues during the 2022 midterm elections. ⁴⁰ Supporters, including Houston in Action and allied groups, contended that eliminating the position would disrupt election operations and reduce administrative independence. ²

Financials

According to Houstin in Action’s 2024 tax return, the organization lists $8,565,629 in revenue, $10,568,871 in expenses, and $9,518,889 in total assets. ⁷ HiA’s filing indicated that the organization’s revenue consists almost entirely of contributions and grants rather than program service revenue. ⁷

HiA received its seed funding from the grantmaking foundation Houston Endowment, as it initially operated as a fiscally sponsored project of the foundation before becoming an independent organization in 2022. ^{7  5}

HiA has received funding from several left-of-center philanthropic entities. As of 2024, disclosures showed that the NEO Philanthropy Action Fund awarded a $100,000 grant and that the Ford Foundation awarded a $250,000 grant to HiA, while the Heising-Simons Foundation awarded HiA two grants, a $500,000 grant for HiA’s “Youth justice transformation work” and a $200,000 grant for the organization’s “DA Sheriff coalition.” ^{41  42  43}

HiA has further received funding from the New Venture Fund in the form of an $100,550 grant in 2024 for the “Arts, culture, and humanities,” and the State Power Fund in the form of an $85,000 grant in 2023 for general “program services.” ^{44  45}

Houston in Action Network also functions as a grantmaking organization. Recipients have included the left-of-center Movement Strategy Center ($147,692), LINK Houston ($103,846), and Houston Justice ($93,846), among other community-based organizations. These grants are described as supporting civic engagement, community mobilization, and related programming in the Houston region. ⁸

Leadership

Frances E. Valdez was the executive director of Houston in Action Network as of 2026. ⁴⁶ According the So To Speak journal, Valdez co-founded Latino Giving Houston in 2009, an organization that aimed to disburse grants to organizations that exclusively provided services to Houston’s Latino population. ⁴⁷

In January 2024, Valdez joined the board of the national United We Dream network, a left-of-center immigration advocacy organization that opposes the deportation of illegal immigrants, advocates for the full reinstatement of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) partial amnesty program, supports defunding the police and ending all enforcement actions by U.S. immigration authorities, and promotes left-of-center policy on LGBT issues. ⁴⁷ As of 2026, Valdez also sat on the steering committee of the Black Indigenous People of Color Arts Network and Fund (BANF) and has worked in nonprofit and public-sector positions focused on education, workforce development, and community engagement. ^{48  49}