Nebraska Appleseed Action Fund

The Nebraska Appleseed Action Fund has supported specific initiatives to pass source-of-income protections for Nebraska tenants, to enshrine abortion rights in the Nebraska constitution, and to expand paid sick leave to all Nebraska workers. ^{1  2  3}

In 2025, the Appleseed Action Fund helped lobby for the passage of the Nebraska Healthy Families and Workplaces Act, which officially codified a paid sick leave mandate on Nebraska employers. ⁴

Activities

The Nebraska Appleseed Action Fund has four main campaigns through which it seeks to achieve its left-of-center policy goals, including by supporting pro-union and pro-welfare ballot initiatives, increasing voter engagement, enabling community organizing, and engaging in legislative advocacy. ¹ For example, in May 2025, the action fund helped lobby for the passage of the Lincoln for Fair Housing ballot initiative, a local ballot measure prohibits landlords and property managers from turning away tenants based solely on how they pay rent. ¹

In 2024, the Nebraska Appleseed Action Fund supported the Protect Our Rights campaign, a Nebraska state ballot initiative to protect abortion rights in the Nebraska state constitution. ² The initiative failed on November 5, 2024. ⁵

Nebraska Appleseed Action Fund claims to have expanded Medicaid coverage to more than 90,000 uninsured Nebraskans in 2018 and to have ended allegedly “predatory” payday lending by capping interest rates in 2020.  In 2022, the group helped raise Nebraska’s minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2026 and scale it to future cost-of-living adjustments thereafter. ⁶

In 2024, the action fund helped establish a paid sick leave mandate on Nebraska employers through its support for Nebraska Ballot Initiative 436, a citizen-led ballot initiative that gives all workers the ability to earn and use paid sick leave. ^{6  3} This ballot initiative became law through the Nebraska Healthy Families and Workplaces Act in October 2025. ⁴

Nebraska Appleseed Center for Law in the Public Interest

The Nebraska Appleseed Center for Law in the Public Interest (Nebraska Appleseed) is the Nebraska Appleseed Action Fund’s sister 501(c)(3) organization. Nebraska Appleseed is a left-of-center advocacy and litigation nonprofit that supports expanding immigration, granting legal status to illegal immigrants, increasing government control of health care, and expanding entitlement programs within the State of Nebraska. ⁷ Nebraska Appleseed supports the expansion of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and works to require that Nebraska public health care is administered in accordance with the policy. ⁸

Leadership

Becky Gould is the executive director of the Nebraska Appleseed Action Fund. ⁹ She is also the executive director of the Nebraska Appleseed Center for Law in the Public Interest, the action fund’s charitable arm. ¹⁰ Gould formerly worked for ISoft Data Systems and sits on the Granary Foundation Board for the Center for Rural Affairs. She received her bachelor’s degree in history, political science, and psychology from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and her law degree from the University of Nebraska College of Law. ^{11  12}

Randall Moody is the president of the board of directors at the Nebraska Appleseed Action Fund. ¹³

Finances

In 2023, the Nebraska Appleseed Action Fund reported $536,492 in total revenue, $243,277 in total expenses, and $385,066 in total assets. ¹⁴