New Georgia Project

The organization advocates a left-of-center identity politics and aims to register largely Democratic-leaning non-white voters across the state of Georgia. The organization has faced accusations of misreporting voter registration statistics, mismanaging organization funds, and violating campaign ethics laws. ¹

2024 Presidential Election

In July 2024, the New Georgia Project criticized a website set up by the state of Georgia to allow former Georgians to easily cancel their voter registration, claiming that it would be easily used to purge Black voters from voting rolls. The group also claimed that the website looked too much like the state’s online voter registration portal, arguing it was “part of an ongoing process at the state level to make the entire voting process seem more confusing and harder than it is.” ³

In August 2024, the New Georgia Project and the A. Philip Randolph Institute filed a lawsuit against the state of Georgia over Senate Bill 189, which the two groups called a “voter suppression” law. The law requires homeless voters who do not have permanent residence to receive election-related mail at their county registrar’s office. The law also makes it easier to challenge the eligibility of voters who may be voting in different jurisdictions. ⁴

In August 2024, the New Georgia Project opposed two rules enacted by the Georgia State Elections Board which gave it the power to not certify election results until after a “reasonable inquiry” has been done into county-level results by board members and to examine all election-related documentation before certifying the results. The group said the rules change “has potential to allow those election deniers who have made it onto seats on election boards in our state to hold up a perfectly viable election to hold that up and to keep it from moving forward as pace as it should.” ⁵

In September 2024, the New Georgia Project released a survey from Sojourn Strategies it commissioned with Detroit Action Education Fund and POWER Interfaith to study the values of Black voters and how it shapes their voting behavior. The group planned to use the results of the survey to tailor outreach efforts. ⁶

In September 2024, the New Georgia Project condemned a decision by the Georgia State Elections Board to require Georgia counties to hand count ballots on and after Election Day as “only serv[ing] to burden our already over-stretched and underfunded elections administration and cast ambiguity over our election results.” The group claimed that the SEB’s decision “continues to fuel baseless lies and conspiracy theories about election fraud in Georgia.” ⁷

The New Georgia Project kicked off its voter registration drive for that year’s presidential election in January, on Martin Luther King Day 2024. By October 2024, the group claimed to have registered around 54,000 new voters to the state’s election rolls. ⁸

Other Activity

In March 2021, New Georgia Project joined with other left-of-center groups in suing the state of Georgia over the passage of an election reform bill that tightened voter ID requirements, limited drop boxes, cracked down on vote buying, among other provisions. The lawsuit claimed that the law made it more difficult for non-white voters to vote. ⁹

In August 2023, New Georgia Project joined with other Georgia-based left-of-center groups to criticize the city of Atlanta for what it called “voter suppression tactics” for using signature matching on signatures to qualify a proposed referendum on the “Cop City” police training center. The signature matching would verify if the signature on petition matched the signature on file when the person registered to vote. The group claimed the “arcane method to verify petition signatures in the push to get a referendum on Cop City on the ballot is the same method used for years by the GOP to throw out valid ballots cast by Georgia voters.” ¹⁰

In August 2024, Center for Popular Democracy Action Fund (now Popular Democracy in Action) wrote a coalition letter that the New Georgia Project joined to then-President Joe Biden under its House Every One! campaign. The letter praised then-President Biden’s plans for nationwide rent control, plans to use U.S. government-owned land to build affordable housing, provide grants to build “deeply affordable” homes, and requiring a 30-day notice for rent increases and lease expirations. The letter also demanded the creation of an Office of Social Housing under the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which would facilitate the development of more government-owned housing. The letter also demanded that tenants be given the right to form unions and bargain collectively with landlords. The letter also demanded that the U.S. government spend $1 trillion over a decade to create 12 million new homes and $230 billion to repair and make environmentalist-compliant existing public housing. ¹¹

In August 2024, the New Georgia Project claimed that health care facilities were closing or limiting resources in majority black areas due to “healthcare redlining” and that expanding Medicaid under Obamacare to more able-bodied adults would help solve the situation. ¹²

In September 2024, the New Georgia Project opposed the redevelopment of the former Atlanta Medical Center site “into apartments, townhomes, retail, greenspaces, healthcare and more.” The group wanted a hospital to reopen at the site citing increased wait times at Grady Memorial Hospital and stating its opposition to gentrification saying, “What once was Georgia Baptist, a hospital started by Black people in a church who needed health care services, [will now] be torn down and looked at as just extending the BeltLine, putting in a pool, these different things.” ¹³

History

2014 Elections and 2016 Preparations

Stacey Abrams, the former Democratic Party leader in the Georgia House of Representatives, the twice unsuccessful Georgia gubernatorial candidate, and professional left-of-center activist, previously worked as the CEO and founder of New Georgia Project. Abrams raised $3 million and set a target to register 120,000 new voters in advance of the 2014 midterm elections; according to Atlanta Magazine, New Georgia Project registered approximately 46,000. ¹⁴

Atlanta Magazine reported that in advance of the 2016 elections, Abrams and New Georgia Project had solicited the left-of-center donor collective Democracy Alliance for “up to $5.9 million for the New Georgia Project” plus an additional $4.35 million for Voter Access Institute, another Abrams-linked advocacy group. ¹⁴

2018 Election-Related Ethics Complaint

In 2019, a Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission complaint alleged that the New Georgia Project and the New Georgia Project Action Fund had engaged in improper activities during the 2018 midterm elections, when New Georgia Project founder Stacey Abrams first unsuccessfully sought the state’s governorship. ¹⁵

Axios reported that the commission alleged that New Georgia Project “illegally canvassed for Democratic candidates including [Stacey] Abrams, used phone bank scripts pushing people to vote Democratic and included ‘#teamAbrams’ in social media posts soliciting donations” during the 2018 election cycle. The complaint claimed that, in total, the New Georgia Project had failed to disclose more than $3 million in illicit electioneering expenses and $4 million in political contributions to state authorities between 2017 and 2019. ¹⁵

The commission proceeded with an investigation, and subpoenaed the bank records of both the New Georgia Project and the New Georgia Project Action Fund in 2019. Within the records, investigators reportedly found evidence that the organizations had paid $36,000 to a printing company to produce “doorknockers” that featured a list of Democrats for whom to vote in the 2018 election. ¹⁶

On August 1, 2022, the commission voted unanimously to advance the complaint, alleging that the New Georgia Project and its affiliated action fund had violated campaign ethics laws eight times. After the unanimous vote of the ethics commission the case moved forward to the office of state administration where a judge would pass final judgment. ¹⁷

In January 2025, during a meeting of the state’s ethics commission, the organization admitted that had illegally campaigned for Abrams during the 2018 elections. The New York Times reported that New Georgia Project and New Georgia Project Action Fund admitted to paying “for fliers and door-to-door canvassers telling voters to support Ms. Abrams and other Democrats” and admitted that it “should have registered with the state as a political committee, but it did not.” Following the concession, both New Georgia Project and its sister group agreed to pay roughly $300,000 in penalties, with $150,000 paid in 2025 and the rest in 2026. ¹⁸

In March 2025, U.S. Rep. Jason Smith (R-MO) wrote a letter to then-Acting IRS Commissioner Melanie Krause urging the agency revoke New Georgia Project’s tax-exempt status due to its work for Abrams’s campaign since charitable organizations are forbidden to campaign for or against a candidate for public office under tax law. ¹⁹

In March 2025, the Georgia Senate Special Committee on Investigations voted to launch an investigation of New Georgia Project as a result of the group’s admissions. ²⁰

2024 Controversies

In October 2024, Capital B News reported that within the past six months, four of New Georgia Project’s executives had either resigned or been dismissed due to internal strife. Current and former staff told the news outlet that due to “a lack of leadership, direction, and overall mismanagement” the group had only knocked on a little more than 500,000 doors in 2024, which put it well behind its goal of 3.7 million doors. The report blamed board chair Francys Johnson for the group’s problems. The executives who left the group accused Johnson of, “creating conflicts of interest with his other ventures, stacking the governance boards with his friends, and other instances of overreach from his board positions.”  Three unidentified funders suspended their support of New Georgia Project over concerns over Johnson’s leadership. ²¹

Capital B News reported that Keron Blair, the group’s chief of field and organizing, was fired in the summer of 2024 after an investigation into a relationship with a subordinate found no wrongdoing. Chief of operations Starla Tanner resigned in May 2024. CEO Kendra Cotton was forced out in June after complaining about Johnson. In July 2024, Chief development officer Candice Drummond announced she would no longer attend board meetings due to her sexual harassment lawsuit against Johnson. In September 2024, chief financial officer Chianeva Smith resigned. ²¹

In February 2025, Francys Johnson announced plans to resign as board chair of the group claiming it was “a great time to bring in fresh perspectives.” ²²

Layoffs and Unionization Dispute

In January 2025, the New Georgia Project abruptly laid off around a dozen employees. The layoff allegedly came with only 12 hours’ notice and the employees were only given three days of pay and benefits. Jasmine Keith, who was among the laid off employees, had submitted notice claiming that half of the group’s employees wanted to unionize. ²³

In February 2025, the Teamsters Local Union 728 filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board claiming that the group illegally laid off 14 employees in January in retaliation for their unionization efforts. All 14 laid off employees had signed union cards, and federal law bans firing employees for engaging in union activities. ²⁴

2025 Cease of Operations

In November 2025, the New Georgia Project announced it would cease operations and shut down. The decision came amid scrutiny from the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee, which had launched an investigation into whether the organization, founded by Stacey Abrams in 2014, had violated its tax-exempt status by improperly contributing funds to Abrams’s 2018 gubernatorial campaign. Earlier in the year, Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R–MO) called on the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to revoke NGP’s 501(c)(3) status. The organization’s closure followed ongoing inquiries by both the committee and the Georgia State Ethics Commission regarding alleged undisclosed expenditures and campaign-related activities. ²⁵

Other Controversies

Black Man Lab

In 2020, Francys Johnson, then board chair of New Georgia Project, partnered with attorneys Mawuli Davis and Robert Bozeman to form the law firm Davis Bozeman Johnson Law. Davis formed a nonprofit group, Black Man Lab. The New Georgia Project donated in support of Black Man Lab whose primary activities and events were in support of Davis’s book, We Need You, according to Capital B News. ²¹

By the fall of 2022, New Georgia Project paid Black Man Lab $110,000 for “political engagement with black men” despite not providing any metrics justifying the money. In February 2024, New Georgia Project executives declined to sponsor an all-star basketball game with historically Black colleges and universities to promote social justice for which Davis approached the group. The executives claimed the game did not align with its Georgia-focused mission. After the refusal to fund the game, Johnson began ousting the executives who opposed the game’s funding, replacing them with his personal connections. In September 2024, Black Man Lab kicked off a Georgia-wide bus tour funded by New Georgia Project. ²¹

Employee Firing Group Chat

In November 2022, screenshots were obtained by Fox News Digital of exchanges written in May 2022 among members of NGP leadership, including CEO Kendra Cotton, chief field and organizing officer Keron Blair, and chief technology officer Gabe Posey discussing how to justify firing a white female NGP staffer. According to the exchange, dubbed “T-Shirt Debacle,” the discussion and justification centered around how said employee, an NGP executive administrator, had placed an order for more units of a T-shirt of which the organization already had a surplus. ²⁶ In response to how the administrator might file for wrongful termination should she be fired, Blair commented,

“If we are going to fire her or [terminate] her, then let’s make a strategic plan to do so… It can’t be based on something that falls apart with scrutiny. It has been my experience that young, white, seemingly progressive, lesbian women/men do not go quietly into the night…” ²⁶

Later on, Cotton suggested finding and using charges of racism as a justification for firing the administrator, commenting, “Let’s go the hostile work environment route and pull on the racism thread…” ²⁶ An unidentified executive in the chat would later write, “We can’t do to this girl to what white folks have been doing to us for generations…Due process is all I’m saying…We need a RECORD.” ²⁶

An NGP spokesperson later commented to Fox News Digital that the organization, “…does not believe in drumming up false racism charges to justify firing an employee.” ²⁶ The spokesperson also claimed that Melissa Koefod, then-chief operating officer of NGP who was also on the exchange, had brought up charges of racism against the female employee but due to not submitting receipts of such exchanges, the company did not allow charges to proceed. Koefod responded by claiming that she did forward concerns brought up by NGP organizers to company leadership, but she believed that leadership staff was afraid to fire the staffer as they feared the female employee had records of the CEO “infantilizing and bullying her for being white. ²⁶ Koefod also noted she was “surprised at first at how fearful they were of former employees thinking, why be so scared if you aren’t doing anything wrong.”²⁶

Firing of CFO Ralph Fraizer

On November 4, 2022, the Washington Free Beacon reported that an anonymous executive within the company claimed that NGP CFO Ralph Fraizer had been fired from his position in June 2022 after requesting that leadership hire a forensic accountant to scrutinize NGP finances. According to the Free Beacon report, Frazier had warned NGP executives that “he couldn’t do his job without violating the law.” ²⁷

An anonymous former executive also alleged that CEO Kendra Cotton had rejected a request by the then-chief operating officer to hire a new accountant in August 2022 by texting, “We are HYPER SENSITIVE [sic] about who we let around our financial info.”  ²⁷

Frazier, due to signing a non-disclosure agreement, did not comment on the story, but according to the Washington Free Beacon, NGP sent a text message to its employees stating that speaking with the press was a violation of their “Contact the Media” policy and that those who were approached by press should inform their supervisors immediately.  ²⁷

2021 990 Discrepancies

In February 2023, the Washington Free Beacon reported that NGP’s 2021 tax filings had a discrepancy of over $500,000 According to the story, the NGP’s 2021 filing included a $533,846 consulting payment as well as a $67,500 grant paid to Black Male Initiative, a charity group owned by Edima Ufot, the brother of former NGP CEO Nse Ufot whom then-NGP board chair Francys Johnson had fired in October 2022. ²⁸ However, Black Male Initiative claimed it had never received the grant amount, even releasing its tax returns to the Washington Free Beacon showing, “$0 in consulting income and just $255,000 in contributions from all sources in 2021.” ²⁸ Nonprofit attorney Alan Dye commented, “This is something that the Internal Revenue Service should be interested in…particularly with the added element of the former officer possibly pocketing the money…Something’s rotten in the state of Denmark.” ²⁸

According to the Free Beacon, there existed additional discrepancies on the group’s 2021 tax returns especially in comparison to its 2020 returns. The Free Beacon reported that NGP’s 2021 returns showed that the group paid $5,671,892 in compensation that year for 105 employees, but the previous year saw NGP pay $19,142,227 in compensation for 173 employees, or a $17 million discrepancy between the two years. ²⁸ The Free Beacon also reported that NGP’s 2020 form shows it paid $0 in payroll taxes that year. Dye reacted by claiming, “I have no idea how a charity can have 173 paid employees and pay no payroll taxes. It’s just not possible…I can’t answer that question. There should be no excuse for that.”  ²⁸

In addition, the 2021 form reportedly showed that Ufot, while still working for NGP, was the only employee listed to have received a six-figure salary that year. ²⁸ However, an anonymous former executive for NGP claimed that at least two other employees had received a similar salary that year. Capital Research Center president Scott Walter commented, “Such a bizarre discrepancy is highly unusual and certainly cause to question the merits of the accountant. In a proper accounting firm, at least 2 or 3 people would have had to examine the return before sending it to the group, and no such wild error should have been missed.” ²⁸

The New Georgia Project Action Fund had also reported a $25,000 payment to the Committee for a New Georgia in 2021, an organization described to be the Action Fund’s “independent affiliated political committee.”  ²⁸ However, the 2021 tax return filed by the Committee for a New Georgia showed it had actually received roughly $36,000 from the Action Fund in October 2021 instead. ²⁸

Identity Politics

New Georgia Project advocates for race and ethnicity-based identity politics. The organization advertises on its website the goal of registering all voters “of color” in the state of Georgia. The organization claims that voting right of people of color are “under attack” and that the state willfully prevents people of color from voting. ²⁹

NGP partners with religious organizations with predominately African-American congregations to host voter registration drives and to educate congregants of voter rights. NGP also hosts an online left-of-center and liberal forum it calls “Forum for Faith and Politics,” to push identity politics. Speaking topics have included titles such as, “Politics, Black Liberation, and Theologies of Resistance,” a podcast in which former executive director for NGP, Nse Ufot, discussed left-of-center race politics with Michael Honor, a pastor at a Georgia church and author on similarly motivated issues. ³⁰

People

Francys Johnson, a left-leaning activist and civil rights lawyer, was the chair of New Georgia Project’s board of directors. In February 2025, he announced his intention to step down. ³¹ Johnson assumed the post in 2020 after now-U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock (D-GA), stepped down to run for Senate. Previously, Johnson was president of the Georgia NAACP ³² and an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives. ³³

Sen. Raphael Warnock was the former chair of the board of directors for NGP, serving in the position from 2017 t0 2019. Prior to his campaign for U.S. Senate, Warnock was a pastor in Georgia. He was tapped by the Obama administration to deliver numerous prayers and dedications for events during Barack Obama’s presidency. ³⁴

Nse Ufot is the former executive director and CEO of NGP. Ufot previously worked as a lawyer in the Atlanta, Georgia area. Ufot’s time as an attorney was spent negotiating labor contracts. She also worked in the political arm of AFSCME, a large labor union representing government workers. ³⁵

Ufot stepped down from her position as CEO in 2022. According to a letter she wrote that NGP released, she did so “out of love.”  According to the Washington Free Beacon, private correspondence appeared to show that NGP board chairman Francys Johnson had fired Ufot and several other employees including the group’s then-chief legal officer and deputy general counsel. ³⁶

Kendra Cotton replaced Nse Ufot as NGP’s CEO. She was previously the group’s chief operating officer. Before she joined NGP, she was the managing director of Planned Parenthood Southeast Advocates, the founding executive director of Represent Georgia Institute, campaign manager for the Georgia Association of Educators, and the political director for the Democratic Party of Georgia. ³⁷ Cotton was forced out of her position in June 2024 ²¹ and was replaced by Roslyn Satchel who worked as interim CEO until January 2025. ³⁸

Funding and Associated Organizations

The New Georgia Project (NGP) received a grant of an undisclosed amount in 2020 from the Marguerite Casey Foundation, a left-of-center grantmaking entity, as part of a $5 million grantmaking effort that the foundation dedicated to increasing voter engagement from left-leaning demographics across the country. ³⁹

NGP also received a grant in 2015 of an undisclosed amount from the Northstar Fund, a New York based left-of-center grantmaking entity. ⁴⁰ The group also received grants of undisclosed amounts from Democracy Fund, a left-of-center grantmaking organization which funds a variety of left-of-center and liberal entities. ⁴¹

New Georgia Project is a partner organization with the Center for Popular Democracy, a left-of-center multi-issue organizing group funded by major left-of-center grantmaking entities such as Democracy Alliance and the Ford Foundation.  ⁴²