Voices for Progress Education Fund is an advocacy and coordination group for left-of-center donors and a nonprofit project of the Tides Center. It is affiliated with Voices for Progress, an advocacy project of the Tides Foundation-affiliated Advocacy Fund, and the 527 political action committee Voices for Progress (PAC).

The organization works to promote left-of-center causes on the federal level. The organization and its members lobby Congress to push left-progressive issues such as environmentalist policy to combat climate change, government regulation of the economy, wealth redistribution, expanded voting privileges, and the implementation of new campaign speech restrictions. ¹

Overview

The Voices for Progress Education Fund is an advocacy and coordination group for left-wing donors. including philanthropists, entrepreneurs, business owners, entertainers, and other left-wing activists. The members come together to donate money to candidates and lobby for various left-of-center causes. ²

The Voices for Project Education Fund has extensively lobbied for the government to take action to combat climate change. The Fund has also called on the implementation of measures to increase the government’s regulation of the energy sector, increase government regulation of the economy, and increase wealth redistribution. The organization has also advocated for changing the election and campaign finance system in order to restrict free speech, which many presume would make it more difficult for conservative candidates to win elections. ³

The organization is officially a part of the Tides Center, a left-of-center nonprofit. While the Tides Center is based in San Francisco, California, the organization is based in Washington, D.C. with an address on K Street, which is home to influential lobbying firms and nonprofits. ⁴

The organization was founded by left-of-center nonprofit executive Sanford Newman, who also worked as its first president.

Leadership

The current president of the Voices for Progress Education Fund is Sandra Fluke, who also currently sits as the president of Voices for Progress. Previously, Fluke helped establish the California chapter of Voices for Progress in 2015. Before becoming president of the organization, she was the national membership and development director for Voices for Progress. Before that, she was in charge of membership recruitment and engagement throughout the western U.S for the organization. Before joining Voices for Progress, Fluke was a failed candidate for the California State Senate. Fluke is best known for her Congressional testimony in support of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) mandate that forced all insurers to provide contraception coverage, which triggered a feud with conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh. ⁵

Sarah Cotton is the vice president and political director of the Voices for Progress Education Fund. Previously, she was the chief operating officer and national director at Voices for Progress. Before joining the Voices for Progress network, she was a finance director for multiple congressional campaigns and worked at the Democratic Congressional Campaigns Committee (DCCC) as southern candidate services director. ⁶

Robert Stephens is the policy director for the Education Fund and for Voices For Progress. Previously, he established the Justice Through Police Reform PAC, a left-of-center criminal justice policy organization that fought for the implementation of new police policy at the state and local level. Stephens also previously worked as the political director for the ACLU of North Carolina. Before that, he worked in the office of the late U.S. Representative John Lewis (D-GA) after working on Barack Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign. ⁷

Daniel Penchina previously worked as president of the Voices for Progress Education Fund. Penchina is a political consultant who also worked on Capitol Hill for U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL). ⁸

1.   “Home Page”. 2021. Voices For Progress. Accessed January 18. https://voicesforprogress.org/.
2.    “Home Page”. 2021. Voices For Progress. Accessed January 18. https://voicesforprogress.org/.
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4. “Voices For Progress Education Fund (VPEF)”. 2021. Tides Center. Accessed January 18. https://www.tides.org/project/social-venture/voices-for-progress-education-fund-vpef/.
5.        “Staff”. 2021. Voices For Progress. Accessed January 18. https://voicesforprogress.org/staff-advisors/.
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8. Rosenstein, Peter. 2017. “Comings & Goings”. Washington Blade: Gay News, Politics, LGBT Rights. https://www.washingtonblade.com/2017/05/06/daniel-penchina-jordan-schwartz/.