Shortly after the 2016 election, a group of former congressional staffers dejected by the election of President Donald Trump decided to publish a 23-page guide to influencing members of Congress. They intended for the guide to be a practical handbook for pushing back against the GOP agenda; the guide caught fire and led to the momentum to form the activist organization called Indivisible.
Indivisible quickly grew into an organization with thousands of chapters, all dedicated to a single purpose: to defeat the Trump agenda.
The group quickly made its voice heard as local Indivisible groups flooded congressional staffers with phone calls and inundated congresspeople’s town halls, protesting virtually every movement Trump or the GOP made—from cabinet appointees to the GOP’s March 2017 attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act, in the process becoming one of the groups credited with stopping the effort.
Indivisible’s founders, the husband and wife team of Leah Greenberg and Ezra Levin, were among Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of 2019.
But now that the bogeyman is dead—or possibly being physically removed from the White House—what’s left for Indivisible?
Judging from the more than 1,600-person call the organization held in November and Blue Tent interviews with both national and local leaders, the answer seems to be: quite a lot. And while the group suffered disappointing losses among its endorsed candidates in both the 2020 primaries and the general election, Indivisible’s membership numbers, energy level and funding seem to have positioned it for the long term.
“We can’t get complacent”
“We’re pushing on multiple fronts,” Indivisible co-founder Leah Greenberg told Blue Tent, including plans to spend more than $600,000 on the Georgia runoff election, advocate that President-elect Joe Biden nominate progressives to his cabinet, and mount campaigns to try to limit the damage Trump is able to do on his way out.
“The lesson of 2016 was, we can’t get complacent,” said Colorado local Indivisible leader Monica Lynn. “So just because we won this election … doesn’t mean we can sit back on our haunches.” Lynn added that, so far, her group’s plans were to hold their members of Congress accountable on issues from healthcare to financial security and to make sure “Trumpers” don’t take over Congress in 2022.
With more than 20 people on its leadership team and roughly 4,000 followers across its social media platforms, Lynn’s group seems well-positioned to advance its goals.
In Arizona, Signa Oliver is a coordinator of just two of the state’s several Indivisible groups, with a combined following she estimated at more than 1,200 in her groups alone. And while the national organization had a disappointing showing in the 2020 cycle—only one of its endorsed primary candidates won, and the group was three for 20 among endorsed congressional candidates in the general election—the Arizona locals worked hard to help win both of its U.S. Senate seats for Democrats.
“Our groups were out in 120 degrees knocking on doors, getting people registered to make sure that we sent Kyrsten Sinema to the U.S. Senate,” Oliver said, “and then, of course, the former shuttle commander, Mark Kelly, we sent him.”
Between electoral politics and other initiatives, Oliver said Arizona’s Indivisible groups have been involved in more than 400 events statewide. The work isn’t done yet. In addition to supporting reforms to the state’s educational system, holding their Democratic Senators accountable and fighting to remove Confederate monuments, Oliver said that one of Arizona Indivisible’s next tasks is to flip their state legislature and governor’s office.
“We’re still moving forward,” Oliver said.
Oliver’s isn’t the only local Indivisible group that enjoyed electoral success in 2020. After gathering roughly 30 people in “a very dirty dive bar on a snowy January evening,” Scott Bell told Blue Tent the two Indivisible groups he helps coordinate have grown to “just north of 3,000 people”—people who helped elect Rep. Elissa Slotkin to Michigan’s 8th U.S. congressional district in 2018.
Funding for the long term
After raising $7.5 million in 2017, Indivisible Press Secretary Emily Phelps told Blue Tent the group had raised more than $21 million combined for its (c)3, (c)4 and PAC. While 2020 was a “high-water mark,” Phelps said the group is planning to raise a total of $15.5 million in 2021.
“We aim to keep our funding diversified,” she said, with roughly 50% of their support coming from foundations and the rest split between larger individual gifts and its small gift program.
Indivisible has definitely received substantial foundation support. Between its three entities -- Indivisible, Indivisible Fund, and Indivisible Project -- the group has received 8 grants from Tides Advocacy and the Tides Foundation alone, totalling more than $4 million. Other funders have included Ploughshares Fund (3 grants totalling $260,000), The Kohlberg Foundation, Inc. (2 grants worth a total $150,000) and The James Irvine Foundation with one, $125,000 grant.
In addition to funding its 111 staff members, Indivisible also shares the wealth with local groups. GROW grants comprise money given by the national to local groups, and Indivisible also has a Distributed Fundraising program in which it acts as a fiduciary for locals, allowing them to fundraise without having to incorporate as formal organizations.
Monica Lynn in Colorado estimated her group has raised close to $30,000 using the Distributed Fundraising program.
“The future is looking very good”
While the national organization didn’t answer questions about the performance of its endorsed congressional candidates, the leader of its congressional endorsement work, Lucy Solomon, did respond when asked about the group’s primary win-loss tally. “Our mission at Indivisible is to build local progressive power, everywhere. That means backing progressive candidates over the course of multiple cycles and sometimes in uphill battles,” she said, adding that it usually takes two cycles to unseat an incumbent and that primaries are also a good way to increase general-election turnout and to encourage Democrat incumbents to take more progressive positions.
Michigan’s Scott Bell, for one, is ready to keep building that progressive power—and is certain he’s not alone.
“I think the infrastructure is there, and I think folks are engaged because everyone knows we’re not out of the woods yet,” said Bell, who first became active during Sen. John Kerry’s presidential campaign. “Maybe come talk to me in May of 2022 and I’ll let you know how I feel about our chances nationally in the midterms, but right now, I would say yes, the future is looking very good.”
