Whether it’s voting rights, fighting for immigrants or pushing for reform in the criminal justice system, the Texas Organizing Project is working to get its message across to the state’s communities. 

The group, known as TOP, covers Dallas, Harris and Bexar counties in its work to bring together Black and brown communities in service of progressive change. 

“Two fists”

Those efforts require what TOP calls a “two fists” approach.

“We organize around issue-­based campaigns, winning tangible improvements for our communities,” the group declares in its mission statement. “We then mobilize our members and supporters around electoral campaigns, effectively increasing voter participation in communities that historically have had low voting rates.”

The group has seven focus areas: criminal justice reform, immigrant rights, a universal healthcare system, voting rights, housing rights, education reform and climate justice. 

Operational details

Founded in 2009 by alumni of community organizing group ACORN, TOP today claims over 285,000 members and supporters and in 2018 had an operating budget of $3,294,050. 

The group’s funding is accented by large grants from foundations and philanthropic giants. It took in $3 million in 2019 from the Silicon Valley Community Foundation and two grants of $200,000 each from the Robert Wood Johnson and Libra Foundations. 

TOP’s 2018 saw the organization get $500,000 from both the Texas Women’s Foundation and the Episcopal Health Foundation, $223,000 from the New Venture Fund, $187,500 from the Marguerite Casey Foundation, $150,000 from the Surdna Foundation and $100,000 from both the Center for Community Change and the Libra Foundation. 

All that cash equals a potential for change in Texas—though it’s one that is under threat from institutional pressures like gerrymandering and state legislative restrictions. 

“Our goal is to transform democracy in Texas, and if we can do that, we can transform the country,” TOP Deputy Director Brianna Brown told The Guardian. “But before we can even start that fight, the lines have already been drawn, limiting our ability to build a democracy that looks like us and shares our values.”

2020 blues

In 2020, the group used get-out-the-vote tactics, including registration drives to try to flip the state. Ultimately, that was not enough. Though he lost the general election, President Donald Trump won the state by a little over 5.5%, or around 630,000 votes. 

Brown said that working to confront inequities in the electoral system by lobbying state lawmakers has been a serious fight for the group—and one with real consequences on its work.

“We’ve had polling place reductions, massive voter purges, a voter-ID law — all attempts by the right wing to consolidate their power and shrink the electorate,” said Brown. “If they can do that, they win.”