Clear Eyes, Full Force

Seven years in, Indivisible continues to organize the largest pro-democracy grassroots movement in the country. Our local Indivisible groups spread across just about every congressional district – in red, blue, and purple areas, in city centers, suburban, exurbs, and rural areas. We’re everywhere.

This isn’t what most predicted seven years ago – and for good reason. Activist engagement has a predictable life cycle. An event occurs – an opportunity or a catastrophe – that serves as a wake-up call. Outrage spikes. Battles are waged and won, lost, or fought to a stalemate. Throughout it all, inevitably, relentlessly, and without regard from the broader sociopolitical currents of our world – life happens. People move, have kids or grandkids, get new jobs, get sick, get distracted, or just get burned out. For all but the most committed of the diehards, individual activism naturally wanes over time.

And yet, seven years in, Indivisible remains a powerhouse of community organizing and pro-democracy advocacy.

How is this persistence possible?

Indivisible’s unit of activism is not the individual – it’s the local group. These thousands of locally led, volunteer Indivisible groups across the country came together in defense of democracy, but they’ve stayed together because of the communities they’ve formed, the relationships they’ve developed, and the shared sense of purpose we’ve fostered at the national level.

As in every year since our founding in early 2017, 2023 brought us a new political reality, new allies, new opponents, new opportunities, and new challenges. Through it all, Indivisible was there to provide our local groups with resources to persist, build, and contribute to the fight for our democracy.

They haven’t been alone.

How do you develop new leaders to shoulder the burden of group management and leadership? How do you hold community events to recruit new members? How do you pay for your meeting reservation or fundraise for postcards and signage, or get a few pizzas for an after-hours meeting? What topic of the day do you include in your monthly local newsletter or in your weekly meeting agenda? Who do you reach out to for help on a training or a messaging campaign?

Well, if you’re an Indivisible leader, you can reach out to Indivisible. You call your regional organizer, you peruse the Indivisible national resource hub, and you crib from Indivisible’s national trainings, newsletters, and organizing events.

The Indivisible movement is built on a partnership between these committed, selfless local leaders doing the organizing work on the ground, and the national organization made up of organizers, communications experts, digital mavens, policy wonks, data specialists, and legal and technical gurus.

As we look ahead to the challenges and opportunities of 2024, we know that our democracy is not a prize to be won. It’s a process that we can choose to participate in or allow to falter. We choose to persist.

In solidarity,
Ezra Levin and Leah Greenberg,
Co-Founders and Co-Executive Directors, Indivisible