In the past few years, people across America and around the world have witnessed unprecedented movements revolving around issues of equality and justice. In Kentucky, these calls for change have occurred across the state, from big cities to small towns to rural areas.
This growing number of movements sparked an idea in the heads of numerous stakeholders across the Commonwealth: there is mutual benefit in lifting up the most underrepresented or disenfranchised voters in ways that give them the power to be heard. After months of collaboration and strategic analysis with grassroots groups across Kentucky, a new organization was formed: CAVE.
The Commonwealth Alliance Voter Engagement organization is a 501(c)4 nonprofit established to support and coordinate voter engagement efforts of like-minded allies across the Commonwealth. Although the organization only recently planted its metaphorical seed in the state, it has already garnered support from many social justice allies across the state.
CAVE’s mission? To join the civic conversation centered around social, racial, economic, and environmental justice. Particularly, CAVE seeks to harmonize voter engagement efforts around these shared values by engaging with underrepresented and disenfranchised communities across the state.
Although there are prominent figureheads within the organizational structure of the nonprofit — Alicia Hurle, Sellus Wilder, Adrienne Adams, and Reverend Clark Williams — Wilder stressed in an interview that in fact CAVE has too many founders to name. This is partly because of the decentralized nature of their organization. CAVE is effectively “plugged into” the community and has numerous partners and allies.
Ultimately, CAVE is a coalition of organizations:
- CAVE works with and supports labor organizations like United Food and Commercial Workers Local 227 and IUE-CWA that are fighting for the well-being of front-line workers and their families.
- CAVE stands with Black-led organizations like the People’s Campaign in their efforts to engage more voters in underrepresented precincts across the state, and statewide champion Charles Booker’s new effort to empower underrepresented Kentuckians, “The Hood to The Holler.”
- Notably, CAVE is also partnered with the Black Leadership Action Coalition of Kentucky (BLACK), which is an emerging and inclusive network of Black activists across Kentucky working together to enhance Black political clout and to build a legislative agenda grounded in a shared vision and shared values.
Currently, CAVE is focused on tracking bills during the 2021 legislative session and connecting members to various resources in tandem with the former effort. CAVE has created a list of key legislation (which, incidentally, ForwardKY provides daily updates on) based on guidance from outside organizations in line with the organization’s positions on social, racial, economic, and environmental justice.
However, tracking bills is not all that CAVE is about. It also sets the table for its allies to come together and generate collective goals and plans, and works to generate outside support for these established goals as best it can.
One example of a collaborative goal in CAVE’s not-so-distant past was to reach out to Kentuckians, via phone and mail, who recently had their voting rights restored. CAVE helped coordinate this effort undertaken by multiple organizations by providing organizational tools, names, addresses, and other resources to facilitate it.
Another way that CAVE has supported its fellow advocacy organizations in the past includes helping various groups secure grant funding. Through these grants, CAVE has had a hand in many different aspects of voter engagement endeavors across the state.
As it continues to grow, CAVE will build on its core principle: the grassroots ecosystem in Kentucky can work together to engage larger and larger universes of voters and activists who share the same values. By doing so, CAVE and its partners will gain more influence and resources year after year.
CAVE believes that this sort of long-term investment — grassroots organizing and the empowering of underrepresented communities — is what is necessary to see the results they seek: change. In the past year or so, CAVE has sprouted from a seed to a sapling, and in 10-15 years it will become a full-fledged tree with a network of roots.
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If any entity in the Commonwealth is interested in getting involved, whether an individual or an organization, all one has to do is send an email to info@kycave.org, or visit CAVE’s website (kycave.org) and click on the “Contact Us” link embedded in the page. Donations can also be made through the website.