We are excited to share a new, independent report from the University of Southern California’s Equity Research Institute, Catalyzing Community-Centered Redistricting for Racial Equity: Lessons from the Fair Representation in Redistricting Initiative.

Commissioned by Fair Representation in Redistricting and informed by surveys and interviews with FRR grantees, as well as funders, the FRR team, and key state-level informants, the report shares findings on the impact of groups’ extraordinary efforts, as well as recommendations for the work ahead. There are important insights here for both practitioners and funders.

Looking ahead to the 2031 cycle, FRR is taking seriously the report’s guidance that “if you are always ready, you don’t have to get ready.” In the coming months, we will be listening to key stakeholders and developing a shared roadmap to expand fair representation for communities of color during the 2031 redistricting cycle and through district map re-draws happening now. FRR looks forward to sharing this roadmap with funders and practitioners as they consider their own strategies for the coming years.  

FRR’s key takeaways from the report are:

Lessons from the FRR Experiment

Through “learning by doing” for the 2021-22 cycle, FRR laid a strong foundation for an emerging field of community-centered redistricting:

• FRR’s engagement is changing the terrain for redistricting. Grassroots communities of color were engaged in state and local redistricting at unprecedented levels, many for the first time. The public narrative on gerrymandering–once focused exclusively on the “partisan horse race”–shifted to include fairness and racial equity. New innovations like the Redistricting Data Hub are making the redistricting process more accessible to community organizations. But there is still more work to do to ensure that historically marginalized populations are fully represented in statewide coalitions from the beginning.

• Fueled by new philanthropic resources, practitioners developed and scaled effective strategies. Grassroots organizing strategies, including popular education, were critical to increasing the participation of communities of color in redistricting. In tandem, transparency and accountability campaigns to make public hearings more accessible ensured that communities could engage. State collaborative tables played an important role, bringing together grassroots power-building organizations with grasstops groups focused on legal, policy, and advocacy activities–groups that too often work in their own silos. Regional and national hubs provided additional support for grassroots groups. Critically, FRR recognized that needs and strategies on redistricting differ state-to-state and worked to support multiple strategies.

• Practitioners emphasize that securing fair maps is ongoing, multi-cycle work. Whether state groups had been working on redistricting efforts for decades or were new to the effort, they viewed the work as lasting beyond the one or two years of line drawing, and stressed the role of reform campaigns and post-redistricting litigation. The report also finds that FRR made a lasting impact on capacity in the states, laying a strong foundation for future cycles–especially critical because shifting the political terrain to make redistricting more equitable requires ongoing, grassroots organizing on a range of civic engagement topics.

Implications for Work Going Forward

The formidable power of anti-democratic actors is a fundamental challenge to this work and voting rights work overall. Practitioners and philanthropy alike need to be prepared:

• Invest in redistricting as a power-building strategy for communities of color. Center organizing and base-building in communities of color when planning redistricting coalition work, and continue to strengthen multi-racial coalitions and collaborations. Provide funding for community groups to ensure sustained community engagement. Continue to bring together community-centered and national groups to co-develop a field building strategy and establish working relationships rooted in trust.

• Integrate redistricting into ongoing civic engagement work–and ongoing funding. Across the board, organizations engaged in civic engagement work emphasized that redistricting is connected to their year-round efforts to organize communities around census, policy reform, and voting—and encouraged funders to recognize and support this integrated approach  

• Sustain–and grow!–redistricting infrastructure. Support local and state-based learning to ensure resources and capacities are carried forward to the next cycle. Build in-state capacity for data analysis and mapping. Establish a permanent virtual hub for redistricting data.

• Continue to shift the narrative towards fairness and racial equity. Public education on redistricting is critical to achieving fair maps, but messaging needs differ by locality. Invest in place-specific messaging and communications and build relationships with journalists and influencers early.

We encourage both funders and practitioners to review this important report, and we welcome questions and feedback about our community’s learning from the 2021-22 cycle and plans for the years ahead. Please reach out to FRR Funder Liaison Elly Perkins (elly@perkinsphilanthropic.com) to continue the conversation.