When Neighbors Show Up for Each Other, Democracy Holds

COPAL and Minnesota Voice build stronger communities through civic engagement.

Civic engagement is about more than a single day at the ballot box. It’s the right to vote, but also the right to a job, a voice at the school board table, and a say in what happens to your neighborhood. For communities that have carried the weight of historical and ongoing harm, that right hasn’t been equally available.

At the Foundation, we support civic engagement by funding organizations working to make sure everyone has a say and can take action to shape their community’s future, which is one important pathway toward social and racial justice.

Two of our grantee partners, Comunidades Organizando el Poder y la Acción Latina (COPAL) and Minnesota Voice, are helping communities remove barriers that have historically kept them from voting and participating in civic life. Both organizations, working separately and together, have changed the way neighbors show up for each other, repair harmful systems, and build stronger communities.

COPAL shows us how civic participation creates the world we want to live in.

Francisco Segovia didn’t always believe in elections. He grew up in El Salvador, where the outcome felt decided before anyone voted, and he carried that skepticism with him even after becoming a US citizen. Then in 2003, when Minnesota stripped driver’s licenses from undocumented residents, including people he knew, something changed for him.

Segovia founded COPAL, a member-based organization established in 2018 to improve the quality of life of Latino families, reaching 70,000 people statewide. In addition to several other initiatives, COPAL works to increase Latino voter participation and engagement in issues that matter to them.

“Civic participation is as simple as: if my street is messy, how do I organize people to keep it clean?” he says. “We are the ones to change the things that need to change. This isn’t just politics. It’s about being a good person in your community.”

COPAL’s organizing campaign built the power to pass a new law.

The clearest proof of how organizing can drive change was in 2023 when COPAL organized its members, faith congregations, and lawmakers through a 45-day campaign that led to the passage of Driver’s Licenses for All, a law two decades in the making. This law allows all Minnesotans, regardless of their immigration status, to obtain a standard driver’s license—the simple right that had been previously denied to him and others. This is one example of the dignity, safety, and inclusion that COPAL works toward every day for immigrant residents, workers, and families.

Segovia has raised his own children in Minnesota, and he says they plan to stay. “I think a lot about what this society will offer them in the future. As parents, if we do nothing, the conditions that limit our children and other children will stay in place,” he says. “Participating is essential for creating the world we want to live in.”

Minnesota Voice removes the barriers to participation.

Participating doesn’t always come easy. The most common expressions the executive director of Minnesota Voice, Hwa Jeong Kim, hears from potential voters are: I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know who to vote for. My vote doesn’t matter. Her organization is working to change that mindset.

“Many people don’t vote because of shame,” she says. People are told where their polling place is but not what to do once they’re inside. They aren’t told who to ask for help, what documents to bring, or that they can register to vote that day. Additionally, they may not have transportation to the polling place or be able to leave their job or children to go.

The systems creating these barriers are intentional, she says, designed to produce division and uncertainty. “I tell people: some races are decided by as little as 14 votes, or 100. Every person in a room full of 25 people can determine the outcome of a single race. Your vote can and does make a difference,” she says.

Minnesota Voice’s work is hyperlocal, tailored, and collaborative.

Minnesota Voice is a member-based coalition of 40+ grassroots organizations working to increase civic engagement and participation among Black, Native, Latino, Asian, and immigrant residents across the state. The work is hyperlocal and based in specific communities, says Kim.

“Our core approach is to use trusted partners to serve people in place,” says Kim. For example, Minnesota Voice recently launched a tribal nations campaign called Make Voting a Tradition (MVAT), which frames participation as a cultural practice versus merely an election day errand.

“We create tailored experiences so that people experience what it is to participate and see themselves in democracy,” says Kim. “Phone banking, door knocking, helping to register voters, providing transportation to polls. Attending a candidate forum, or a training, or testifying. All of these are ways that people can get involved and feel more informed and empowered.”

Immigrant Defense Network teaches immigrants how to protect their rights and was a first line of defense during Operation Metro Surge.

COPAL and Minnesota Voice have joined together through the Immigrant Defense Network (IDN), a coalition COPAL formed in 2024 to address the escalating threats to immigrant rights. They developed a constitutional observer training, teaching neighbors to watch out for neighbors: observing, documenting, and reporting immigration enforcement as they saw it happen. Minnesota Voice became the program’s train-the-trainer partner, extending it into 10 of COPAL’s 30 host cities and helping to add more.

Together, the two organizations have trained and deployed more than 30,000 observers from across Minnesota’s diverse communities, a network that proved instrumental in resisting Operation Metro Surge in early 2026. Organizations worked alongside each other to support families in the aftermath of enforcement actions and to anticipate what might come next. Later in 2026, they are launching a second round of trainings about immigration, democracy, and electoral engagement.

For Hwa Jeong Kim, the work is personal. “I’ve stood in streets, been shot at and tear-gassed, had guns pointed in my face, simply because I care about my neighbor,” she says. Her message to voters is simple: “Show up at the ballot box and vote for your neighbor and your values.”

Our foundation’s investment in civic engagement shows up in everyday moments.

Our foundation supports civic engagement so everyone can have a fair say in their future. Engagement looks different in different communities but serves the interests of all, and it shows how communities are defining, for themselves, what justice looks like.

It can be a neighbor walking another neighbor to the polls. A group of residents gathering at their community center to talk about issues they care about. A van driving to different areas to register residents to vote. Or a small team of trainers providing a pathway for people to use their voice and change their lives for the better.

“We all want to live a dignified life,” says Segovia. “We are vested members of this community, and we want to live in peace and harmony. Participating in democracy is one way to achieve that. Our work is for the greater good—not just for our communities but for everyone.”