#WeTheCivic:
America 250
In 2026, the United States will mark 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence—a document that promised liberty and justice for all, and delivered it to very few.
This anniversary will be loud. It will be choreographed. It will be contested. Already, political forces are rewriting history in real time, weaponizing public memory, and narrowing the definition of who counts as American. Without intentional intervention, the America 250 moment risks becoming a monument to mythology.
Nonprofit Quarterly refuses that story.
#WeTheCivic: America 250 is a national narrative movement to put the multiracial nonprofit and civil society workers, organizations, and communities who have spent 250 years doing democracy's actual work at the center of how America tells its story.
“In times of dread, artists must never choose to remain silent.”
—Toni Morrison,
‘No Place for Self-Pity, No Room for Fear’
The 250-Year Case
Who We’re Talking About
The multiracial, multilingual, multigenerational nonprofit sector has been the connective tissue of American democracy for all 250 of those years.
Enslaved people building mutual aid networks. Immigrant communities founding neighborhood institutions. Indigenous organizers defending sovereignty. Black women leading civic movements. Queer activists building health infrastructure. Workers organizing for economic dignity across generations. Climate defenders protecting communities that government abandoned.
Nonprofit workers, leaders, activists, and funders are central to the work of democracy—and to the stories of democracy.
None of these stories will tell themselves.
The story of America's 250 years is being written right now. This is a moment that will not come again. We intend to ensure that the nonprofits and civic organizations advancing the promises of a multiracial democracy are in that room, telling these stories—and holding the door open for every community that has historically been written out of them.
Why
America 250?
In the last years, we’ve witnessed a full-scale campaign by elected officials to silence American voices, stories, bodies, history, and journalism.
This includes illegal attacks on our First Amendment rights, wholesale erasure of American stories, and armed attempts to disappear our people and communities, both online and in person. From era of book bans and erasure in curricula and defunding of libraries, truth stripped from archives, and immigrant voices and bodies silenced,
We refuse to be silenced. We refuse to be erased. The promise of American democracy belongs to all of us. Not only the richest voices or those with the narrowest definitions of patriotism.
This Independence Day, will you celebrate the nonprofit and civic workers and community members who protect and advance democracy every day of the year?
Why center nonprofit voices?
The multiracial, multilingual, multigenerational nonprofit sector has been the connective tissue of American democracy for those 250 years.
Enslaved people building mutual aid networks. Immigrant communities founding neighborhood institutions. Indigenous organizers defending sovereignty. Black women leading civic movements. Queer activists building health infrastructure. Workers organizing for economic dignity across generations. Climate defenders protecting communities that government abandoned.
Nonprofit workers, leaders, activists, and funders are central to the work of democracy, and the stories of democracy.
None of these stories will tell themselves.
Join The Movement
The movement will have three parts.
A #WeTheCivic Series: A series of essays and/or art from public thinkers examining different moments in the last 250 years of nonprofits defending and advancing multiracial democracy's unfulfilled promises, from community advancement to policy change.
Each piece will center intersectional nonprofit workers, histories, organizations, and/or stories that have been systematically excluded or ignored from dominant narratives about who and how we advance the unfulfilled promises of a thriving multiracial “American democracy.”
All content will be republished by Nonprofit Quarterly, and aggressively syndicated to media partners covering the America 250 cultural moment.
#WeTheCivic Day of Narrative Action: On July 4, 2026, we’re calling for a movement to resist sanitized 250th anniversary and whitewashed democracy narratives, and instead celebrate the civic sector working every day to defend it.
This is the No Kings model applied to the nonprofit sector: one day, one shared belief, infinite individual expression. The ask is simple but defiant: flood the feeds on July 4. Share a #WeTheCivic story, video, photo, post, or testimonial that names a nonprofit organization or person building a stronger multiracial democracy.
#WeTheCivic Nonprofit Newsroom Network: A cross-sector coalition of independent media organizations, nonprofit newsrooms, and civic institutions are committing to publishing stories of local nonprofits defending democracy and impacting their communities on July 4, 2026. NPQ will commit to republishing and amplifying local and independent newsroom coverage.
Become A Partner
This movement is being coordinated by Nonprofit Quarterly (NPQ) and initial partners include Liberation Ventures, the 19th News Network, the Institute for Nonprofit News, and the National Council of Nonprofits.
If you are a nonprofit worker or leader: We’re actively seeking partners, including No Kings partnerships from Indivisible, Working Family Parties, 50501, and narrative partners, organizers, and funders of all backgrounds.
If you wish to submit an essay or art for consideration in the #WeTheCivic series
If you wish to support us as a funding partner, please click here.
