#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’
Why Nonprofits?
Multiracial nonprofits have been and continue to be democracy’s backbone
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?
A critical narrative moment
In the last years, we’ve witnessed a full-scale campaign by elected officials to silence American voices, stories, bodies, history, and journalism.
Illegal attacks on First Amendment rights. Wholesale erasure of non cis white males from curricula and archive. Kidnapping and disappearing communities online and in person
Official America 250 commemorations will not fix this. Left uncontested, they will deepen it..
We refuse to be silenced. We refuse to be erased.
The promise of American democracy belongs to all of us. Not the richest voices. Not those with the narrowest definitions of who counts as American. This Independence Day, this America 250 season, we're celebrating the nonprofit and civic workers who protect and advance democracy every single day of the year.
Join The Movement
The Movement Has Three Parts
The #WeTheCivic Narrative 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 stories that have been systematically excluded from dominant narratives about who builds democracy and how. All work will be published at Nonprofit Quarterly and made available for co-publishing, then aggressively syndicated to media partners covering the America 250 cultural moment. Submission guidelines here
#WeTheCivic Day of Narrative Action — July 4, 2026
On July 4, we're calling for a sector-wide flood of the feeds. This is the No Kings model applied to the nonprofit sector: one day, one shared belief, infinite individual expression.
The ask is simple and defiant: share a #WeTheCivic story, video, photo, post, or testimonial that names a nonprofit organization or person building a stronger multiracial democracy. Resist the sanitized anniversary. Celebrate the civic sector working every day to defend it.
#WeTheCivic Nonprofit Newsroom Network
A cross-sector coalition of independent media organizations, nonprofit newsrooms, and civic institutions committing to publish stories of local nonprofits defending democracy on July 4, 2026. Nonprofit Quarterly will republish and amplify local and independent coverage across the network.
How To Join
There's a Role for Everyone
Writers and artists
Do you have a piece of history that needs telling? A nonprofit leader, organization, or movement moment that's been overlooked or misrepresented? We're accepting essays, reported pieces, criticism, poetry, and original visual art on a rolling basis.
Organizations and partners
We're building a coalition of nonprofit organizations, advocacy groups, newsrooms, and civic institutions to amplify #WeTheCivic on July 4. Add your organization's voice to the movement.
Funders
#WeTheCivic is open infrastructure for the nonprofit field. Your support makes the Essay Series, the Newsroom Network, and the Day of Narrative Action possible.
"Dictators and tyrants routinely begin their reigns and sustain their power with the deliberate and calculated destruction of art."
—Toni Morrison
Partners
Who's Building This With Us
#WeTheCivic: America 250 is coordinated by Nonprofit Quarterly in partnership with Liberation Ventures, The 19th News Network, the Institute for Nonprofit News, and the National Council of Nonprofits.
We are actively seeking additional partners: nonprofit organizations, advocacy networks, independent newsrooms, narrative funders, and organizers of all backgrounds who believe democracy's story belongs to everyone, including Unite In Advance, Solidaire, Indivisible, Working Families Party, 50501, United We Dream, Building Movement Project, American Journalism Project, Independent Sector and more.
