As anyone who has worked in or with government knows, elections can shift community priorities, budgets, policies, programs, and staffing significantly. Although this is evidenced most clearly by our recent national election results, state and local administration changes can also halt existing work, modify funding or resources, or breathe new life into local initiatives.

To be successful in the long term, partners working to promote upward mobility and racial equity must anticipate elections’ implications for their work and be proactive to sustain their efforts. Seeing outcomes from policies and programs may take time, but there are short-term activities government, community-based organizations, and other local leaders can do to increase upward mobility and racial equity. Partners must work together to determine how efforts can outlive elected officials’ terms and be advanced collectively toward local planning and implementation.

Here are some tips to help you sustain your upward mobility initiative amid political change.

1. Partner with multiple organizations in a coalition to tie the work to several agencies and organizations. Occasionally, we’ve seen upward mobility initiatives completely stop because the local government leading it has an election where the incumbent is unseated. Even in instances where elected officials are reelected, political realities or local conditions may have changed so much that the incumbent can no longer advance their previous priorities. In these cases, ensuring your initiative is owned and led by a cross-sector coalition of partners who can continue to advance the work amid changing municipal priorities will be key to maintaining its long-term success. The coalition can include government partners but also community-based organizations, business leaders, philanthropy, and other groups to advance the work. Using a cross-sector approach provides more opportunities to braid and blend funding and spread ownership and accountability for making the work happen across more people and organizations.
2. Be ready to pivot. In some cases, political transitions will mean some of your work can go forward as planned while other work needs to be put on hold or reprioritized. This might look like establishing or reestablishing your core management team or working group to focus on areas with the most traction or identifying opportunities to leverage less-resourced areas that are critical to your upward mobility vision. It also might entail using a resource like the Center for Community Investment’s Strategy Triage Tool to assess, recalibrate, and prioritize your work in response to shifting conditions.
3. Meet with newly elected policymakers early to share your work and connect it to their key priorities. Sharing about your work without connecting it to the priorities or goals of the new administration could lead your work to quickly fall on the chopping block. To avoid this happening, consider inviting new policymakers to an upcoming event or coalition meeting to hear about the work or ask your coalition members to write a letter to the elected about the initiative. This will equip new government officials with a better understanding of your work, past and potential outcomes, and ways they might be able to support.
4. Revisit your coalition norms and consider how to be a good partner to your fellow coalition members. Newly elected and appointed officials frequently have different priorities than their predecessors, which can result in either increases or decreases in funding. This might affect some organizations within the coalition in ways that shift their engagement. For example, organizations that are afraid of losing their funding may not be willing or able to participate in work that feels supplementary to their core mission and activities. In these instances, carefully consider what requests you’re making of your partners’ time and resources, and offer partners the opportunity to redefine their role in the coalition based on their current priorities and ability.
5. Reconsider the timing for any planned community or partner engagement activities. Elections can create myriad emotions for people—excitement, stress, and fatigue. If you have community engagement activities planned where you are seeking input or partnership locally, consider whether they should be postponed, giving everyone space to recalibrate. If you decide to move forward with planned events, consider how the election might affect the data you gather and how you can demonstrate care for those participating.
6. Strike a balance between “sure things”—ideas that almost certainly can be accomplished—and longer-term aspirations and communicate early wins. Although boosting mobility from poverty and advancing equity won’t happen overnight, it’s important to have “sure things” on your list of strategic actions that can demonstrate the success of your work and help build momentum among your coalition for longer-term efforts. Communicating about these wins early and often will also support your case making.
7. Be ready to talk about how your systems-change efforts can lead to better efficiency and cost savings. As many elected officials have mandates for fiscal tightening or make campaign promises to cut down on wasteful or unnecessary spending, it will be important for your coalition to articulate how your upward mobility and racial equity efforts will lead to more efficiency and cost savings locally or to show how you’ve already achieved this through the initiative. Showing how you can cut costs or be more efficient within the elected official’s term will be especially helpful in making your case.
8. Consider carefully whether you want an elected official to endorse or connect their name to your initiative. Connecting your initiative to elected officials has clear trade-offs. On the one hand, if a new elected official endorses or supports your initiative, it can energize others to rally behind your cause, bring new funding to your work, and help move the work forward. On the other hand, if that elected official loses their seat in a future election, the next person may not want to be connected to their predecessor’s initiative. Keep in mind, too, that when an elected official endorses your initiative, they may also want to have more influence on your activities.
9. Return to your “why.” When you started this journey, there was a change you wanted to see locally. Reminding your coalition of that initial motivation may help you surmount setbacks and ignite the next stages of your work. This North Star can help you weather reorganization and reprioritization and keep the focus on your goals.