Power Play: Movement Groups Building Investable Enterprises to Disrupt the $16B Political Industry

American politics are broken. $16 billion was spent in the 2024 election – but it did not produce better outcomes for regular people. This $16 billion political industry is dominated by consulting firms, party structures and PACS. These entities employ strip mining tactics to harvest votes from communities on a cyclical basis, leaving those communities worse off than they were after each election. A new wave of social venture political firms aligned with and emerging from grassroots power building organizations rooted in states and communities across the country is set to transform this field. Movement groups and civic entrepreneurs are building investment-ready enterprises – digital and media firms, for-profit field canvasses and political consulting from the ground up – that disrupt extractive campaign strategies, build real grassroots power in the wake of elections, and grow the pot of resources for community organizing and independent power building.

On the investment side, impact strategies have long focused on the three P’s, People + Planet + Profit. What becomes possible when we add a third P, power to that equation? Or when grassroots organizers break out of their nonprofit mold to create innovative for-profit firms aimed at disrupting and transforming one of the most toxic and consequential industries in our country?

Organizations like Movement Politics Accelerator are championing and incubating early-stage political entrepreneurs with the funding and capacity-building they need to transform civic engagement models. Over the past 9 years The Movement Cooperative has scaled data and technology infrastructure for progressive organizations, lowering barriers for diverse groups to run their own sophisticated campaigns. Meanwhile, Amalgamated Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the Amalgamated Bank, the country’s only labor owned bank, is steering philanthropic and investment capital toward organizations innovating within the political space—ensuring that social impact and democratic values remain at the forefront. And the New York Foundation has been a national leader in aligning their endowment investments with their values and agitating philanthropy to join them in impactful investments.

With the audience we will dig into some of the messy questions like: How do movement organizations maintain their values and commitment to their communities while entering both the for-profit and political spheres? How can the creative and imaginative power of organizers be an engine for entrepreneurship? What is the mindset shift needed to move from a nonprofit to a for profit framework?

The session will be followed by a tasting of Drink Your Values Beer, a social justice craft beer brewed in Kent, Ohio whose revenues support grassroots organizing in Ohio.