#WeTheCivic: “America’s” Stories Can’t Be Told Without Us 

Ava’s Story: Democracy in Action

In times of dread, artists must never choose to remain silent.
—Toni Morrison,“No Place for Self-Pity, No Room for Fear”

Last month, the executive director of a Mississippi community center reached out to me. Let’s call her Ava. Ava does not opine on podcasts. You won’t catch her advocating for change on The Daily Show. But every day, Ava and her nonprofit do what too many political “leaders” promise but don’t deliver: meet the needs of the communities she serves.

For over 30 years, Ava has unlocked her center’s front door and welcomed elders who have healthcare because of her nonprofit’s advocacy. Mentored teenagers building educational dreams denied to their parents. Checked on families whose post-hurricane homes exist because the center rebuilt them—one hammer, one grant, one neighbor at a time.

Ava didn’t wait for permission to support the community and, in turn, advance the promises of American democracy. She got to work, as nonprofit leaders do.

From isolated Appalachian towns to redlined urban neighborhoods, purpose-driven nonprofits create democracy’s frontline for care—and its last line of defense. We house veterans. We feed neighbors. We register voters. We protect the planet. We publish hard truths when easy lies are cheaper.

Nonprofits expand the “We” of “We the People” when power tries to shrink it.

The nonprofit sector is not a charitable sideline or tax write-off for the “real” work of democracy. We are the work—and the workers—advancing democracy’s promises daily.

Nonprofits expand the “We” of “We the People” when power tries to shrink it.

That’s why, this Fourth of July season, a nonprofit coalition is launching #WeTheCivic—a month-long celebration of the unquenchable nonprofit voices fighting for democracy. This month, we celebrate not the past myths of “America’s founding,” but the potential for new futures, powered by nonprofit workers and leaders like Ava.

Nonprofits: The “Invisible Backbone” Problem

In this contemporary world of violent protests, internecine war, cries for food and peace, in which whole desert cities are thrown up to shelter the dispossessed, abandoned, terrified populations running for their lives and the breath of their children, what are we (the so-called civilized) to do?
—Toni Morrison

Earlier this year, the National Council of Nonprofits shared a valuable communications tool to support nonprofits under attack. One of its key messages: “Nonprofits are America’s invisible backbone, providing critical support to improve communities and save lives.”

The nonprofit sector employs over 12 million people, but Capitol Hill dismisses our policy power. We contributed $1.4 trillion to the economy in 2023, but national narratives dismiss us as “charity.”

Nonprofits are immigrant-led cooperatives and Native-run community clinics, LGBTQ+ aid networks and IEP advocates for students, and researchers for medical cures. Yet our invisibility is all too true—and too dangerous.

For too many years, stories about our sector have been fragmented, incomplete, and made invisible. This is not just a sector problem. It is a democracy problem. Nonprofit narrative erasure fuels constitutional crises. It also blocks the path to a democracy that belongs to all of “We the People.”

Narrative as Warfare: Why Stories Matter

Dictators and tyrants routinely begin their reigns and sustain their power with the deliberate and calculated destruction of art.
—Toni Morrison

In 2025, we’ve witnessed a coordinated federal campaign to flatten, whitewash, and silence American voices. Book bans removed our stories. Anti-DEI champions erased our presence. Funding freezes shuttered our community organizations. Censors stripped truths from textbooks, airwaves, and archives.

These attacks on our stories, our schools, and our First Amendment freedoms are not isolated. They are pearls on the same string. Each act is polished to appear routine, even respectable. But together, they form a tightening strand—less a necklace than a noose—meant to choke the “We” out of “We the People.”

This is not chaos. This is strategy.

Aspiring authoritarians employ narrative tactics like politicizing independent institutions, spreading disinformation, and scapegoating marginalized communities—all while working to control the stories we tell about ourselves.

Authoritarians understand what too many of us dismiss: Stories are not decoration. They are infrastructure. Control the story, and you control the policy. Control the policy, and you control the people. Our narratives become both battlefield and weapon—the foundation of belonging and the lever of democratic power.

The nonprofit sector sits at the center of this narrative warfare. Too often, others define our public narrative. We are written off as charity cases, not change agents. Called service providers, not system builders. Painted as dependents of philanthropic largesse, not architects of transformative movements.

Too often, others define our public narrative. We are written off as charity cases, not change agents.

This dismissal has devastating consequences. When voters don’t understand nonprofits’ role in advancing justice, policymakers attack our tax-exempt status. When funders overlook our innovation, resources flow to flashy solutions. When young people don’t see our impact, they seek other paths to change the world.

Every story we don’t tell is a vote we don’t cast. Every voice we don’t amplify is a policy we can’t pass.

If we do not tell our stories, we cannot build the collective power necessary to defend democracy itself. When our communities don’t see themselves in civic stories, they disengage. Doubt their power to create change—and democracy’s.

The opposite is also true:

When we see ourselves as protagonists in American life, we rise. We resist. We organize. We vote.

#WeTheCivic: Democracy’s Defenders Unite

But no prince or king or dictator could interfere successfully or forever in a country that seriously prized freedom of the press.
—Toni Morrison

This July—in deliberate celebration of our founding ideals and defiant response to those who would narrow our “American” stories—a coalition of nonprofit workers, leaders, artists, journalists, organizers, and funders is launching #WeTheCivic. This is our month-long narrative celebration of the unquenchable nonprofit and civil society voices fighting for our democracy—and our future.

Every Fourth of July, we’re sold narrow definitions of patriotism that flatten and whitewash the complexity of workers and the work advancing democracy daily. Inspired by the #UniteInAdvance call for solidarity from our colleagues in philanthropy, this July, #WeTheCivic partners will raise our nonprofit voices to:

• Reclaim July as a season to center community voices, celebrate civil society’s impact, collaborate on democracy’s challenges, and champion its potential
• Amplify sector storytelling, solutions, and solidarity to expand opportunity, joy, and freedom for all
• Advance civic partnerships to develop nonprofit media and narrative power building
• Celebrate the expansive democratic actions taken by nonprofit organizers like Ava over the narrow history of democracy told in too many textbooks

NPQ’s #WeTheCivic Commitment: Building Power Through Partnership

We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.
—Toni Morrison

At a moment when many nonprofit leaders feel abandoned or alone, let us state our commitment publicly and clearly: NPQ stands with you.

We will not stop centering voices others are trying to erase—leaders of color, queer families, youth organizers, cooperative builders, community journalists, changemakers who are neurodiverse and those with disabilities. These are the voices shaping our sector, our democracy, and our planet.

We will continue to publish truths that confront power, tools that build our collective capacity, and stories that reflect who we are and who we aspire to become.

Fighting fascism is a group project. Solidarity is a sector strategy.
We seeded the #WeTheCivic coalition because we believe we’re stronger when we collaborate, not compete. Throughout July, we’re committing to #UniteInAdvance actions to support nonprofit workers and leaders to advance sustainable, healthy, and equitable impact. They include:

Civic Storytelling and Solutions Infrastructure

• Our first Civic Columnists Cohort: recurring wisdom from frontline nonprofit leaders
• Launch of an Ask a Nonprofit Expert advice column: to answer your toughest nonprofit questions
• New nonprofit newsroom partnerships to expand visibility of local sector reporting to our national audiences

Resources That Restore

• New sector storytelling, solutions, and solidarity resources, including Justice This Week, Resourcing the Field, and We Stood Up newsletters
• 50 percent off Leading Edge Memberships to make equity-centered management learnings as accessible as possible to nonprofit leaders and workers this season

Your Voice Is Your Power—Will You Use It?

‘No! No, no, no! This is precisely the time when artists go to work—not when everything is fine, but in times of dread. That’s our job!’
—Toni Morrison

This July, let us celebrate not the past myths of “America’s founding,” but the potential for new futures—futures powered by nonprofit workers and leaders like Ava.

Will you raise your voice and help flood the feeds with nonprofit stories of American democracy in action?

• Choose your favorite #WeTheCivic graphic.
• Spotlight a nonprofit: Share how an organization you work with or support is strengthening democracy in your community
• Celebrate a democracy builder: Tag a nonprofit worker, organizer, artist, or leader doing the complex daily work of advancing democracy
• Add #WeTheCivic and #UniteInAdvance so we can amplify each other’s celebrations.

While others sell simplified stories about America, let’s share the real ones—stories of everyday people building democracy from the ground up. Together, we can show the world that democracy’s backbone is anything but invisible.

This holiday season, each person laboring to protect democracy every day deserves to be seen, celebrated, and remembered.

Will you help make them impossible to be erased?