Author: nextuporegon

Devin Ruiz (she/her) is a queer Latina from Los Angeles, CA and finds revelatory opportunities in community work. Her work to promote equity in an inherently imbalanced system of power is informed by social activism and her dedication to mobilizing underrepresented communities. She obtained dual degrees in Political Science and Women’s Studies from PSU and wrote her thesis on how white supremacy is reproduced through racial grammar.

Through her work at the Feminist Majority Foundation, Basic Rights Oregon, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Oregon, the grassroots reelection campaigns for Barbara Boxer in 2010 and Barack Obama in 2011, and Girls Inc. of the PNW, Devin has kept an unwavering commitment to centering Black, Indigenous, people of color, low-income people, LGBTQIA individuals, and youth in their grassroots community engagement work.

When Devin is not deep in theory or YouTube, you can find her at the spa or overdressed and trying to find any and all warmth in Portland (usually in the form of community, chisme, and food).

You can congratulate her by emailing her at devin@nextuporegon.org!

We are thrilled to officially announce our slate of candidates who have earned Next Up Action Fund’s endorsement for Oregon’s May 19, 2020, Primary Elections. 

We want to elect leaders that come from our communities, share our values, and will fight for young people in Oregon. The people elected to local offices make crucial decisions that affect our daily lives, including determining budgets, funding, and plans for transportation, access to healthcare, affordable housing, climate change, policing, immigration, and so much more. Your vote matters to ensure we are electing local leaders who will fight for us in office.

On February 7th, we publicly announced our candidate endorsement process for the May 2020 Primary Election. Since then, Next Up Action Fund gathered an Endorsement Committee made up of a staff member, high school student, college student, and Community Action Team member. It is crucial that the community we serve are the ones that get to make these decisions. After a thoughtful process, the Endorsement Committee made recommendations to Next Up Action Fund’s board, who voted to approve their recommendations. 

Wlnsvey Campos for Oregon House District 28

Khanh Pham for Oregon House District 46

Ricki Ruiz for Oregon House District 50

Dacia Grayber for Oregon House District 35

Lacey Beaty for Beaverton Mayor

Cameron Whitten for Metro Council Seat 5

Teressa Raiford for Portland Mayor

Candace Avalos for City Council Seat #1

Mike Schmidt for Multnomah District Attorney

Take some time to update your voter registration to make sure you are ready to vote in this upcoming election! Oregonians (that are 16 years old or older and U.S. citizens) can register to vote online here (beregistered.org). To vote for Wlnsvey, Khanh, Ricki, or Dacia, you need to be a registered Democrat. 

The deadline to register or update your registration for the May primary is April 28, 2020. 

We are celebrating big changes this year! Next Up has repositioned the organization with the future in mind, making an organization-wide shift so we can continue being the political home for young people heading into 2020 and beyond.

Rebranding and 5-year Strategic Framework
As generations change, so has our organization. The Bus Project taught us that young people can be trusted with power – not as future leaders, but as leaders today. This year we sold the bus and rebranded! We changed our name because we don’t work in transit and we’re far past being just a “project.”

More importantly, we have used this opportunity to shift our organizational culture and get closer to our values. While Next Up has always centered youth voices and championed the leadership of young people, we also acknowledge that we have been complicit in upholding systemic racism and other forms of oppression. Our organization has primarily benefited white voters, emerging political leaders who are white, and public policies supported by white people, which has harmed communities of color. Additionally, our internal culture has been characterized by many patterns of white supremacy culture.

Over the course of the year, our staff, Boards of Directors, and key volunteers engaged in deep and reflective conversations around equity realignment and dismantling white supremacy culture in our organization. Many of these ideas are reflected in our finalized 2020-2025 Strategic Framework. Some specific highlights include:

• Paying our fellows a livable wage
• Prioritizing working with people of color-led organizations, organizations/groups dedicated to anti-racist work, and underrepresented constituencies
• Maintaining a commitment to providing staff with equitable pay and benefits, opportunities for professional development, and empathetic and supportive workplace culture.

We are committed to the challenging and imperfect process of continuous learning (and unlearning) that will be necessary to realize our vision of a more equitable Oregon. Our completed 2020-2025 Strategic Framework is one way we are setting the tone for now and into the future. This will help the organization guard against the disruption of staff and leadership transitions, shifting priorities, and changing political landscapes.

Young People’s Power
We face an uncertain political climate during an unprecedented time. Young people feel their voices are being bogged down by out of state interests and high dollar donors. Next Up knows if we continue broadening the leadership pipeline and addressing the structural barriers that our generations are navigating, we’ll build a more inclusive movement for a just democracy.

In 2019, Next Up:

• Introduced a bill to lower the voting age to 16, grabbing national headlines and bringing nearly 40 young people to the Capitol for a hearing in the Senate Committee on Rules.
• Passed paid postage, helping ensure there’s a ballot in the hands of every eligible voter, and that everyone can participate! This simple yet groundbreaking bill is estimated to increase voter participation by an astonishing 5-10% by streamlining the process and removing barriers to voting.
• Registered and pre-registered over 2,000 people
• Held organization-wide equity and anti-oppression training with 37 people
• Hosted 13 events, including our first-ever Art and Activism Marketplace and introduced our Back to Basics series
• Over 250 volunteer shifts filled and 56 consistent volunteers, meeting monthly
• Hired a Youth Leadership Coordinator, a staff member dedicated to Next Up’s high school programs. Isabela Villarreal started UPTURN, a new multicultural high school cohort that graduated 23 students in 2019. In 2020, we will graduate 30 students from this program.

We work with an amazing group of diverse young people every day, and they are next up in helping create stronger and more resilient communities.

Thank you for your continued support of this organization! We are so excited to continue building youth power in 2020 and hope to see you at an event soon.

Samantha Gladu
Executive Director

Art has the power to change the world. That’s why Next Up presented our first ever Art + Activism Marketplace on November 23, 2019 at the Village Ballroom.

The event highlighted voices from people of color, women, youth, and artists behind bars. As author Jeff Chang said,”Politics is where some of the people are some of the time. Culture is where most of the people are most of the time.” We aim to build networks with artists, media makers, and cultural institutions because art engages our communities and is a way to co-create our future. Check out some of the photos that were taken by Isabela Villarreal!

My name is Giovanni Bautista and I’m a summer fellow with Next Up, formerly the Bus Project.

We’ve had an awesome summer, collecting over 650 pledge to vote cards, making over 2,000 phone calls, and going to 25 community events over 10 weeks to talk to folks about important issues!

Here are some of the people we’ve met this summer:

• A man from Troutdale whose brother was incarcerated as a result of Measure 11, frustrated by the racial disparities that exist within our criminal justice system.
• A cancer survivor disheartened that the current healthcare system fails to take into account the human side of illness.
• A public teacher from Coos Bay persuaded by the idea that we should lower the voting age to 16.

The only reason that me, and hundreds of other young people have been able to do this work is because of our funders. Will you help sponsors next year’s summer fellows by becoming a monthly donor at $15 a month?

We couldn’t do this without you!

Best,
Giovanni