News

Image reads "wrap up" with a microphone

Spring Wrap Up

And just like that we’re over halfway through summer! Here’s our late, but great spring highlights, as part of our quarterly series sharing our top highlights from each season.  Youth Vote Interns In coordination with School Board Elections and building off our legislative work to pass pre-voter registration for 16 and 17 year olds, we… Read More

2023 Participatory Budgeting Results

Our organization launched a participatory budget process to help us accomplish a values-aligned, more profound form of youth leadership. We formed a steering committee, created a rulebook, gathered ideas, and developed proposals. From those proposals we had 143 participants rank their votes to inform us on how to spend $10,000 in 2023. The Participatory Budgeting… Read More

2023 Legislative Session Wrap Up

When Next Up Action Fund entered the session in January we had a bold agenda to transform our electoral system. We prioritized bills that were rooted in racial, economic, and youth justice, and more specifically, ones that would break down systemic barriers to participation, and increase equitable processes and outcomes in elections. Now that the… Read More

Next Up Launching Youth Organizing Teams

Are you a young person interested in building community, learning about, and organizing for social change? Next Up is excited to announce that we are launching our flagship youth organizing teams for the 2023/2024 year, and it’s your opportunity to join and make a change in your community. Our Youth Action Team and Community Action… Read More

Next Up Participatory Budgeting Vote

In the past year, Next Up has been actively working on implementing our very first Participatory Budgeting process. Now, it’s time for you to vote! Our organization launched this process to help us accomplish a values-aligned, more profound form of youth leadership. We formed a steering committee, created a rulebook, gathered ideas, and developed proposals…. Read More

No Cops in PPS - Call to Action

Keep Police out of Portland Public Schools

At Next Up Action Fund we know that schools are a place of learning and creative self-expression, not a place for police. There should be no way that a student experiences police contact in their place of learning, let alone arrest and incarceration. The presence of violent punitive methods leads to poor educational and mental… Read More

Image reads "wrap up" with a microphone

Winter Wrap-Up

We’re already 3 months into 2023 and we want to share what we’ve been up to with you. This is the beginning of our quarterly series sharing our top highlights each season.  Civic Engagement We’ve hired 18 young people as Youth Vote Interns, a paid opportunity to do peer-to-peer voter registration for high school-aged youth,… Read More

Stand up for voting rights this April

At Next Up Action Fund, we believe that all Oregonians should have a say in what happens in their community, and a voice in their democracy. Voting is a civil right — the cornerstone of our democracy and the fundamental right upon which all our civil liberties rest. 12,000 people incarcerated in Oregon are currently… Read More

2023 School Board Endorsements

We are thrilled to announce our slate of candidates who have earned Next Up Action Fund’s endorsement for Oregon’s May 16, 2023 local elections. We want to elect leaders that come from our communities, share our values, and will fight for young people in Oregon. These elections are crucial: school boards have the power to… Read More