Nation Outside is growing civic participation in Flint

As far as value propositions go, Johnell Allen-Bey of the Nation Outside Flint Chapter has a straightforward one.

“A lot of people complain about stuff happening, but if you’re not getting involved and using your voice then you have no reason to be griping,” said Allen-Bey, who is executive regional coordinator of the Flint Chapter.

Nation Outside is a statewide organization focused on driving policy and creating a support network for justice-impacted people. The Flint chapter, founded in 2019, has focused on voter registration, civic engagement, and working with local partners to eliminate barriers for people who have been detained in Genesee County Jail or had previous convictions.

In a short amount of time, the chapter has already had a big impact in Flint. As of 2021, Genesee County had approximately 361,000 felony convictions since 1990.

“With that data, we knew that there was a large population of people here who were justice-impacted,” Allen-Bey said. “We knew something like Nation Outside could really benefit the community.”

Since 2019, the Ruth Mott Foundation has provided $203,000 for its operations through its fiscal sponsor, Safe & Just Michigan.

Since then, Nation Outside has provided a variety of services for residents in Flint, particularly on the north side. Those include expungement fairs, voter registration and absentee ballot information, housing information, employment opportunities and job skill development, and other resources for returning citizens or for people who are incarcerated and awaiting trial, and an initiative to make sure those in jail awaiting trial or returning from incarceration understood their voting rights.

In Michigan, anyone in jail while awaiting trial still has the right to vote and can request absentee ballots be mailed to the facility they are being held in. People convicted of felonies can vote upon their release from a correctional facility. Nation Outside has helped Flint and Genesee County be among the leaders in the state in terms of preserving voting rights. In one example, the chapter created agreements with the Flint City Clerk and Genesee County Sheriff’s Office to host a precinct at the jail and empower Nation Outside staff to securely transport ballots to city hall.

In its 2022 grant year, Nation Outside provided voter education to 630 people at the Genesee County Jail and registered 400 people to vote at the jail. Four hundred people at the jail voted in 2022. Nation Outside also hosted candidate forums at the jail, including a first-of-its-kind event that brought candidates for State Supreme Court into the jail to vie for votes.

“We were the first county in the state to make sure people in our jail voted,” Allen-Bey said, noting that those efforts were even featured on Good Morning America. “That was major.”

“If you have a right, but you don’t know you have a right, how good is that right? If you don’t have the means or ability to access that right, how good is that right? That’s what is so important about what this group of people is bringing to you.”

— TAMARA PHILLIPS

One key aspect of Nation Outside’s success is that they hire people who themselves have been touched by the justice system. While other organizations may struggle to connect with the justice-impacted population, Nation Outside staff can not only connect and relate but also see the power and potential in their voices.

Another major key to Nation Outside’s growth and ability to serve so many people locally so quickly has been partnerships. The chapter has worked with local law enforcement, judges, and attorneys for its expungement fairs. They collaborated with the League of Women Voters on the jail-based voting initiative. They’ve also worked with the Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion. Allen-Bey has worked closely with the Sheriff’s Office as part of its IGNITE program, which helps incarcerated citizens complete GED requirements or earn college credits or trades certifications while serving jail time.

“We’re here for care, custody and control, but the care factor cannot be misunderstood,” said Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson during a press conference in 2021 announcing Nation Outside’s efforts to ensure all incarcerated people with the ability to vote could exercise that right. “There are 605 people in Genesee County Jail right now (as of the press conference) who are unadjudicated. That means 605 people who have a right to vote. Who am I, as a constitutional officer, if I don’t facilitate that responsibility?”

Tamara Phillips, Chief Assistant Prosecuting Attorney in Genesee County, also spoke and stressed the importance of organizations like Nation Outside that fill knowledge gaps and provide vital information that justice-impacted people may not otherwise know. The state of Michigan has enacted more progressive voting rights laws, but people still have to know how processes work or how to get support in order to participate in the civic process.

“If you have a right, but you don’t know you have a right, how good is that right?” Phillips said. “If you don’t have the means or ability to access that right, how good is that right? That’s what is so important about what this group of people is bringing to you.”

Allen-Bey credits the early support of the Ruth Mott Foundation as a major factor in the Flint chapter’s ability to grow and connect with more partners quickly. Those partnerships have allowed Nation Outside to play a significant role at a grassroots level of helping individuals, but also at a statewide level by shaping and influencing policy. The organization has helped advocate for new clean slate laws and Raise the Age legislation to help juveniles and is now working on fair chance housing, which would prohibit landlords from requiring criminal history disclosure from most housing applicants.

“Partners are very important, we couldn’t do it without the team,” he said. “The Ruth Mott Foundation believing in and supporting us has opened up a lot of eyes to other organizations to want to partner with us. We have decided to put an emphasis on those relationships because when you cultivate it, that sustains you for a lifetime. Now we have a seat at the table with county commissioners, with the sheriff, with county and city clerks. We wouldn’t have had it without someone believing in our cause.”

Allen-Bey also notes that the organization has been able to create jobs to provide services. The Flint chapter has grown from two employees to six since its launch, with plans to expand to 10 in the future as well as expand the region it is able to serve and services it can provide.

“We’ve grown in Flint and been able to hire in Flint,” Allen-Bey said. “We want to expand more and go into more areas – we have returning citizens all over the county that we want to reach and help.”

A searchable list of our grantmaking can be found at https://www.ruthmottfoundation.org/grants/.