Today we’d like to introduce you to Colleen Craig.
Colleen, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Regardless of where you live or what you look like, most of us can agree that we’re better off when we look out for one another — when we’re all in for Ohio. Whether that means looking out for our neighbors during the pandemic, taking to the streets to march for Black lives, or making voting safe and accessible, we know we are stronger when we act together.
All In For Ohio isn’t one organization or even a formal coalition. Instead, we’re a group of allies committed to building an Ohio for all of us.
In March 2020, a coalition of progressive leaders in Ohio who are focused on community organizing, public policy, and storytelling came together to lead the development of a campaign to advance a narrative about the power of race-class solidarity to transform the world we live in for the better of all of us.
All In For Ohio initially began as a response to the COVID-19 crisis, where we centered our shared value of caring for one another. We asked people to share a photo of themselves wearing their mask telling us who they wear their mask to protect along with the hashtag #allinforOhio and (no pun intended) that campaign went viral across the state. Through the remainder of that year, All In For Ohio grew to become a framework for our partners’ messaging and organizing work around the protests in defense of Black lives and mobilizing voters to participate in the 2020 election.
Since 2020, All In For Ohio has launched other campaigns such as the People’s Budget and All In For Ohio Kids which were the vessels through which our coalition successfully advocated for a fair school funding plan in the state budget. That is a victory that the public education leaders behind the campaign have fought and laid the groundwork to win for decades. We have more work to do but for at least these next two years, Ohio’s kids attending public schools will have more equitable funding and opportunity regardless of their zip code, skin color, or how much money their parents earn.
Most of All In For Ohio’s work in recent months has focused on winning a fair districting process for Ohio voters (#allinforfairmaps). We believe that voters should pick their leaders and not the other way around, especially when the lines that we draw determine who and how we will be represented at the Statehouse and in Congress for the next decade. On December 8th we held an #allinforfairmaps rally outside the Ohio Supreme Court in Columbus to demonstrate public support for maps that keep our communities together and accurately reflect the statewide voting preferences of Ohioans over the last decade. So far, we’ve had a lot of success on that effort, as well, (you might have even seen some pictures of it in the Washington Post!) but there are more battles to be fought and won on that front.
My role in the All In For Ohio campaign is that of the digital manager. From All In For Ohio’s inception, I have led the forward facing online campaigns with tremendous amounts of support from many individuals but especially Maki Somosot who leads our work on narrative-building. She writes the message, I create the content to amplify it. Maki is a tremendous mentor and leader.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
No road is perfectly smooth but most of the challenges we face are external. Part of All In For Ohio’s mission is to call out and neutralize dog whistle politics. Dog whistles are political catch-phrases or false narratives utilized by certain politicians who use coded language to speak about race without explicitly mentioning race. Certain politicians use dog whistles to reinforce racist and statistically incorrect ideas that societal and economic problems stem from “undeserving,” “lazy,” and “violent” people of color.
In Ohio and across the country we see these pop up a lot in our politics. Most recently, dog whistles have appeared within the discussion about how we teach history in our schools. Most of us agree that we want our kids to have an education that encourages them to dig deeper into who we are, where we came from and what we’re capable of being.
But many of the same lawmakers who have blocked funding for our classrooms are now trying to turn us against our schools by spreading lies about the lessons on our history, culture and political system that our teachers deliver as part of an accurate and holistic twenty-first century curriculum.
Their goal is to keep us divided because they know their power is threatened when regular people come together across race, class, and zip code to make a change that serves all of us better. That’s why it’s so important to our mission to neutralize these dog whistles in our politics.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I have worked in digital organizing and communications for progressive organizations in Ohio for the last eight years. I first became interested in community organizing when I was an intern on the Obama campaign in 2012 as a 17 year old in my hometown of Youngstown, Ohio. The excitement of that campaign and the enthusiasm I saw among the voters I talked to in that role inspired me to stay involved.
Over the years, your idealism does wane and you realize that one electoral campaign can’t save the world but for me, that realization that the work to build a stronger, healthier, multiracial democracy must continue everyday is now what motivates me to keep going even in the tough moments.
I went on to study public policy at Ohio State. During that time, I worked as an intern for some lawmakers from Northeast Ohio in Congress and at the Statehouse and I had the opportunity to intern at the U.S. Department of Education in Washington D.C.
In 2014 while I was in school, I began working with a start-up that was dedicated to providing digital communications services to progressive nonprofits in Ohio. I had some fantastic mentorship in that role that really allowed me to gain the hard skills with social media, digital strategy, and communications which prepared me for where I am now. It also gave me the opportunity to serve organizations whose mission and policy advocacy I genuinely care about. After that job is really when I entered the space I’m in now when I was hired as the Digital Director at a politics and policy hub called Innovation Ohio during the 2018 and 2020 election cycles. I learned so much in that role about where the rubber meets the road in our policymaking process at the Statehouse, in particular. That’s also where All In For Ohio began, ahead of the 2020 election. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to continue building All In For Ohio with the team at the Ohio Organizing Collaborative in my next (and current) role as their Digital Communications Manager under Maki Somosot’s leadership as Narrative and Communications Director.
I would say that my love for my home state and the people here paired with my background in public policy, my hard skills in digital strategy, and the first-hand knowledge about Ohio and its politics I have gained through my experiences are what makes my path unique. A lot of young people with my skillset who are frustrated by the politics and perceived (or real) lack of opportunity in our state make the choice to leave for bigger, more progressive cities with higher paying jobs. And more power to them, I totally understand why that choice may be the right one for many people. But up to this point, I’ve decided to stay in Ohio because I see the work that needs to be done here, the ways that this place can be better and more equitable for working families across race, and I have had the opportunity to be part of victories that bring us closer to that future.
I am most proud of the work I have been part of in the last year, including a winning campaign for real police accountability in Cleveland, a victory for fair school funding in our state budget (#allinforohiokids), and a major win for voters in our state when the Ohio Supreme Court struck down the rigged maps drawn by politicians who sought to silence voters in communities of color across Ohio (#allinforfairmaps).
How do you define success?
Two ways. Concrete wins are obviously a success. It feels great to win a campaign. But on the campaigns where those outcomes don’t materialize, I would define success as the growth and experience you gain along the way that makes you better prepared for the next round. Did you grow? Did you learn? Did you build a stronger community along the way? Then in those ways, you were successful.
Contact Info:
- Website: allinforohio.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/allinforohio
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/allinforohio
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/allinforohio
Image Credits
FRINGE22 Studio
Artfluential
All In For Ohio
Tanya Salyers
