NVF’s expertise lies in increasing participation in African-American communities through non-partisan voter registration and get-out-the vote efforts. A unique opportunity exists in 2007 and 2008 to strengthen citizens’ participation in the political process and for community-based organizations to learn new techniques for effectively participating in the electoral process.

During this year’s electoral season, over 100,000 public officials, at every level of government, will be elected and hundreds of public policies will be introduced, debated, at one level or another, and eventually decided upon. 

The goal of NVF's Empowerment 2008 program is to strengthen national minority participation in the electoral process by registering and mobilizing a total of 300,700 new voters in 8 states:  Ohio, Michigan, Florida, Virginia, Nevada,  Louisiana, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania.  The targeted states have been selected because of the existence of strong NAACP membership; crucial social, economic and political concerns important to the Association; and large numbers of unregistered African Americans.

These efforts will build on successful 2000 and 2004 Empowerment campaigns. The 2004 campaign was a dual-track voter mobilization and voter education program focusing on increasing African-American civic participation in 11 states. With partners, NVF’s efforts resulted in 214,964 registrations in 11 states. The 2000 campaign focused on African-Americans in 17 states. With partners, NVF registered over 207,000 new voters; recruited over 8,000 volunteers for get-out-the-vote efforts; and increased African-American turnout by over 1 million voters. Between 2001 and 2004, NVF was able to register over 67,000 African-American voters.