New Georgia Project shaped Georgia politics — now it’s struggling to survive

The New Georgia Project helped shape Democratic politics in Georgia over the past decade, buoyed by support from party stars like Stacey Abrams and Raphael Warnock and a mission to register tens of thousands of left-leaning voters who often skip elections.

The organization is down to a handful of staffers after at least three rounds of layoffs since the 2024 election. Now its leaders are openly debating how it can play a meaningful role ahead of next year’s midterm contests.

The Rev. James Woodall, chair of the New Georgia Project Action Fund’s board, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Monday the group still aims to give “underrepresented voices” more of a say in politics.

ExploreThey helped turn Georgia purple. Now only a few employees are left.

But he said leaders are confronting “financial and structural challenges while actively assessing the organization’s long-term vitality.”

The group’s officials say only a skeletal team remains of an organization that once boasted a multimillion-dollar budget, a robust field operation and an ambitious goal “to build power for long-term progressive change.”

“It’s a real tragedy. The state’s voters will be worse for it,” said Eric Robertson, a longtime political organizer who worked on-and-off with the group since 2018 until he was fired earlier this year. “It’s a huge loss for those who worked to deepen democracy and voter engagement in Georgia. It’s one less voice helping others overcome the hurdles of voter suppression.”

Signs of trouble have mounted for months. The group has long been hobbled by internal turmoil and fundraising struggles, leading to an exodus of key staffers in the run-up to last year’s election.

But the organization’s struggles peaked in January when the New Georgia Project agreed to pay a $300,000 fine — the largest ever for violating Georgia campaign finance laws — and admitted to illegally aiding Abrams’ 2018 bid for governor, spending millions advocating for her election without properly registering or reporting.

Dozens of staffers have lost their jobs in successive rounds of layoffs, including a series of cuts on July 3 that came after what the project’s leaders dubbed an “extensive and honest evaluation of the financial, operational and structural challenges we have faced.”

Credit: Jason Getz/AJC

Credit: Jason Getz/AJC

The organization’s director, Francys Johnson, stepped down months ago amid mounting internal turmoil. And a Georgia Senate committee announced plans to investigate the group and its ties to Abrams, the two-time gubernatorial nominee who founded the group.

The cuts have gutted the project’s mission to build a statewide “multiracial, multigenerational, cross-class movement” aimed at expanding Medicaid, canceling student loan debt, raising Georgia’s minimum wage, overturning Georgia’s abortion limits and fighting restrictive voting measures.

In a sign of its diminished status, both Abrams and Warnock are distancing themselves from its current operations. Abrams left the group she started in 2017, while Warnock stepped down as chair before his 2020 Senate bid.

Abrams, in particular, has cut ties with the group that helped elevate her national profile and fueled her 2018 bid for governor, when record voter registration nearly propelled her past Republican Brian Kemp.

In a recent statement, she emphasized she has no involvement in the group’s leadership, saying she moved on when she left in 2017 to run for governor. She called the setbacks at the organization “disappointing.”

Woodall and other officials say the group isn’t shutting down but rather in a “wait-and-see mode.” Fundraising efforts have sputtered and party leaders, including Abrams, have directed their attention to other outside groups.

Still, Woodall said, whatever emerges should help mobilize voters “demanding health care, affordable housing, food security and a living wage.”

Several former employees described behind-the-scenes efforts to avoid more layoffs. Jon’Luk Young, who had worked at the NGP since 2017 before getting laid off earlier this year, said he’s haunted that a deal couldn’t be struck.

“We loved doing this work. We loved engaging with the community. We loved going to the Capitol and talking to elected officials and participating in the political process,” Young said. “We were trying our best to save the organization. And it sucks that we couldn’t do anything about it.”

Jasmine Keith, who was let go in late January, echoed other laid-off staffers who blamed bad management and financial mismanagement for its downward spiral.

“We used to be a dominant force in Georgia politics. And now there’s hardly anyone left,” said Keith, who was an organizer in the group’s abortion rights program.

“It feels like the end of an era. I’ve always believed in our mission,” she said. “We need a new New Georgia Project; it just needs to be done the right way.”