Cara Romanik, Deputy Director of Civic Engagement, has spent the last two years at State Voices supporting our site-based voter registration work in communities of color. In 2018, the program registered over 1.3 million voters in 8 states. In 2020, her projects will expand into four additional states with a total goal of over 2 million new or address-change registrations.

Cara co-leads the Civic Engagement team, which is responsible for hiring, training, and connecting over 45 voter registration state table staff in 11 states. In 2019, she led a process to redesign the State Voices role in supporting voter registration staff, resulting in an annual 2-day training focused on the impactful role of 29 table staff. In 2020, with an expanded team, Cara will lead the coordination of a national training program to support the ongoing and shifting field and management needs of partners and tables, so that communities can organize and build effective civic power.

Cara worked for 10 years as an adult educator and organizer. She’s a former member-leader with Resource Generation, a youth-led base building organization, where she helped found chapters in Portland and New Orleans, as well as organizing donors to move over $1.5 million to social justice organizations. She is currently a core leader of the New Orleans Re-Evaluation Co-Counseling Community, where she leads an annual fundraiser to support international community development led by and for African-heritage co-counselors.

Cara is originally from New Orleans, graduated from Wesleyan University, and after some time in Seattle, is glad to be back in her hometown.