Building Power to Shape a New Memphis

Community organizers around the country face significant challenges in mobilizing individuals to address systemic issues. Many smaller organizations struggle to access quality tools, comprehensive data, and insightful research—essential resources for effective community mobilization. Unlike larger interest groups and lobbyists with access to vast resources, these grassroots organizations face inaccessibly high costs and partisan restrictions, limiting their ability to engage people most effectively. Murmuration supports organizations in building power locally, enabling them to have their voices heard and drive meaningful change from within their communities.

Before partnering with Murmuration, The Memphis Lift — a Tennessee-based organization that educates and empowers parents to advocate for their children — lacked crucial data, tools, and resources needed to do its work most effectively. They started in 2015 as a small but determined group of parents, relying on low-tech methods and paper notes for their organizing efforts. Without access to a CRM to track and analyze their work and voter registration data, their capacity to achieve their goals was limited. Founder Sarah Carpenter recalls, “Our work was essential back then, and we couldn’t wait for the perfect tools to get started. We needed to urgently build a coalition of people to advocate for children who were overlooked and left behind in our public schools and demand better learning conditions to ensure every child had access to the education they deserve.”

Two years after its founding, The Memphis Lift faced two key challenges. Their network had expanded from a tight-knit group of parents to a larger, more influential coalition eager to engage their community — yet they lacked the means to manage their newfound volunteer power and bandwidth. They also struggled with effectively analyzing their community’s needs. They needed more efficient methods to keep their community informed and engaged, and tools to assess what strategies were working and which ones were not.

Equipped with Murmuration’s advanced and affordable solutions, The Memphis Lift was able to tackle these challenges head-on. They gained new data and tools that helped them to streamline their operations and empowered parent volunteers to intuitively record and analyze the impact of their canvassing efforts and conversations.

Within a few years, armed with Murmuration’s scalable and accessible data and tools, The Memphis Lift grew from a small group of passionate parents to an influential, powerful force in its community. The Memphis Lift has successfully transformed its community through extensive grassroots efforts, including knocking on over 25,000 doors to engage residents about Memphis schools and building a coalition of over 5,000 engaged parents. As a result of their efforts, Memphis school parents now get clear data about their child’s reading level and report cards. They also run a Literacy Fellowship program that educates parents about understanding their child’s reading and math grade level, and they partner with the Juvenile Justice Center to ensure its children are receiving reading instruction.

Sarah Carpenter reflects, “Thanks to the power we’ve built over the years, we now command the attention of leaders and decision makers who recognize our influence and respect our voice in the community. Our efforts have transformed the landscape of public education in Memphis, and decision-makers understand that we are a force to be reckoned with these days. We’re no longer just a group of concerned parents — we are a movement that is shaping the future of Memphis.”