Q&A with ProGeorgia on Sustaining the Work During Crisis

Tamieka Atkins

Co-Director Melanie Allen had a conversation with Tamieka Atkins, executive director of ProGeorgia about what it looks like to support staff and leadership and sustain their work in this moment. This is an excerpt from that conversation.

How have the pandemic and recent uprisings changed the way you think about your workplace?

Tamieka: We are reframing how we talk about our work.  We’ve always worked to protect elections and support organizations that bring historically marginalized people into the civic engagement process. With this reframing, our focus is more expansive and recognizes that we must be intentional about supporting the community of people we’re engaging as well as the people who do this work. Our focus is: Protect our elections, protect our people, preserve our leaders. 

What does preserving leaders look like for you all?

Our staff is primarily women, and they bear the primary responsibility for child rearing in their households.  I believe that we deserve to be present as leaders in the movement and still be good parents who parent in the ways that we want to.  

I went on sabbatical and then came back and really asked if I was going to be able to continue in my executive director role and still be there for my children in the way I wanted to and they needed me to. I couldn’t figure out how I was able to balance it all before and with everyone at home, it just didn’t seem possible. 

Based on my experience and what I was hearing from staff, I thought that the least we could do as an organization and workplace is reduce some of the childcare costs and burden.  I spoke with our accountant and he is so talented and was willing to dream with me and figure out how to make this happen.  We said that if Google and Chick-fil-a can do it, we can figure out a way to do it.

So what is this new benefit that you are rolling out?

We’re supporting child-care in a new way.  We are reimbursing eligible staff for childcare for children 13 and under.  We are paying $15/hour for 1 child, $20/hour for 2 children, and $25/hour for 3 children.  This is added to the salaries, so it is taxed, but we worked hard to organize it so that it relieves some of the burden of childcare and doesn’t create an additional financial burden. 

My family joined with another worker who has a sister in her early 20s.  She watches our children together three days a week.  Through this program, we can pay her directly for her labor. 

Since ProGeorgia is a civic engagement table with members, once we figured out how to do this, we shared the pilot with our members and we just had another organization’s board approve this new benefit so now their employees will also get childcare support.

This feels necessary.  As an organization and network that supports people being engaged in making decisions about their lives and communities, it is important that our organization and community is doing all that we can do to create just policy that centers the lived experiences of our workers where we have that power.

How can funders support you all as you roll out this new program?

This falls under the “preserve our leaders” part of our work.  We’re raising $1 million dollars this year so that we can have a fund that supports other organizations to adopt and implement this program.  We’re specifically interested in expanding it to organizations like ours with a majority of women of color on staff who have historically had to manage their jobs alongside all of this invisible labor without any consideration or support.

Who should funders reach out to if they’d like to fund this effort?

Reach out to Tamieka Atkins, Executive Director (tatkins@progeorgia.org) or Nellie Sung, Grants Manager, (nelsung@gmail.com) for more information.