A Year to Practice Democracy

Why the next chapter of our country’s story depends on what we build together now.

by Nisha Anand, CEO of Dream.Org

I am ready to welcome 2026 with wide-open arms.

That readiness comes honestly. Both personally and professionally, 2025 was brutal. I lost my mom in January and then the year never really let up. I navigated my father’s Alzheimer’s progressing faster than we hoped. I helped put my brother through rehab, again. Grief, caregiving, and responsibility stacked on top of one another in ways that were relentless and exhausting.

Alongside all of that, I serve as CEO of Dream.Org, a national nonprofit dedicated to bringing people together across divides to solve some of our country’s hardest problems. We were hit hard by changes to the Inflation Reduction Act and were forced to navigate shifting governmental policies. 

And like so many of you, I am also a citizen trying to make sense of what it means to live, lead, and love this country in a historically troubling moment for the United States that feels profoundly unsettled.

Last year felt like watching the guardrails of democracy wobble in real time. Courtrooms and legislatures became battlegrounds rather than forums for problem solving. Political violence and intimidation crept closer to the mainstream. Longstanding civil rights protections were weakened or selectively enforced. Immigration policy hardened in ways that tested our commitments to human dignity and human rights. Speech was constrained in some places and weaponized in others, particularly online. And all of it unfolded against a backdrop of corruption that too often went unchecked at the highest levels of power.

Taken together, 2025 wasn’t just another rough year. It was a warning signal—a reminder that democracy, civil liberties, and justice are not self-sustaining. They require care. They require courage. And they require participation.

So what makes 2026 different?

Us.

Because even in a brutal year, there were real wins. At Dream.Org, those wins tell a much bigger story than any single policy change or program milestone.

In 2025, Dream helped move the conversation and action around criminal justice in tangible ways. We brought public health and public safety together in spaces where they’re too often kept apart. We showed up on Capitol Hill during Recovery Month for our first-ever congressional briefing. We organized two national lobby days, meeting with 47 congressional offices across 27 states. We helped stop harmful legislation in Wisconsin, passed meaningful reforms in Arizona, supported transparency wins in Missouri, and expanded our footprint into New Mexico. Across the country, directly impacted leaders stood at the center of these efforts—not as symbols, but as strategists and change makers.

We also invested deeply in people. We hosted the nation’s largest day of action dedicated to criminal justice reform through our annual Day of Empathy. We graduated 74 extraordinary leaders through our Dream Justice and Justice Next cohorts. We launched We, the Dream, a YouTube series that lifts up the stories behind the work. We brought hundreds of students together through our HBCU Power in the Problem Homecoming Tour, connecting Black student leadership to real pathways in green and tech careers. In Pittsburgh, our Dream the Future career fair introduced community members to jobs in the growing green economy. And we launched We Dream, our new podcast, to help communities prepare for the policy debates we know are coming in 2026.

These wins matter, not just because of what we accomplished, but because they show what’s possible when we stay grounded in impact, in partnership, and in one another.

As 2026 begins, the political drumbeat is already growing louder. Midterms are around the corner. People are quietly jockeying for 2028. But elections are not the only thing shaping our democracy this year.

This July marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

Anniversaries like this invite celebration but they also demand honesty. The Declaration was a radical promise, not a finished product. It declared ideals that the country has spent 250 years struggling to live up to, often excluding the very people whose labor, lives, and voices made the nation possible. Every generation inherits both the promise and the unfinished work.

The danger of anniversaries is mistaking survival for success. Democracy does not endure simply because it has endured before. It survives because people choose it again and again through participation, dissent, compromise, and care. The question before us at 250 is not whether America has lived up to its ideals, but whether we are willing to do the hard work of closing the gap between who we say we are and how we actually govern.

This moment calls for more than nostalgia or symbolism. It calls for action. It calls for a renewed commitment to democracy as a lived practice. One that is rooted not in dominance or division, but in shared responsibility and shared power.

That is where Dream.Org comes in.

At Dream, we practice what we call “democracy in action.” Our work proves time and time again that democracy is not over. That people across ideologies, backgrounds, and lived experiences are hungry for progress without polarization. That directly impacted leaders are not only ready to lead, but already are.

In 2026, Dream will deepen and expand this work in concrete ways and grounded in empathy, data, and lived experience. We will advance ambitious criminal justice legislative campaigns across seven priority states, including Arizona, Kentucky, Washington, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, and Mississippi. At the federal level, we will defend against harmful “tough-on-crime” proposals, including DC specific legislation and broader federal crime packages that threaten to reverse hard-won progress.

We will also continue building the future of work. In Pittsburgh, our Green Workforce 360 initiative will engage 1,000 learners, support 250 people through advanced training, and place at least 100 participants into green jobs paying over $50,000 a year. We will launch a green reentry incubator, creating real pathways into the green economy for formerly incarcerated individuals. And we will help transform the national conversation around data centers and AI infrastructure by advocating for development that is sustainable, community-centered, and inclusive.

Underpinning all of this is our growing empathy network now more than 3000 directly impacted leaders strong, who are shaping policy, changing narratives, and designing solutions locally and nationally. These leaders are not waiting for permission. They are building the future now.

So my call to action for 2026 is simple and urgent: let’s get to work.

Let us meet this moment with clarity and courage. Let us choose participation over cynicism and possibility over fear. And let us continue the journey toward a more perfect union, together, so that the next chapter of this country’s story is one where no one is left out, and no one is left behind.