Voices for Progress

Sanford A. (Sandy) Newman is the Founder and President of Voices for Progress and Voices for Progress Education Fund. Newman has created two other successful organizations. Project Vote, founded in 1982, had become the nation’s leading minority voter participation organization by the time Newman left it in 1993. Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, founded in 1995, today comprises 5,000 police chiefs, sheriffs and elected prosecutors, all advocating programs like Head Start and quality child care. As a donor advisor and strategist from 2003 to 2009, Newman played a key role in reviving voter registration drives (which were nearly extinct) strengthening scientific research to determine what really works to increase voting, and helping revive enforcement of laws requiring public assistance offices to provide voter registration services.

Janet Baumann is the National Director at Voices for Progress and Voices for Progress Education Fund. She previously worked as a consultant to progressive non-profits and political small businesses to devise and implement fundraising and marketing strategies, and as the Associate Director of Strategic Planning & Development at Fight Crime: Invest in Kids. She worked as a domestic policy and research assistant on Gov. Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign. She graduated from Tulane University in New Orleans, LA with a degree in Political Economy and Women’s Studies.

Liz Zahler is the Advocacy Associate at Voices for Progress and Voices for Progress Education Fund. She previously worked on several local elections in New York City and at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in Washington, DC. She graduated with honors from New York University in 2009.

Megan Rolfe is the Membership and Development Coordinator at Voices for Progress and Voices for Progress Education Fund. She previously worked as a Project Assistant at Welfare Research, Inc. and has interned at the Human Rights Campaign and Mautner Project, where she assisted with fundraising, volunteer coordination, and member outreach. She graduated with honors from UNC-Chapel Hill, where she co-founded the Campaign for a Safer Carolina, and she has a Masters in Women’s Studies from the University at Albany-SUNY.