How do Indivisible chapters coordinate with other progressive organizations and unions?
Executive summary
Indivisible chapters coordinate with other progressive organizations through a mix of formal partnerships driven by the national staff and thousands of autonomous, locally-driven alliances; coordination takes shape in shared campaigns, training and resource-sharing, movement-wide “listening,” and tactical cooperation on elections and legislative fights [1] [2] [3]. That collaboration is substantive but uneven: national Indivisible promotes strategic, intentional partnerships, while local chapters often set their own priorities and partner as suits local needs, producing both synergies and occasional tensions between national leadership and grassroots chapters [2] [4].
1. How the national structure brokers partnerships
Indivisible’s national organizations — a 501(c) civic arm, a 501(c) project, and a PAC — play a convening and coordinating role: they build strategic partnerships, run media campaigns, lobby Congress, develop advocacy strategies, and offer training and resources intended to plug local chapters into larger progressive coalitions [1] [2]. Those national teams explicitly prioritize “building strategic and intentional partnerships with other organizations in the progressive ecosystem,” using their staff capacity to create coordinated national moments and to channel grassroots energy into electoral and policy fights [2] [1].
2. Local autonomy and decentralized coordination
Local Indivisible chapters are described as autonomous — long-term, community-rooted groups that decide when and with whom to partner — and the national bodies seek to support rather than command that network, checking in with groups before signing them onto days of action and soliciting input through movement-wide listening [2] [3]. That distributed model allows chapters to ally with local unions, community groups, and national NGOs when it fits local strategy, enabling flexible, place-specific coalitions rather than a top-down affiliate model [2] [5].
3. Tactical cooperation: campaigns, elections, and days of action
Indivisible chapters coordinate with allies by joining shared campaigns—organizing town‑hall turnout, mass calling programs, canvasses, and national days of action—and by plugging into national volunteer infrastructures for key races [6] [7]. The national organization and local groups have historically partnered with groups like Planned Parenthood and ADAPT to mobilize thousands for health‑care defense and have built out joint electoral programs [6]. Indivisible’s resources and Action Network listings also function as practical connective tissue for listing and coordinating events across organizations [8].
4. Building partnerships across issue and identity groups
Indivisible provides explicit guidance on creating inclusive partnerships—urging outreach to racial‑justice, immigrant‑rights, environmental, LGBTQIA+, disability‑rights and other organizations, and advising on trust‑building and mutual respect—indicating a deliberate effort to broaden coalitions beyond a narrow set of partners [9]. The national organization frames partnership-building as a way to bring defensive congressional advocacy into existing community networks and to expand the movement’s reach [9] [2].
5. Who Indivisible works with — and who reports on it
Reporting and watchdogs list a range of Indivisible allies: MoveOn, Working Families Party, Planned Parenthood, ACLU, United We Dream, and others are cited as national partners or collaborators in Indivisible materials and coverage [10] [11]. At the same time, critics and some reporting highlight friction between the DC leadership’s partnership and endorsement strategies and the decentralized local chapters—evidence that coalition choices and political strategies can be contested within the movement [4] [11].
6. Limits, critiques, and gaps in the record
The public materials make clear that Indivisible intentionally aims to coordinate across the progressive ecosystem, but the record also shows unevenness: many active local groups predate national staffing, local chapters keep autonomy in partner choice, and scholars and reporters have documented both strong collaborative wins and organizational friction between national leaders and local activists [4] [11]. The sources list prominent NGO partners; explicit, comprehensive documentation of coordination with labor unions in the provided reporting is limited, so conclusions about the depth of union coordination cannot be strongly asserted from these sources alone [1] [10].