What We Built Together in 2025
By: Amy Jacobson, Prairie Action North Dakota
Dec 29, 2025
As 2025 comes to a close, I keep returning to one simple truth: progress happens when people choose to work together.
This year, Prairie Action North Dakota showed what’s possible when communities step up, speak out, and care for one another. As 2025 comes to a close, take a moment toscroll through our social media; it tells the story of the issues we tackle and the North Dakota communities rising to meet them. From victories to ongoing fights, the page shows the strength, care, and action that make progress possible.
Here’s what that collective effort made possible in 2025:
Supporting Working Families
Prairie Action helped advance free school meals as an economic justice issue, connecting student success to family budgets, workforce stability, and community well‑being. We also lifted up the struggles working families face around childcare access, housing affordability, and support for public education showing how policy choices affect people’s daily lives and opportunities. When the Legislature failed to act, we helped pivot this work so North Dakotans themselves can decide in 2026. This effort reflects a deeply North Dakota value: when the government stalls, people step up.
Defending People-Powered Democracy
Our democracy is strongest when people have the tools and power to act and when elected leaders are accountable to those they serve. Prairie Action opposed efforts to weaken the initiated measure process, making clear that when lawmakers won’t act or won’t listen, people must still have a path forward. A bigger fight is ahead in 2026.
Protecting Rights, Dignity, and Truth
In a year marked by continued attacks on reproductive freedom and, with North Dakota remaining an abortion-ban state, Prairie Action focused on protecting access to accurate, medically sound public information. We defended First Amendment speech, countered misinformation, and ensured North Dakotans could access facts when clarity mattered most. We also stood with LGBTQ+ North Dakotans by lifting up inclusive narratives, supporting partners protecting youth and families, and affirming that dignity and belonging are not negotiable.
Making Policy Personal: On the Ground & Amplify ND
This year we launched On the Ground to connect federal policy decisions to their real-world impact on North Dakota families, schools, and communities—grounding big debates in lived experience. Through Amplify North Dakota, we brought community members and experts together to unpack complex issues and center shared values. Together, these efforts made policy more human, more accessible, and more actionable across our state.
Across all of this work, Prairie Action helped shape public conversation through earned media, digital advocacy, and behind-the-scenes strategic support for partners statewide. Much of this work isn’t flashy but it is essential.
Looking ahead to 2026, we’re building on this momentum, advancing the free school meals ballot effort, defending democracy, expanding digital organizing, and deepening partnerships rooted in shared values.
Thank you for standing with us. Because of people like you, Prairie Action can keep showing up for our communities with care, clarity, and conviction.
Together, we are building a better North Dakota.
