Workers of New Canvassing Experience (NCE) in Portland, Oregon need your help! We're fighting against corporations and exploitative bosses that disregard workers' rights and illegally attack work place organizing. We're calling on all allies of workers and believers in workers’ solidarity to give what you can to our campaign organizing and workers' collective Strike Fund.
Please support our organizing, campaign, and upcoming legal costs for our pending National Labor Relations Board Unfair Labor Practice charge against New Canvassing Experience by giving whatever you can and spreading this call to action and mutual aid ask far and wide!
Follow the NCE Portland Workers everywhere! And click here to sign our 2025 ULP solidarity petition and read more about our story.
Why Do We the Collective NCE Portland Workers Need Urgent Mutual Aid Donations?
- Upcoming legal fees related to the pending ULP, with the goal of finding representation before our upcoming NLRB hearing. With our former employer NCE choosing to close their Portland office in such an immediate retaliatory fashion, our independent team did not have formal or official Union representation or any legal counsel in place at the time of our terminations. So we’re navigating this process with no real institutional support, and without the help of formal Labor-related attorneys, resources, or counsel. We know our rights and all the labor law on our side and we’re confident in our campaign and know our group of workers will see justice, but without funds to seek outside legal support before our NLRB hearing we’d be at a major disadvantage facing our expansive former employer.
- Campaign costs related to running a successful grassroots outreach initiative to share our story and engage the community. As experienced activists and canvassers, we know what it takes to spread a message in the streets and represent our cause well. We’ve got a supplies needs list with things like a printed banner, campaign swag and unifying branded team gear, a tablet for tabling, outdoor weather gear, and other materials for printing and crafts. Plus the digital costs of things like storage and recurring platform fees. Our team is all volunteer, but we’re also all experiencing varying degrees of poverty and don’t have outside funders to help us shoulder basic grassroots campaign material needs.
- Mutual aid funds for emergency material needs of the most marginalized, struggling, or otherwise disenfranchised former employees of NCE Portland still heavily impacted by the realities of unemployment at due to retaliatory termination. Many on our team are still navigating unemployment and underemployment, and for the most marginalized these economic realities carry the threat of eviction and houseleness, vehicle repossession or other loss of transportation capabilities, or loss of access to health insurance and critical medications. Our goal is that in tandem with raising funds for legal and campaign related necessities, as we meet these needs we will be seeking donations with the intention of reaching a point of support and contributions that we will be able to hold Mutual Aid funds in reserve to help members of our collective navigate the financial impact of potential and ongoing extreme and serious life emergencies, especially those related to their illegal termination from NCE.
- Miscellaneous campaign and trial related costs as they arise. With our upcoming NLRB hearing taking place in Salem, Oregon, we’ll need assistance for travel costs for the duration of the trial. Things like snacks for event and tabling attendees, basic printing costs for flyers and handouts, and parking and transportation fees for activists on our team volunteering to organize will all add up over the course of our campaign. And mutual aid assistance with these kinds of costs and fees will help keep our campaign sustainable and help keep the financial burden off of the shoulders of our resource-struggling workers’ collective.
What's the Basis of our ULP against NCE? What happened to Portland's ACLU Canvassers?
On 6/13/2026 after informing our employer in Portland, Oregon via a letter signed by the collective hourly work force in our workplace of our intent to organize and our ambitions to collaboratively to improve our conditions and strengthen our activism at New Canvassing Experience, our office was immediately and illegally violently shut down. This sudden termination of all hourly staff with no warning or clear explanation, no severance or continuation of benefits, and no information about the potential for future work represents a clear illustration of targeted retaliatory action.
NCE’s choice to close shop rather than respect and collaborate with workers is in blatant contradiction to the company’s own purported mission and vision, and serves as an insult not only to the former collective workforce and Portland community but to the principles and visions of the many non-profits that NCE canvasses for across the country. And it’s also a clear violation of the National Labor Relations Ask, leading our team to file a charge with the NLRB against our former employer on 8/15/2025.
What are our fundraiser goals?
- $1312: Support in this range will allow us to run a bare-bones grassroots outreach campaign for the next 6-12 months, spreading our message and fostering worker solidarity. But unfortunately without leaving our collective with many resources for legal representation or some other organizing necessities.
- $5000: With total donations in this range, we'll be able to conduct a successful sustained outreach campaign as well as fund at least an initial retainer for adequate legal counsel. This kind of community support would also help us cover things like travel fees for worker witnesses during the trial, incidental costs for future outreach events, and other basic campaign needs as they arise.
- $10,000 or more: This level of mutual aid and worker community solidarity would give our collective the flexibility to cover all legal and grassroots campaign costs and still have some reserve funds on hand to support any major life emergencies that arise for the most impacted former NCE employees still combatting the burdens of poverty and unemployment. Helping support the material needs of our most marginalized and financially struggling comrades in our group, especially those experiencing major hardship directly due to recent termination from New Canvassing Experience, Portland.
Who is New Canvassing Experience and what do they do?
New Canvassing Experience (NCE) is a for profit private corporation that is the largest canvassing and face-to-face fundraising agency in the United States. Thanks to an umbrella network of sub-contractors and shadow agencies, their footprint and reach in the canvassing industry is likely the largest on the planet.
NCE holds fundraising contracts with non-profit organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union, World Wildlife Fund, Green Peace, The Nature Conservancy, Save the Children, Planned Parenthood, Defenders of Wildlife, and many others. For the better half of the past decade, NCE has been growing and becoming more corporately governed, chasing profits and large contracts at the expense of basic respect for workers.
When you meet fundraisers taking donations and signing up monthly donors in the streets of New York City, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Oakland, New Orleans, Seattle, St. Louis or dozens of other communities across the country, you’re most likely crossing paths with hard working activists that are employed by NCE or one of their subcontracted for-profit agencies. Until recently, Portland, Oregon was one of the cities where you'd be most likely to meet a canvasser representing the American Civil Liberties Union, WWF, or TNC at a farmers' market, on a street corner, or out canvassing for other important grassroots causes in their local communities. NCE works all over the country with affiliates all over the globe, but Portland had long been considered a hub and crown jewel for their operations, with some of the strongest canvassers in the country and most trendy major non-profits finding success and a home in the very special PDX area.
What's Our Campaign for Justice in Tandem with our ULP against NCE Asking For?
- Obligatory open public recognition of the terms from the original good faith letter and signed petition presented to NCE leadership by the workers of NCE Portland on 6/13/25.
- Financial reparations or "back pay" in the form of lost wages for all employees, dating from the time of their departure or termination from the company and extending to the date of resumption of regularly scheduled hours and duties of their original position at New Canvassing Experience, Portland.
- Reinstatement of every hourly employee to the full terms of their original employment as defined by their written Job Description at the time of their termination from New Canvassing Experience, Portland.
Sign our solidarity petition to support all of these goals and stand with workers' rights to organize and fight for a better future!
Help us hold New Canvassing Experience and all companies that stand against workers’ rights accountable! Donate in solidarity to ensure our ULP and campaign for justice can succeed, and thank you so much for your support in contributing, in signing our petition, and in sharing this ask anywhere and everywhere until our goals are met and our National Labor Relations Board Unfair Labor Practice ends in justice.