Doran Schrantz
Doran is the Executive Director of ISAIAH and Faith in Minnesota, state-wide, multi-racial, state-wide, grassroots membership organization comprised of community-based institutions such as mosques, churches, childcare centers and barbershops/beautyshops. Ms. Schrantz has been at the center of ISAIAH’s development from a small, more locally focused organization to an organization considered one of the most powerful and influential voices in the state of Minnesota. ISAIAH is a hub for community-based organizing, creating community-owned, power-building “homes” for constituencies such as the Muslim Coalition of ISAIAH, the Black Barbershop and Black Congregational Collaborative, Kids Count on Us (500 community-based childcare centers), the Rural Organizing Project along with geographic chapters in the Twin Cities, small towns and regional centers across the state. As a result of effective organizing and the multi-racial, multi-faith reach of ISAIAH, ISAIAH is central to shaping policy at the local, regional and state levels. Most recently, ISAIAH was pivotal to passing a bill that will require all utilities in the state to reach 100% clean energy by 2030, passing Restore the Vote which will re-enfranchise 55,000 Minnesotans and by the end of the 2023 Legislative Session, ISAIAH will have led the passage of Paid Family and Medical Leave, the Democracy for the People Act (Automatic Voter Registration amongst other pro-democracy provisions) and will have ensured 1 billion of public investment going into a mixed-model, public childcare system with a new Department for Children and Families. ISAIAH also acts as a host to many wider coalitions and campaigns such as the We Choose Us Campaign, with 34 pro-democracy organizations and We Make MN, a faith, labor and community coalition fighting for progressive revenue and expanding the public sector.
In 2017, Ms. Schrantz founded Faith in Minnesota to be a vehicle for grassroots people to have a voice in politics and fight for multi-racial democracy. In a few short years, Faith in Minnesota has become a force in Minnesota politics. In 2020, FiMN led a predominantly volunteer that reached out to over 1 million Minnesotans and expanded Muslim/Black civic participation in some regions of the state by 11-15%. Ms. Schrantz is also a leader, with other state-based power-building colleagues, of various initiatives to promote and build people-powered organizing, state power and multi-racial democracy across the Midwest region. In 2019-2020, Ms Schrantz co-led with state- directors and Anat Shenker-Osorio of ASO Communications, the Midwest Race-Class Narrative Project to ground narrative and political messaging in state-based organizing organizations and to develop communications, digital and messaging capacity in states in the context of anti-democratic forces and the emergence of extreme dog-whistle politics. She founded an organizing training and capacity building hub to build a pipeline of skilled organizers and senior organizers in Midwestern states. Doran is also a co-founder of the State Revenue Alliance, a partnership of 80 state-based policy, organizing and labor unions to ground a multi-state strategy for a break-through on progressive revenue and the emergent care economy.