Washington (CNN)Nearly a month after ending his long shot Democratic presidential campaign, Andrew Yang launched on Thursday a nonprofit group focused on making the central ideas of his campaign a reality.
The group, called Humanity Forward, will “endorse and provide resources to political candidates who embrace Universal Basic Income, human-centered capitalism and other aligned policies at every level,” according to its website.
Yang, a businessman who ended his campaign in February, rose from obscurity to become a highly-visible candidate, rallying a coalition of liberal Democrats, libertarians and some disaffected Republicans to form a devoted group of followers known as the Yang Gang. A prominent platform in his campaign was his so-called Freedom Dividend, a plan to give every American adult $1,000 a month universal basic income that he argued would alleviate a host of social ills and eradicate poverty.
The new group also plans to increase voter turnout in the 2020 election, with a particular focus on young Americans, Asian-Americans, independents and “individuals who have not been engaged in the political process,” according to a release.
Additionally, Yang, who is now a CNN political commentator, will launch a podcast in which he will “discuss new ideas to solve the greatest challenges of our time with” notable guests and “regular Americans” alike.
“Our campaign grew so much because we had a clearer diagnosis of the problems that face our country and a real vision for how to solve them,” Yang said in a statement. “We’re in the midst of the greatest technological and economic transformation in the history of the world, and we need real solutions to make the economy work for us, the people.”
According to the release, Yang, in an effort to showcase how his proposed Freedom Dividend would work, has also “committed to personally give $1,000 a month for an entire year to one donor to the new organization.”
